Death of General George S. Patton
On December 21st, 1945, General George S.
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391 results for “Battles & Campaigns”
Showing 145–162
Defense of Little Round Top
A story of a desperate hilltop stand, a fixed bayonet charge, and how it helped turn a Civil War invasion back.
Destroyer USS Kearny torpedoed near Iceland
Even before a formal declaration of war against Germany, the United States Navy was escorting convoys in the North Atlantic, confronting the realities of submarine warfare.
Dirk John Cornelius Vlug
The jungle pressed in on both sides of the Ormoc Road, a narrow ribbon of mud and broken pavement cutting through the hills near Limon on the island of Leyte. December rain had turned the ditches into brown pools. American infantrymen crouched behind a hasty roadblock of felled trees, sandbags, and wrecked vehicles, listening to the grinding approach of steel.
Doolittle Raid on Japan
Barely four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States planned a strike to carry the war to the Japanese home islands. On April 18th, 1942, sixteen B-25 medium bombers led by Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle took off from the carrier USS Hornet in the Pacific, a feat never attempted before with aircraft of that size. Spotted early by enemy patrol vessels, the task force launched the bombers farther
Easter Offensive
By the early 1970s, United States leaders were pursuing “Vietnamization,” reducing American ground forces while training and equipping South Vietnamese units to carry more of the fighting. North Vietnamese commanders sought to test this strategy and change the balance on the ground, planning a large, conventional offensive using tanks, artillery, and massed infantry.
Eisenhower approves Patton’s turn toward Bastogne
On December 19th, 1944, senior Allied commanders met to assess the Ardennes crisis, and General Dwight D.
Eric Gunnar Gibson
The winter sky over the Anzio beachhead was a low, gray lid, pressing the sound of guns back down onto the men below. Along a shallow drainage ditch called the Fossa Femminamorta, muddy water slid past tufts of grass and shattered reeds. Somewhere ahead, beyond the next bend, German machine guns covered the open fields that stretched away from the ditch, anchoring a strongpoint that threatened the entire attack.
Executive Order 9066 signed
On February 19th, 1942, a little more than two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. The order authorized military commanders to establish exclusion zones and remove people from them, a power soon applied mainly along the West Coast. In practice, this meant that more than one hundred thousand people of Japanese ancestry, the majority of them American citize
Fall of Taejon
In the early weeks of the Korean War, United States forces rushed to slow a North Korean advance that threatened to overrun the entire peninsula. Around the city of Taejon, elements of the 24th Infantry Division fought a desperate delaying action, outnumbered and facing tanks and artillery in unfamiliar terrain. Over several days of close combat and street fighting, American troops inflicted significant losses but gr
Fall of the Alamo
On March 6th, 1836, after nearly two weeks of siege, Mexican forces under Antonio López de Santa Anna stormed the old mission compound at the Alamo in San Antonio. The defenders, a mixed group of Texian settlers and volunteers from the United States, had chosen to stand in place despite orders to withdraw, hoping to delay the Mexican advance. In the final assault, the garrison was overwhelmed and killed almost to the
First American troops arrive in Northern Ireland
Barely seven weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the first major contingent of American ground troops landed in Northern Ireland. Soldiers from the 34th Infantry Division disembarked in cold, damp weather to the sound of bands and the sight of cheering crowds who knew the war in Europe had entered a new phase. Until then, the British had fought on in the west with limited direct American military presence.
First Battle of Saratoga (Freeman's Farm)
A year later and hundreds of miles to the north, American troops faced a British advance aimed at cutting New England off from the rest of the colonies.
First Provisional Marine Brigade reaches Pusan
In early August 1950, the Korean War had entered a precarious phase as North Korean forces pushed United Nations troops back toward the southeastern tip of the peninsula. On August 7th, the First Provisional Marine Brigade, formed from elements of the First Marine Division, arrived at the port of Pusan to reinforce the hard-pressed defenders.
First Selective Service draft registration
When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, its small regular army was nowhere near large enough to fight on the Western Front. Congress responded by passing the Selective Service Act, and on June 5th, 1917, the nation held its first massive draft registration day. Across cities, small towns, and rural crossroads, millions of men lined up at local boards, filling out forms under the eyes of community le
Formal end of the Civil War
More than half a century later, another presidency faced the task of closing a different conflict. On August 20th, 1866, President Andrew Johnson issued a formal proclamation declaring that the insurrection in the former Confederate states was at an end, effectively marking the official conclusion of the Civil War. The great campaigns and bloody battles were already over, but this act drew a legal line under four yea
Francis B. Wai
The ramps drop into waist-deep surf and chaos. It is the morning of October 20, 1944, on a stretch of shoreline the maps call Red Beach. Ahead lies a narrow band of sand, beyond it a low palm grove and flooded rice paddies. Somewhere in that green fringe, Japanese guns have the approaches bracketed. As the first waves of soldiers tried to cross, the beach turned into a killing ground.
Frederick Walker Castle
High over Europe on Christmas Eve 1944, the sky is crowded with contrails. Hundreds upon hundreds of heavy bombers push east toward German airfields, the engines’ steady thunder mixing with clipped radio calls. At their head is a single Flying Fortress, the air commander’s ship, where Brigadier General Frederick Walker Castle studies the instruments and the grey cloud deck below.