This day in military history..

June 27th

1941: In the East, German forces encircle several Soviet divisions near Minsk and capture Riga, Bobruisk and Przemysl. Hungary declares war on the Soviet Union.
1944: The Red Army recaptures Orsha on the Dnepr and destroys the German pocket near Vitebsk.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/june.html

1950: President Harry S. Truman announces that he is ordering U.S. air and naval forces to South Korea to aid the democratic nation in repulsing an invasion by communist North Korea. The United States was undertaking the major military operation, he explained, to enforce a United Nations resolution calling for an end to hostilities, and to stem the spread of communism in Asia. In addition to ordering U.S. forces to Korea, Truman also deployed the U.S. 7th Fleet to Formosa (Taiwan) to guard against invasion by communist China and ordered an acceleration of military aid to French forces fighting communist guerrillas in Vietnam.
1864: Battle of Kennesaw Mountain - Union General William T. Sherman launches a major attack on Confederate General Joseph Johnston's army in Georgia. Beginning in early May, Sherman began a slow advance down the 100-mile corridor from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Atlanta, refraining from making any large-scale assaults. The campaign was marked by many smaller battles and constant skirmishes but no decisive encounters. Johnston was losing ground, but he was also buying time for the Confederates.
1944: U.S. troops liberate Cherbourg, France - The Allies capture the fortified town and port of Cherbourg, in northwest France, freeing it from German occupation.
source: http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih.jsp?

1911:Royal Military College Duntroon opens. The Royal Military College Duntroon was created at the suggestion of Field Marshal Lord Kitchener; its first commandant was Colonel W.T. Bridges, who was later killed at Gallipoli.
1950:UN recommends assistance to South Korea - United Nations Security Council recommends United Nations assistance to South Korea after the North Korean invasion of 25 June.
1950:RAAF bomber Squadron to Malaya - Six RAAF Lincolns of No. 1 Squadron and a flight of Dakotas from No. 38 Squadron formed part of the Far East Air Force. The RAAF's contribution represented Australia's first involvement in the Malayan Emergency.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1709 - Peter the Great defeats Charles XII of Sweden at the Battle of Poltava.
1743 - War of the Austrian Succession: Battle of Dettingen On the battlefield in Bavaria, George II personally led troops into battle. The last time that a British monarch would command troops in the field.
1759 - General James Wolfe starts siege of Quebec.
1806 - The British capture Buenos Aires.
1991 - Slovenia, after declaring independence two days previous, is invaded by Yugoslav troops, tanks, and aircraft, starting the Ten-Day War.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_27

1940: Japanese troops occupy part of the Hong Kong peninsula. French C-in-C in Syria accepts armistice terms. All French ships in British ports are seized by the Royal Navy. German troops reach Franco-Spanish border.
1941: German forces capture Bobruisk and Przemysl. Hungary declares war on the Soviet Union and agrees to send troops to help Army Group South.
1942: German troops begin to outflank the British positions at Mersa Matruh. As this happens the British start to withdraw towards the El Alamein line, confirming radio intercepts that had indicated they would. Convoy PQ-17 sets sail from Iceland. It consists of 35 merchants, 3 rescue ships and 2 tankers for refueling and is heavily loaded with 297 aircraft, 594 tanks, 4246 lorries and gun carriers, plus an additional 156,000 tons of cargo. The convoy is to be guarded by 21 close escorts, 7 warships from a cruiser covering force and a further 19 warships in a distant covering force. All told 1 aircraft-carrier, 2 battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, 23 destroyers, 4 corvettes, 3 minesweepers, 2 AA ships, 4 ASW trawlers are to protect the convoy. Additionally, 15 submarines, six of them Russian are placed ahead of the the convoy.
1944: The Red Army recaptures Orsha on the Dnieper and destroys the trapped German 53rd Korps near Vitebsk. Further gains are reported by the Russians at Mogilev to the South of Vitebsk. The British gain Hill 112 in Normandy.
1945: The U.S. Sixth Army reaches Aparri, effectively ending the campaign on Luzon.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm
 
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June 28


source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_28
 
1948 - Cominform circulates the "Resolution on the situation in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia"
1950 - Seoul is captured by troops from North Korea.
1956 - Anti-communist demonstrations in Poznań. Also called Poznański czerwiec (June of Poznań).
The Poznań 1956 insurrection (Polish: Poznański Czerwiec — "Poznań June") were the first protests of the Polish people against their communist government. The protests began June 28, 1956, at Poznań's Cegielski Factories and met with bloody repression. According to official figures, 74 people were killed (the actual number of dead is thought to have been higher), including a 13-year-old boy, Romek Strzałkowski. Nearly a thousand people were injured.

1960 - US-owned oil refineries in Cuba confiscated and nationalised.
1964 - Malcom X forms the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
1967 - Israel annexes East Jerusalem.
1969 - Stonewall riots in New York city mark the beginning of the modern gay rights era.
1978 - The United States Supreme Court, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke bars quota systems in college admissions.
1983 - The Mianus River Bridge collapses over the Mianus River in Connecticut, killing 3 drivers in their vehicles.
1988 - The worst confined-space industrial accident in U.S. history occurs at a metal-plating plant in Auburn, Indiana, killing five.
1989 - Slobodan Milošević's Kosovo Polje Speech
1990 - Paperback Software found guilty by a U.S. court of copyright violation for copying the appearance and menu system of Lotus 1-2-3 in its competing spreadsheet program.
1997 - Boxer Mike Tyson is disqualified from WBA title re-match, for biting off part of the ear of his opponent Evander Holyfield.
2001 - U.S. Appeals Court overturns a lower court's order to breakup Microsoft in an antitrust case.
2004 - 38th Canadian federal election
2004 - Sovereign power is handed to the interim government of Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority, ending the U.S.-led rule of that nation.
2004 - Estonia, Lithuania and Slovenia join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism
2005 - Canada becomes the third country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.
 
August 1

The Warsaw Uprising (Powstanie Warszawskie) was an armed struggle during the Second World War by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from German occupation and Nazi rule. It started on August 1, 1944, as part of a nationwide uprising, Operation Tempest. The Polish troops resisted the German-led forces until October 2 (63 days in total). Losses on the Polish side amounted to 18,000 soldiers killed, 25,000 wounded and over 250,000 civilians killed, mostly in mass executions conducted by advancing German troops. Casualties on the German side amounted to over 17,000 soldiers killed and 9,000 wounded. During the urban combat—and after the end of hostilities, when German forces acting on Hitler's orders burned the city systematically, block after block—an estimated 85% of the city was destroyed.
The Uprising started at a crucial point in the war as the Soviet army approached Warsaw. The Soviet army had reached a point within a few hundred metres across the Vistula River from the city on September 16, but failed to make further headway in the course of the Uprising, leading to accusations that Stalin did not want the Uprising to succeed.
Click to expand...

More informations here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising

Uprising_bank_polski2.jpg

Warsaw in ruins - after uprising Germans completely destroyed over 85% of the city.

Warsaw_Uprising_boyscouts.jpg

Young boy and girl scouts fighting in the Warsaw Uprising


 
On the 19th September 1944 Squadron Leader Guy Gibson VC. DSO. DFC was killed on active service. Guy Gibson was on his 186 mission and when you reckon that a tour of duty was 30 mission he was then on his 7th tour of duty. 50% of all the air crew in the RAF failed to complete one tour of duty before they were were shot down so it took a long time for his luck to run out.
 
Nov 26

1968 : Air Force helicopter pilot rescues Special Forces team

While returning to base from another mission, Air Force 1st Lt. James P. Fleming and four other Bell UH-1F helicopter pilots get an urgent message from an Army Special Forces team pinned down by enemy fire.

Although several of the other helicopters had to leave the area because of low fuel, Lieutenant Fleming and another pilot pressed on with the rescue effort. The first attempt failed because of intense ground fire, but refusing to abandon the Army green berets, Fleming managed to land and pick up the team. When he safely arrived at his base near Duc Co, it was discovered that his aircraft was nearly out of fuel. Lieutenant Fleming was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.
 
A special remembrance

Nov. 26, 1968

From the website of the 589th Engineer Bn (Const): http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Bunker/3869/Als589thEngr.html

wallcoll1.jpg


Darwin {Tim} Delano (Left)
SP/4 C Company
Born: May 23, 1947
KIA: Nov. 26, 1968
Home Town: Hinsdale, NH.
Wall Loc: Panel 38W-Row 065

Ronald J. Moe (Right)
1st Lt. B Company
Born: Oct. 6, 1944
KIA: Nov. 26, 1968
Home Town: Anaconda, Mt.
Wall Loc: Panel 38W-Row 067

Gone, but not forgotten. May they rest in peace.
The only two in my battalion who were killed during my tour in VietNam.
 
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tomtom22 said:
Darwin {Tim} Delano (Left)
SP/4 C Company
Born: May 23, 1947
KIA: Nov. 26, 1968
Home Town: Hinsdale, NH.
Wall Loc: Panel 38W-Row 065

Ronald J. Moe (Right)
1st Lt. B Company
Born: Oct. 6, 1944
KIA: Nov. 26, 1968
Home Town: Anaconda, Mt.
Wall Loc: Panel 38W-Row 067

Gone, but not forgotten. May they rest in peace.
The only two in my battalion who were killed during my tour in VietNam.
Click to expand...

Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

:salute2:
 
This day in Military History, December 2

Been a while since my last post in here now, but here we go again.. :D

This day in Military History, 2. December:

1804: Napoleon was crowned emperor of France by Pope Pius VII.

1823: Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine, which declared that the U.S. would not interfere in European affairs but that its sphere of interest included the entire Western Hemisphere, was enunciated by President James Monroe this day in 1823.

1942: Enrico Fermi at the controls of the synchrocyclotron at the University of Chicago, 1951.Scientists led by Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago.
http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6398



:salute2:
 
All kinds of history

December 6

1941: Three Soviet armies, including some 18 divisions from the Russian Far East, with 1,700 tanks and 1,500 aircraft, begin a massive counter-offensive to throw back and destroy the German forces of Heeresgruppe Mitte (von Bock) before Moscow.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/december.html

1951: HMAS Sydney begins its second patrol off Korea - Sydney's aircraft were used to protect South Korean-held islands on Korea's north-west coast.
Source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1777 : Whitemarsh skirmishes turn in Americans’ favor - General George Washington’s battered forces manage to outsmart British General William Howe’s year-end attempt to drive the Americans from the hills in what is now Whitemarsh Township, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia.
1917 : Munitions ship explodes in Halifax - At 9:05 a.m., in the harbor of Halifax in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, the most devastating manmade explosion in the pre-atomic age occurs when the Mont Blanc, a French munitions ship, explodes 20 minutes after colliding with another vessel. As World War I raged in Europe, the port city of Halifax bustled with ships carrying troops, relief supplies and munitions across the Atlantic Ocean. On the morning of December 6, the Norwegian vessel Imo left its mooring in Halifax harbor for New York City. At the same time, the French freighter Mont Blanc, its cargo hold packed with highly explosive munitions--2,300 tons of picric acid, 200 tons of TNT, 35 tons of high-octane gasoline, and 10 tons of gun cotton--was forging through the harbor's narrows to join a military convoy that would escort it across the Atlantic.
1941 : Roosevelt to Japanese emperor: "Prevent further death and destruction" - On this day, President Roosevelt-convinced on the basis of intelligence reports that the Japanese fleet is headed for Thailand, not the United States-telegrams Emperor Hirohito with the request that "for the sake of humanity," the emperor intervene "to prevent further death and destruction in the world." The Royal Australian Air Force had sighted Japanese escorts, cruisers, and destroyers on patrol near the Malayan coast, south of Cape Cambodia. An Aussie pilot managed to radio that it looked as if the Japanese warships were headed for Thailand-just before he was shot down by the Japanese. Back in England, Prime Minister Churchill called a meeting of his chiefs of staff to discuss the crisis. While reports were coming in describing Thailand as the Japanese destination, they began to question whether it could have been a diversion. British intelligence had intercepted the Japanese code "Raffles," a warning to the Japanese fleet to be on alert-but for what? Britain was already preparing Operation Matador, the launching of their 11th Indian Division into Thailand to meet the presumed Japanese invasion force. But at the last minute, Air Marshall Brooke-Popham received word not to cross the Thai border for fear that it would provoke a Japanese attack if, in fact, the warship movement was merely a bluff. Meanwhile, 600 miles northwest of Hawaii, Admiral Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese fleet, announced to his men: "The rise or fall of the empire depends upon this battle. Everyone will do his duty with utmost efforts." Thailand was, in fact, a bluff. Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii was confirmed for Yamamoto as the Japanese target, after the Japanese consul in Hawaii had reported to Tokyo that a significant portion of the U.S. Pacific fleet would be anchored in the harbor-sitting ducks. The following morning, Sunday, December 7, was a good day to begin a raid.
source: http://www.history.com/tdih
 
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... a date which will live in infamy...

December 7

1941: At 7:55 Honolulu time, 384 Japanese Navy bombers and torpedo bombers taking off from three aircraft carriers launch a surprise attack against the US Pacific Fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, sinking or seriously damaging 18 major warships, including the battleships Arizona, Nevada and Virginia, and destroying on the ground 180 USAAF aircraft. American casualties amount to 2,403 killed and 1,178 wounded; Japanese losses are 29 aircraft (59 airmen) and five mini-submarines. In Libya, Panzerarmee Afrika completes its withdrawal to the Gazala line.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/december.html

1915:Evacuation of ANZAC forces from Gallipoli begins - Though the Gallipoli campaign had failed British empire forces at least planned and executed the evacuation without loss.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1939: Norway, Denmark and Sweden declare their neutrality. The Soviet Ninth Army launches an offensive in central Karelia. Britain and France agree to send troops and material to help Finland fight against the Soviet Union. However, there is virtually no way to get these forces to Finland and so the promises mean little. Italy reaffirms her neutrality.
1940: The Admiral Hipper leaves Kiel for an anti-shipping sortie into the Atlantic.
1941: At 6:15 Honolulu time, the first wave of Japanese aircraft take of from their carriers which are located about 200 miles north of Hawaii. At 7:50, 43 fighters, 51 dive-bombers, 70 torpedo-bombers and 50 ordinary bombers arrive over Hawaii. They launch attacks against the airfields at Wheeler, Kaneohe, Ewa and Hickham and against the American warships anchored at ‘Battleship Row’. Surprise was complete and within a few minutes 5 battleships and 2 light cruisers had been sunk and a large number of aircraft (180) destroyed on the ground. Within an hour, the second wave of Japanese strike aircraft (36 fighters, 80 dive-bombers, 54 bombers) had arrived over the target, sinking a further 3 destroyers and damaging another battleship. By 10:00 the attack was over and the casualties could be accounted for.Field Marshal von Brauchitsch after suffering a recent heart attack tenders his resignation to Hitler, although this is not accepted immediately. Zhukov issues orders to the left flank armies of his West Front to begin offensive operations against Panzer Group 2, which is attempting to withdraw out of a salient near Tula. The aim of this offensive would be to cut off Panzer Group 2 and destroy it in the area of Stalinogorsk. In North Africa, The German and Italian forces withdraw to a defensive position at Gazala. The Japanese attack Thailand, Malaya, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore.
1942: British Commandos make daring raid on Bordeaux harbour, rowing 50 miles up the River Gironde and attaching limpet mines to German shipping. US make a beachhead South of Buna, cutting off Japanese forces there. The US Navy launches the Battleship New Jersey and 11 other ships on the anniversary of Pearl Harbour.
1943: The Cairo conference ends.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

For more on the attack on Pearl Harbor go to this website:
http://www.homeofheroes.com/pearlharbor/index.html
 
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December 8

1939: The Fascist Grand Council confirms the Axis alliance, but votes to remain out of the conflict.
1940: The House of Commons and the Tower of London are hit in a heavy Luftwaffe night raid. The 5,000 ton German ship Idarwald is intercepted off Cuba by HMS Diomede. She is at once scuttled by her crew and sunk.
1941: The Unites States and Great Britain declare war on the Empire of Japan. The Soviet offensive against Heeresgruppe Mitte before Moscow succeeds in breaking through the German lines in many places, causing hasty withdrawals by ill-prepared and frost-bitten troops that are forced to abandon much heavy equipment immobilized by the below-zero weather. In Cyrenaica, British forces of the 8th Army (Wavell) succeed in lifting the German siege of Tobruk.
1942: German troops occupy the port of Bizerte in Tunisia.
1944: In Hungary, the Red Army begins an offensive toward Budapest. In the West, German troops evacuate Jülich on the Roer river.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/december.html

1941:Australia at war with Japan - Australia announces that it is at war with Japan. Some 17,000 Australians would die in the three-and-a-half-year war against Japan, 8,000 as prisoners of war.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1914 - World War I: Battle of the Falkland Islands - The Kaiserliche Marine under the command of Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee is engaged by the Royal Navy.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_December

1965 : Operation Tiger Hound launched - In some of the heaviest raids of the war, 150 U.S. Air Force and Navy planes launch Operation Tiger Hound to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the lower portion of the Laotian panhandle, from Route 9 west of the Demilitarized Zone, south to the Cambodian border. The purpose of this operation, which lasted until 1968, was to reduce North Vietnamese infiltration down the trail into South Vietnam. After 1968, the Tiger Hound missions became part of a new operation called Commando Hunt.
source: http://www.history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&displayDate=12/8&categoryId=vietnamwar
 
December 10

1940: Two German spies, Jose Waldberg and Carl Meier, are the first people to be executed since the start of the war. They were hung in Pentonville jail in London. The pair landed in England several weeks prior with a radio transmitter, English money and some iron rations. They planned to spend the nights hiding, and their days collecting information - from the unwary public in trains, pubs and buffets, and by observation of military bases. Also, Hitler issues a directive for the seizure of French military resources and the future occupation of Vichy France (Operation Attila), and cancels plans to invade Gibraltar via Spain (Operation Felix).
1942: Hitler replaces General Halder with General Zeitzler as chief of staff of the OKH. Little ground is gained at Rzhev by a small German counterattack on the Eastern Front.
1944: In the West, the US Third Army (Patton) captures Hagenau and Saargemünd.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/december.html

1941:HM Ships Repulse and Prince of Wales sunk - The sinking of these powerful warships by Japanese torpedo bombers off Malaya came as a shock to those who had under-estimated Japan's military ability and had relied on the imagined impregnable Singapore naval base. The sinkings heralded the significance of air power in the Pacific war.source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1864: Union General William T. Sherman completes his "March to the Sea" when he arrives in front of Savannah, Georgia.
source: http://www.history.com/tdih

1898 - Spanish-American War: The Treaty of Paris is signed, officially ending the conflict.
1941 - World War II: Battle of the Philippines - Imperial Japanese forces under the command of General Masaharu Homma land on the Philippine mainland.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_December

1914: Montreal Quebec - Mobilization of the Montreal Machine Gun Corps, for service in World War I.
1944: Lamone River Italy - Canadian Army troops storm the Lamone River defences in Italy.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=Dec&day=10

1940: Sidi Barrani is surrounded. Italian troops from the camps at Sofafi and Rabia flee west as the 7th Armoured divisions thrust threaten to encircle them.
1941: Japanese troops land on and capture Guam. Japanese troops make landings on the northern tip of Luzon and the island of Camiguin in the Philippines. British forces that had pushed into southern Thailand begin to fall back along with those from northern Malaya after the Japanese capture Kota Bharu airfield.
1942: Australian troops capture Gona and now control the whole of the Gona area in New Guinea.
1943: The British Eighth Army crosses the Moro.
1944: The U.S. 77th Infantry Division captures Ormoc on Leyte. Japanese make their last seaborne reinforcement of Leyte.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm
 
December 11

1994: Russian troops invaded Chechnya in an effort to suppress a rebel Chechen government led by Dzhokhar Dudayev.

1941: Adolf Hitler declared that Germany was at war with the United States following the Japanese attacks on the U.S., British, and Dutch positions in the Pacific and in East Asia.
 
December 17

1939: Unable to complete repairs of the Graf Spee within 24 hours, the time limit stipulated by international law for foreign warships in neutral ports, and under strict orders by OKM not to go into internment in Uruguay, Capt. Langsdorff takes his ship outside the harbor of Montevideo and orders his crew to scuttle her, thus denying the fleet of British Navy vessels converging on the River Plate the opportunity of destroying her in an unequal battle.
1940: In pursuit of the retrating Italian forces, the British 8th Army (Wavell) captures Sollum in Cyrenaica.
1944: The German offensive in the West, after some deep penetrations into the lines of the unprepared US forces in the area, makes only slow progress due to limited roads as well as difficult terrain and weather conditions, not reaching any assigned first-day objectives.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/december.html

546 - Gothic War (535–552): The Ostrogoths of King Totila conquer Rome bribing the Byzantine garrison.
1944 - World War II: Battle of the Bulge - Malmedy massacre - American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion POWs are shot by Waffen-SS Kampfgruppe Peiper.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_December

1967:HMAS Perth under fire - HMAS Perth comes under fire off Dong Hoi, Vietnam.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp
 
December 18

1940: Hitler issues Directive No. 21, ordering plans for the preparation of Operation Barbarossa, the attack against the Soviet Union, to be submitted by May 15, 1941.
1941: Field Marshal von Brauchitsch resigns as head of OKH, Hitler himself assuming personal command of the Heer, especially of its operations on the Eastern front.
1944: In the West, Operation Wacht am Rhein begins to bog down in the face of stiffened US resistance and lack of adequate logistical support, notably fuel for the armored Kampfgruppen of Dietrich's and Manteuffel's armies.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/december.html

1944: 'Arty' Hill, Bougainville, captured - 'Arty Hill', as it was known, was captured by the Queensland 9th Battalion, and was a major Japanese position on the Numa Numa Trail leading across Bougainville.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1813: Lewiston New York - John Murray leads 500 British and Canadians in capture of old Fort Niagara from the Americans in the War of 1812; Fort Niagara; captures 300 prisoners; Phineas Riall leads party of Indians in 2 week raid on Manchester, Fort Schlosser, Black Rock and Buffalo.
1941: Kowloon, Hong Kong - Japanese troops cross the Lye Mun Passage after dark, in assault boats, landing craft and small boats towed by ferry steamers, to attack Hong Kong island; two platoons of the Winnipeg Grenadiers deployed to seize the hills known as Jardine's Lookout and Mount Butler where they engaged in intense fighting; heavily outnumbered, they are cut to pieces and both platoon commanders killed; the following day Brigadier Lawson is killed when the Japanese surround his West Brigade headquarters. All British and Canadian forces in Hong Kong will surrender on Christmas Day; Canadians lose 290 dead in battle, with 493 wounded; a total of 557 were killed or later died in Japanese prison camps.
1950: Pusan Korea - 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, lands at Pusan; first Canadian troops in Korea.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=Dec&day=18

1916: The Battle of Verdun, the longest engagement of World War I, ends on this day after ten months and close to a million total casualties suffered by German and French troops. The massive loss of life at Verdun—143,000 German dead out of 337,000 casualties, to France’s 162,440 out of 377,231—would come to symbolize, more than that of any other battle, the bloody nature of trench warfare on the Western Front.
source: http://www.history.com/tdih
 
December 19

1940: Mussolini requests German assistance for his hard-pressed troops in Cyrenaica in the form of a Panzer Division and various logistical support.
1941: Frogmen of the Italian Navy penetrate the port of Alexandria in Egypt and damage the British battleships HMS Valiant and Queen Elizabeth. Colombia severs diplomatic relations with Germany and Italy.
1944: SHAEF orders the 101st Airborne Division as well as the 10th Armored Division to be detached from 3rd Army and moved north to support the US forces under attack in the Ardennes, particularly to aid the 28th Infantry Division in its defense of the vital road junction of Bastogne.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/december.html

1939 - A British destroyer intercepts Columbus, a German passenger liner, 450 miles east of Cape May, New Jersey. Columbus is subsequently scuttled.
1940 - Secretary of the Navy is given control and jurisdiction overthe Pacific island of Palmyra.
1941 - Hitler takes complete command of the German Army.
1943 - The Japanese destroyer Namukaze is sunk by the submarine USS Grayback (SS-208 ) off the Ryukyu Islands.
1944 - The Japanese carrier Unryu is sunk by the submarine USS Redfish (SS-395) in the East China Sea.
source: The Cooler King

1915 : Haig becomes commander-in-chief of the British army in France - In the wake of the British defeat at the Battle of Loos in September 1915, Sir Douglas Haig replaces Sir John French as commander-in-chief of all British forces on the Western Front.
source: http://www.history.com/tdih

1916 - World War I: Battle of Verdun - On the Western Front, the French Army successfully holds off the German Army and drives it back to its starting position.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_December

1941: Hong Kong - Company Sergeant Major John Osborn of the Winnipeg Grenadiers, leading a bayonet charge against the Japanese on Mount Butler; throws himself on a Japanese grenade to save his comrades' lives; posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
1941: Atlantic - Royal Canadian Navy destroyer HMCS Saguenay torpedoed by a German U-boat.
1813: Lewiston New York - Lt.-Col. John Murray leads 550 British and Canadians in surprise attack, capturing Fort Niagara from the Americans; Riall goes on to destroy Lewiston and Buffalo to retaliate for burning of Newark (Niagara) and Queenston.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=Dec&day=19

1951: HMAS Sydney completes a tour of operations off Korea's west coast - Aircraft from Sydney left no operable railway lines in its area of operations, significantly disrupting enemy supply routes.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp
 
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