1862: Union Army Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside ends his disastrous series of frontal attacks against Gen. Robert E. Lee’s well-entrenched Confederate forces along Marye’s Heights during the Battle of Fredericksburg. It is during the battle that Lee – emotionally moved by the valor of the Federal Army, which, despite terrible losses, attacks his impregnable position time-and-again – says, “It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it.”
1864: Gen. John Bell Hood’s Confederate Army of Tennessee is routed in the Battle of Nashville by a Union army under command of Gen. George Thomas. After the battle, Hood’s once formidable army would no longer be an effective fighting force.
1944: A plane carrying Maj. Glenn Miller, leader of the world-famous “Glenn Miller Orchestra” prior to World War II, disappears in bad weather over the English Channel. Miller volunteered for service and led the Army Air Force Band from 1942 until his disappearance.
Maj. Glenn Miller
Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Alexander Patch’s Seventh Army enters Germany.
1945: During the American occupation of Japan, Gen. Douglas MacArthur orders the end of Shintoism as the state religion, which viewed Emperor Hirohito as a divine authority.
1948: The Navy and State Department sign a memorandum establishing the Marine Security Guard program for U.S. embassies across the world.
Marine standing watch at US Embassy
1950: As UN forces withdraw south of the 38th Parallel, the F-86 “Sabre” makes its combat debut in Korea. Considered to be perhaps the best aircraft of the Korean War, F-86 pilots claimed nearly 800 MiG-15 kills during the conflict, at the cost of only 78 Sabres. In fact, all but one of the 41 United States aces during the Korean War were Sabre pilots.
North American F-86F Sabre
1964: The AC-47, the Air Force’s first gunship, makes its combat debut in Vietnam.
AC-47 Gunship
1965: American bombers conduct their first major attack against North Vietnamese industrial targets, destroying a power plant north of Haiphong that supplied 15 percent of the country’s electricity.
Meanwhile, Walter M. Schirra (USN) and Thomas P. Stafford (USAF) blast off aboard Gemini VI. The crew test rendezvous procedures in space with Gemini VII, which had already been in space for several days.
Gemini 6 Astronauts Thomas P. Stafford left, pilot and Walter M. Schirra Jr., command pilot
1967: (Featured Image) During a firefight in South Vietnam’s Binh Dinh province, Specialist Allen J. Lynch crosses a kill zone multiple times, killing numerous enemies, in order to carry three wounded comrades to safety. As his company withdraws from the numerically superior enemy, Lynch remains behind with the wounded – after crossing the kill zone several more times to carry the casualties to a safer location, and then single-handedly defends the position for two hours until another company mounts a counterattack and the men are evacuated.
1969: President Richard Nixon announces that 50,000 U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Vietnam.
