1847: U.S. Army forces under the command of Gen. Winfield Scott outmaneuver, drive from a superior position, inflict heavy losses, and decisively defeat a numerically superior Mexican Army under Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna at Cerro Gordo.
1915: A month after the submarine USS F-4 (SS-23) goes down with all hands off the Hawaiian coast, diver Chief Gunner’s Mate William F. Loughman becomes tangled in the wreckage 306 feet below the surface during recovery operations. Fellow diver Frank W. Crilley dives down to Louhgman and frees his trapped teammate.
Crilley is awarded the Medal of Honor for his life saving actions, and will later be awarded the Navy Cross for the recovery of another submarine – USS S-4 (SS-109) – in 1928.
1942: Deep in the western Pacific Ocean, a task force consisting of two aircraft carriers, three cruisers, and eight destroyers takes on their last load of fuel before carrying out their secret mission.
On the deck of USS Hornet (CV-8) sit 16 of Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle’s specially modified B-25 Mitchell bombers. Rear Adm. William F. Halsey, Jr.’s flagship USS Enterprise (CV-6) provides protection for Hornet as her warplanes will be stored below decks until the B-25s take off for their famous raid on Tokyo. The ships, traveling under radio silence, are now just 1,000 miles away from their target.
Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle attaches a Japanese peace medal to a bomb on this date in 1942. In less than 24 hours, the Doolittle Raiders take off from USS Hornet.
1961: (Featured Image) More than 1,500 CIA-trained and financed Cuban freedom fighters hit the beach along the Cuban coastline including the Bay of Pigs (Bahia de Cochinos), while nearly 180 “Free Cuba” paratroopers begin landing north of the beachhead. Their goal is to overthrow the communist regime of Fidel Castro, but the operation is doomed when locals fail to rise up and support the invasion and President Kennedy withholds the promised American air and naval gunfire support.
Apollo 13 astronauts (from left to right) Fred W. Haise, Jr., lunar module pilot; James A. Lovell Jr., commander; and John L. Swigert Jr., command module pilot as they step aboard USS Iwo Jima on this date in 1970.
1970: A weary Apollo 13 crew splashes down safely in the South Pacific Ocean, just three miles away from their recovery ship USS Iwo Jima (LPH-2) – nothing short of a miracle for Capt. Jim Lovell (US Navy), Jack Swigert (former U.S. Air Force captain), and Fred Haise, Jr. (former Marine Corps/Air Force captain). NASA had to work furiously to devise new procedures on-the-fly to return the astronauts safely after an oxygen module explodes two days into the mission.
