1863: During day two of the Battle of Chancellorsville, Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson is shot by a Confederate sentry while performing a leaders-reconnaissance mission. Following the amputation of Jackson’s shattered arm, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee will lament, “He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right arm.” The revered Jackson will die in eight days of pneumonia.
Stonewall Jackson circa 1862-1863.
1945: Members of the 82d Airborne and the 8th Infantry Division liberate the Wöbbelin concentration camp in northern Germany. The Nazis allowed the 5,000 inmates to starve, and U.S. soldiers found some 1,000 dead upon arrival. Conditions were so extreme that some of the inmates had resorted to cannibalism, and hundreds more would die after the camp’s liberation.
That same day, Gen. Heinrich von Vietinghoff surrenders all Wehrmacht forces in Italy and the Red Army flies the Soviet flag over the Reichstag building. Berlin has fallen.
Woebbelin Concentration Camp
American soldiers patrol perimeter of the newly liberated Woebbelin concentration camp
1946: When prisoners at Alcatraz riot – breaking into the prison armory and taking hostages – Marines from Treasure Island Naval Base assist in suppressing the riot.
1964: Two months prior to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, a North Vietnamese frogman plants an explosive charge on USNS Card – a reactivated World War II escort carrier ferrying helicopters and American soldiers to South Vietnam – as the ship sits at a dock in Saigon. The blast kills five civilian crew members and Card sinks. The vessel is patched, raised, and will return to service in December.
2011: After perhaps the largest manhunt in history, U.S. intelligence has finally tracked down Osama bin Laden – the founder of al-Qaeda. Specially modified Black Hawk helicopters launched from Afghanistan carry a team of elite “DEVGRU” Navy SEALs (also known as SEAL Team Six) on a daring raid to bin Laden’s secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
One helicopter crash lands, but no one is seriously injured and the operators drive on to the objective. Nearly ten years after the 9/11 attacks, the SEALs finally gun down the man responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans.
Awaiting updates the night SEAL Team 6 raids bin-Laden’s compound
