DOCTRINE, TACTICS & TRAINING

During the Mexican-American War, General Winfield Scott led one of the earliest large-scale amphibious campaigns in United States history, landing an expeditionary force near the port city of Veracruz. After a carefully planned bombardment involving both the Army and Navy, the city’s defenses began to crumble under heavy fire. On March 29th, 1847, Veracruz surrendered, giving Scott a secure deep-water port and a base of operations on Mexico’s Gulf coast.

In the spring of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany, a dramatic reversal from his earlier campaign slogan of having kept the country out of the conflict. The decision followed Germany’s return to unrestricted submarine warfare, which had sent American ships and sailors to the bottom, and the revelation of the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany encouraged Mexico to consider war against the United States.

As war raged in Europe and Asia, President Franklin Roosevelt took to the radio on December 29th, 1940, to explain why events overseas mattered deeply to American security.

Strategic bombing over Europe reached a grim milestone on October 14th, 1943, when the United States Eighth Air Force sent hundreds of B-17 bombers against ball-bearing plants around Schweinfurt, Germany.