UNITS & FORMATIONS

On this day the United States formally took over the stalled French canal project in Panama, turning a failing commercial venture into a strategic national priority. Army engineers and medical officers were at the heart of the effort, battling yellow fever and malaria while reshaping the isthmus with steam shovels, dynamite, and railroad lines.

On January 28th, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson signed legislation merging the Revenue Cutter Service and the Life-Saving Service into a single organization: the United States Coast Guard. The revenue cutters had long chased smugglers, enforced customs laws, and supported naval operations, while life-saving crews manned small stations along dangerous coasts, ready to pull shipwrecked sailors from the surf.

Four days after Wilson’s address, Congress approved the declaration of war, formally bringing the United States into World War I on the side of the Allies. The decision triggered a sweeping mobilization effort at home, including the enactment of the Selective Service system to raise a large national army. The American Expeditionary Forces, under General John J.

Nearly four decades after independence, the United States again found itself in conflict with its old imperial rival. On June 18th, 1812, after months of debate over British interference with American trade, the impressment of American sailors into the Royal Navy, and tensions along the frontier, Congress passed and President James Madison signed a declaration of war.

As the European war neared its end, American units fought their way into cities that had symbolized the enemy regime. By April 20th, 1945, elements of the United States Seventh Army had battled through the outskirts and defensive belts around Nuremberg, a city deeply associated with party rallies and racial laws. The fighting involved street-by-street advances, clearance of fortified buildings, and close coordination between infantry, armor, and artillery.

In the early phase of the Mexican–American War, United States Navy ships under Commodore John D. Sloat arrived off Monterey, the principal Mexican port in Alta California. On July 7th, 1846, sailors and Marines landed, raised the American flag over the customs house, and proclaimed United States control of the town.

A story of a silent campaign against merchant ships and how it helped choke an island empire’s war effort.

On that same June weekend, United States soldiers were fighting on the ground in Italy. On June 4th, 1944, elements of the United States Fifth Army entered Rome after months of hard campaigning up the Italian peninsula, past Salerno, Cassino, and the Anzio beachhead. The capture of Italy’s capital marked the first time an Axis capital city fell into Allied hands, a powerful symbol of progress in a campaign sometimes overshadowed by events elsewhere.

In the closing months of the Second World War in Europe, the Rhine River stood as a natural barrier shielding the heart of Germany from advancing Allied armies. On March 7th, 1945, soldiers of the United States 9th Armored Division reached the town of Remagen and were astonished to find the Ludendorff railroad bridge still standing despite German attempts to demolish it.

Just days after Fort George fell, another drama played out at sea off the American coast. On June 1st, 1813, the American frigate USS Chesapeake sailed from Boston to challenge the British blockading ship HMS Shannon. In a furious, close-range engagement that lasted only minutes, British gunnery and boarding tactics shattered the Chesapeake’s crew, leaving Captain James Lawrence mortally wounded.

Early in the War of 1812, the United States Navy frigate Constitution intercepted the British frigate Guerriere in the Atlantic and accepted battle. In a sharp engagement marked by heavy gunnery and aggressive maneuvering, Constitution’s solid hull shrugged off many British round shot, giving rise to the famous nickname “Old Ironsides.” American broadsides dismasted Guerriere and left her so badly damaged that she had to be burned after the crew was removed.

A story of nuclear propulsion, undersea endurance, and how one boat reshaped the Cold War at sea.

The B-17 was almost home when the choice arrived over the radio: bail out, or try to land a dying airplane. The long mission over Leipzig was behind them, but the bomber itself was torn open—control cables shot away, engines coughing, the fuselage peppered with holes where German fighters had raked the formation. In the cockpit, the copilot lay dead. The pilot, badly wounded, had been dragged from his seat and now drifted in and out of consciousness, strapped down behind the controls.

On this day, George Washington formally accepted the appointment that Congress had offered him to serve as commander in chief of the Continental Army. The colonies had already seen bloodshed at Lexington, Concord, and around Boston, but until this point there had been no single figure responsible for coordinating their military effort. Washington’s acceptance signaled that the rebellion would not be a loose collection of local uprisings but a united struggle with a common command.

In the final winter of the Revolutionary War, Continental Army officers encamped at Newburgh, New York seethed over unpaid wages and uncertain futures. An anonymous circular dated March 10th, 1783 urged them to consider a more forceful stand against Congress, raising the specter of a military challenge to civilian authority. On March 15th, George Washington appeared unannounced at their meeting and asked permission to speak.

The morning sky over northern Luzon is deceptively calm. From the cockpit of his sleek reconnaissance Mustang, Major William Arthur Shomo scans the broken clouds, hunting for airfields and antiaircraft positions that his ground commanders need to see. His mission is straightforward on paper: an armed photographic and strafing sweep over the Aparri and Laoag airdromes, far ahead of friendly lines.

How a 22-year-old automatic rifleman kept firing after losing both legs, and saved his platoon in the Philippine mountains of 1945.

Even as troops fought through Manila’s streets, the political leaders of the major Allied powers gathered thousands of miles away to shape the end of the war and the uneasy peace to follow. On February 4th, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin opened the Yalta Conference in the Crimean resort city of the same name.