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On this date American negotiators in Paris agreed to purchase the vast Louisiana territory from France, a deal that nearly doubled the size of the young republic. For the United States Army, the treaty opened an enormous new frontier to explore, survey, and secure, from the Mississippi River out toward the Rocky Mountains. Army officers and enlisted soldiers would lead reconnaissance missions, escort surveyors, and e
The return to Luzon combined amphibious landings, the destruction and liberation of Manila, the recovery of the bay approaches and months of fighting in mountain defenses. Capturing the capital did not end the island campaign.
On August 30th, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur stepped off an aircraft at Atsugi Airfield near Tokyo as the designated Supreme Commander for the Allied occupation of Japan.
When war came to the Pacific, American and Filipino troops on Bataan and Corregidor fought a desperate delaying action against advancing Japanese forces. By March 1942, the situation had grown dire, and the president ordered General Douglas MacArthur to leave the islands and avoid capture. On the night of March 11th, MacArthur and his party boarded small patrol torpedo boats for a dangerous run through hostile waters
Less than three weeks after North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel, President Harry Truman moved to unify the international response under a single commander. On July 8th, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur, already commanding United States forces in the Far East, was designated to lead United Nations military operations in Korea.
On December 2nd, 1989, President George H.
Just days after Guam, another carefully planned amphibious assault unfolded on the nearby island of Tinian. American planners studied Japanese defenses and concluded that a direct assault on the obvious beaches would be too costly, so they chose two much smaller, less expected landing sites on Tinian’s northwest coast. Marines went ashore across those narrow strips of sand using specialized landing craft and intense
During the Second World War’s Pacific campaign, the Gilbert Islands became a stepping stone toward the central Pacific.
Less than a year later, American forces were in the thick of combat in France. On June 6th, 1918, United States Marines and soldiers attacked German positions in and around Belleau Wood, a dense patch of forest near the Marne River. German offensives had driven the Allies back toward Paris, and the Americans were thrown into the line to help stop the advance.
Two decades after Remagen and Tokyo, another conflict drew the United States into a deeper commitment far from home. On March 8th, 1965, United States Marines waded ashore near Da Nang in South Vietnam, officially arriving as combat troops to protect the important air base there. Until then, most American personnel in the country had been framed as advisors and support teams, even as their numbers grew and their role
In the western Pacific, Marines of the First Marine Division stepped off amtracs onto the coral beaches of Peleliu on September 15th, 1944.
In the final year of World War I, the thick tangle of Belleau Wood in France became the proving ground for American forces newly committed to the Western Front. Over weeks of grinding combat alongside French units, Marines from the Fifth and Sixth regiments launched repeated attacks against German machine-gun nests and dugouts that commanded open wheat fields.
As ground combat raged on Okinawa, the United States fleet offshore faced a new and deadly form of air attack in unprecedented numbers. Japanese forces launched a series of large-scale suicide air raids, known as kamikaze attacks, aimed at crippling the invasion armada by sacrificing pilots and aircraft directly against ships. On April 6th, waves of kamikaze aircraft struck radar picket destroyers, carriers, and othe
In colonial New England, defense of scattered settlements depended on citizen-soldiers mustering with their neighbors rather than a standing army.
On May 15th, 1975, United States Marines and aircrews launch an assault on the Cambodian island of Koh Tang and nearby objectives after Khmer Rouge forces seize the American merchant ship SS Mayaguez. Acting quickly to show that American vessels will be defended, commanders plan simultaneous helicopter-borne landings and a boarding of the ship itself. The operation is conducted in uncertain conditions, with limited i
Snow hangs heavy in the Ardennes forest, muting sound until a rifle cracks and splinters bark from a nearby tree. Private First Class Melvin Earl Biddle lies pressed into the freezing ground, the lead scout for an American parachute infantry company feeling every heartbeat echo in the stock of his rifle. Somewhere ahead, beyond the dark trunks and tangled undergrowth, German snipers have halted his company’s advance
Less than two decades later, the young republic took a step toward professionalizing its forces when the president signed legislation establishing the United States Military Academy at West Point. The new school, placed atop a strategic bend in the Hudson River, initially focused on engineering and artillery, recognizing that future wars would demand officers who could build forts, maintain weapons, and manage comple
One year later to the day, another daring mission unfolded in the skies over the Pacific. On April 18th, 1943, United States forces executed a carefully planned interception of the aircraft carrying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. Guided by intelligence that revealed his inspection tour schedule, a handpicked group of long-range P-38 Lightning fighters flew at low altitude across o