[Featured image: Capt. Theodore S. Williams (USMC) – the greatest hitter that ever flew – spent four baseball seasons serving his country as a Marine aviator in World War II and the Korean War.]
1804: U.S. Navy Lt. (future commodore) Stephen Decatur sails a captured Tripolitan ketch he renames USS Intrepid into the harbor at Tripoli. There, Decatur and a volunteer force of sailors and Marines board the frigate USS Philadelphia (the second of six so-named American warships), which had been previously captured by Tripolitan pirates. After a brief but violent close-quarters struggle – in which several pirates but no Americans are killed – Decatur orders the Philadelphia burned.
1945: 2,000 American paratroopers jump over the Philippines’ “fortress Corregidor” in one of the most difficult airborne operations of the war. For the next 11 days, the Americans will root out the enemy from a labyrinth of caves and tunnels and beat back multiple banzai attacks before wiping out almost all of the 6,500-man enemy garrison.
Members of the 503rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team land on Corregidor Island, Feb. 16, 1944. (National Archives photo)
1953: Marine aviator – and future baseball Hall of Famer – Capt. Ted Williams crash-lands his crippled Marine Corps F9F “Panther” fighter at Suwon’s K-13 airstrip. During a massive 200-plane raid on a troop encampment, Williams was hit by enemy ground fire which knocked out his instrument panel, landing gear, and hydraulic system; damaged his control surfaces; and set the plane on fire. Rather than eject, Williams brings the plane down on its belly and skids down the runway for over a mile before the mortally wounded plane comes to a stop.
Williams, often flying as the wingman for future Mercury astronaut John Glenn, walks away with just a sprained ankle and goes on to fly 38 more missions over Korea before returning to baseball for good (he also flew in the Pacific Theater during World War II).
