[Featured image: USS Wisconsin fires her massive 16″/50 cal Mark 7 guns, circa 1991. (U.S. Navy photo)]
1862: A day after 10,000 soldiers under the command of Brig. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, supported by a flotilla of Union gunships, land at Roanoke Island (N.C.), the Confederates surrender the island’s four forts and two batteries.
1910: William D. Boyce incorporates the Boy Scouts of America. Countless boys will cut their teeth as young adventurers in Boyce’s scouting program before joining the military. When sub commander Eugene Fluckey – one of nine Medal of Honor recipients to earn the Boy Scouts’ top distinction of Eagle Scout – assembled a landing party to go ashore and destroy a Japanese train, he wanted former Boy Scouts to do the job, since they would be able to find their way back.
11 of the 12 humans to walk on the moon were Boy Scout alumni; and Neil Armstrong – the first – was an Eagle Scout.
Rear Adm. Eugene B. Fluckey – the only sub commander to “sink” a train – earned the Medal of Honor and four Navy Crosses during World War II
1980: Following the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter (formerly a lieutenant in the Navy’s submarine service) announces his intent to reinstate draft registration. Carter’s decision comes just four years after Pres. Gerald Ford (Eagle Scout and Naval officer during World War II) ended mandatory draft registration.
1991: A Marine reconnaissance unit in occupied Kuwait gives the Iowa-class battleship USS Wisconsin (BB-64) her first call for fire support in nearly 50 years. The 16-in. guns fire 29 rounds at Iraqi artillery positions, infantry bunkers, and a mechanized unit.
