This day in military history..

Apr 29
711 Moors invade spain
1483 Castile takes Gran Canaria
1587 Drake Raids Spanish fleet destroying @ least 23 ships
1672 France invades The Netherlands
1781 naval Battle of Fort Royal
1862 Battle of Bridgeport, Ala.
1863 Adm. Porter's fleet bombards CS batteries @ Grand Gulf
1916 Siege of Kut ends
1945 Germans in Italy surrender
1970 US/South Vietnamese troops invade Cambodia
 
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Apr 30
313 Battle of Tzirallum
1863 Battle of Chancellorsville, Va begins. Battle of Camerone, Mx French Foriegn Legion members make one of the most famous Last Stands in military history.
1864 Red River campaign: Low water traps Adm. Porter's fleet @ Shreveport, La. Construction of a dam is begun to raise the water level & ships jettison armor & guns to reduce draft.
1961 K-17 commisioned, Soviets 1st nuclear missle sub
1975 Saigon falls to N. Vietnamese, Vietnam War ends
 
May 1st

1941: The Luftwaffe begins a series of 8 consecutive night raids against Liverpool.
1942: In the East, the siege of the Crimean fortress of Sevastopol by 11.Armee (von Manstein) continues with a ceaseless bombardment by batteries of heavy guns (up to 800mm: Big Dora) and hundreds of bombers (up to 1,000 sorties a day) of Luftflotte 7 (von Richthofen). Heavy fighting also continues on the front around besieged Leningrad whose inhabitants are suffering from bombing, disease and starvation.
1945: Cessation of hostilities and surrender of all German forces in Italy as a result of unauthorized secret negotiations with the Allies by the German C-in-C, General von Vietinghoff. and SS General Wolff. Grossadmiral Dönitz, following the death of Hitler, assumes his duties as the new German head of state. He orders utmost resistance on all fronts, especially in the East where tens of thousands of German civilians are still trying to escape from the stampeding Red Army. In the battle of Berlin, the remaining pockets of German resistance in the center of the city are crumbling. General Krebs, head of the OKH after Guderian's dismissal on March 26, begins negotiations with General Chuikov, CO of Eighth Guards Army, about the Soviet terms for a surrender. Goebbels and his wife, after poisoning their six children, commit suicide in the Führerbunker.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1898 - Battle of Manila Bay, Adm Dewey defeats Spanish at Manila, Philippines
1934 - LT Akers demonstrates blind landing system at College Park, MD in OJ-2 aircraft
1945 - VADM Barbey lands Australian troops on Tarakan Island, Borneo, supported by naval gunfire
1951 - USS Princeton aircraft attack Hwachon Dam using aerial torpedoes, only use of this weapon in Korean War
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmay.htm

1941: Allied evacuation of Greece complete - The Greek campaign, involving forces from Greece, Britain, New Zealand and Australia, resulted in heavy losses to the 6th Australian Division and ultimately an evacuation of Allied forces from beaches in southern Greece.
1942: Townsville put on invasion alert - We now know that Japan did not intend to invade Australia. In 1942, however, fear of such an invasion was almost universal, particularly after their early successes in the war.
1945: 26 Brigade troops invade Tarakan - General MacArthur instructed Lieutenant-General Sir Leslie Morshead to seize and hold Tarakan Island and destroy the enemy forces there. The Netherlands East Indies Government was to be re-established, Tarakan's oil producing capacity was to be conserved and the island's airfields put into use. The operation was codenamed Oboe 1.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/may.htm

1951: Korea - 25th Canadian Infantry Brigade Group sent to join United Nations forces in Korea.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=May&day=01

1328 - Wars of Scottish Independence end: Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton – England recognises Scotland as an independent nation.
1778 - American Revolution: The Battle of Crooked Billet begins in Hatboro, Pennsylvania.
1941 - World War II: German forces launch Operation Mercury the largest airborne invasion to date in their bid to capture Crete. German forces launch a major attack on Tobruk.
1945 - Soviet troops raise the Soviet Flag over the Reichstag, in Berlin.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1

1898: The U.S. Navy under Dewey defeats the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines.
1944: The Messerschmitt Me 262, the first combat jet, makes its first flight.
source: http://www.historynet.com/today_in_history

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May 1
1794 Battle of Boulou ends
1861 Virginia troops sieze the US Harper's Ferry Arsenal
1863 Battle of Chancellorsville. Stonewall Jackson counter attacks Union troops
1965 naval Battle of Yong-Yin
1982 RAF Vulcans begin bombing the Falkland Islands
1995 Crotians start offensive against Serb troops
 
May 3
1808 Russians captures Sweden's Sveaborg Fortress
1815 Battle of Tolentino
1861 Gen. Winfield Scott reveals the Anaconda Plan to crush the Confederacy
1862 Peninsula Campaign:CS troops evacuate Yorktown, Va
1863 Battle of Chancellorsville, Va continues
1942 Japanese invade Tulagi
 
May 4
1471 Battle of Tewkesbury
1799 Siege of Seringapatim ends
1863 Battle of Chancellorsville ends. Federal ships bombard Ft. DeRussy, La. Attack is unsucsessfull & gunboat USS Albatross is damaged.
1865 At Citronelle, Ala. Gen. Richard Taylor surrenders the Army of Mobile & all troops in the Dept of East La, Miss. & Ala.1869 naval Battle of Hakadate Bay. Imperial Japanese Navy vs Edo Republic. Imperial Flagship is Kotetsu(ex CSS Stonewall) that is the decisive unit in the battle.
1910 Royal Canadian Navy Est.
1912 Italy occupies Rhodes
1942 Battle of the Coral Sea begins
1982 HMS Sheffield damaged by Arg. Exocet
 
May 5
1811 Battle of Fuentes de Onoro
1862 Peninsula Campaign: Battle of Williamsburg, Va. Battle of Puebla, Mx
1864 Battle of The Wilderness begins in Va.
1936 Italians occupy Addis Ababa
 
May 6th

1945: The US Third Army (Patton) occupies Pilsen in Bohemia and halts all further advances. After an 82-day siege, the remaining defenders of Breslau finally surrender to Soviet forces.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/may.html

1909 - Great White Fleet anchors in San Francisco
1916 - First ship-to-shore radio telephone voice conversation from USS New Hampshire off Virginia Capes to SECNAV Josephus Daniels in Washington, DC
1942 - CAPT Milton Miles arrives in Chungking, China, to begin building an intelligence and guerilla training organization, Naval Group China
1945 - Naval landing force evacuates 500 Marshallese from Jaluit Atoll, Marshall Islands.
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmay.htm

1917: Corporal G.J. Howell, VC - Corporal G.J. Howell, 1st Battalion, originally of Enfield, NSW, wins the Victoria Cross near Bullecourt.
1945: Tarakan town and airstrip captured - General MacArthur instructed Lieutenant General Sir Leslie Morshead to seize and hold Tarakan Island and destroy the enemy forces there. The Netherlands East Indies Government was to be re-established, Tarakan's oil producing capacity was to be conserved and the island's airfields put into use. The operation was codenamed Oboe 1.source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/may.htm

1777: Quebec Quebec - British General John (Gentleman Johnny) Burgoyne arrives in Quebec as field commander of the British forces against the American rebels; his plan is to march down the Hudson River via the Richelieu River and Lake Champlain through Albany, with a secondary advance through the Mohawk Valley, and divide the rebels at New York.
1877: Wood Mountain Saskatchewan - Sioux Chief Sitting Bull leads 1,500 of his followers into Canada to ask protection from the Queen; after defeating General George Custer and the US 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=May&day=06

1527 - Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance. 147 Swiss Guards, including their commander, died fighting the forces of Charles V during the Sack of Rome in order to allow Pope Clement VII to escape into Castel Sant'Angelo.
1757 - Battle of Prague - A Prussian army fought an Austrian army in Prague during the Seven Years' War.
1942 - On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.
1945 - Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops (first was on December 11, 1941).
1945 - The Prague Offensive, the last major battle of the Eastern Front, begins.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_6

1915: After a first attempt to capture the village of Krithia, on the Gallipoli Peninsula, failed on April 28, 1915, a second is initiated on May 6 by Allied troops under the British commander Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston. Fortified by 105 pieces of heavy artillery, the Allied force advanced on Krithia, located at the base of the flat-topped hill of Achi Baba, starting at noon on May 6. The attack was launched from a beach head on Cape Helles, where troops had landed on April 25 to begin the large-scale land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula after a naval attack on the Dardanelles failed miserably in mid-March. Since the first failed attempt on the village, Hunter-Weston’s original force had been joined by two brigades of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) to bring the total number of men to 25,000. They were still outnumbered, however, by the Turkish forces guarding Krithia, which were under the direct command of the German Major-General Erich Weber. Weber had been promoted from the rank of colonel after supervising the closure and mining of the Dardanelles six months earlier.
source:http://www.history.com/tdih.do?actio...ryId=worldwari
 
May 6
1801 Brig HMS Speedy, 14, captures Frigate El Gamo, 32.
1864 Battle of The Wilderness ends
1935 1st flight P-36
1941 1st flight P-47
 
May 7
1429 Joan of Arc leads an attack, despite being wounded, that ends the Siege of Orleans.
1763 Ottawa Indians led by Pontiac attack & then besiege the British @ Fort Detroit
1862 Peninsula Campaign: Battle of Eltham's Landing
1864 Ironclad CSS Raleigh sorties from Wilmington, N.C. dispersing the Blockaders, but runs aground wrecking herself returning to harbor.
Battle of Dalton, Ga.
1920 Poles capture Kiev from the Soviets
1937 German Condor Legion arrives in Spain to assist Franco
1942 Battle of the Coral Sea heats up: Japanese lose Carrier Shoho, US loses Destroyer & an Oiler
1954 Vietnam: Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends
 
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May 8
1821 Battle of Gravia
1846 Battle of Palo Alto
1862 Battle of McDowell, Va.
1864 Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse begins
1945 VE Day!
 
May 9
1861 USS Yankee exchanges fire with CS batteries @ Glouchester Point, Va. US Naval Academy evacuated from Annapolis, Md
1862 Peninsula Campaign: Union advances cause the Confederates to abandon the Norfolk Navy Yard.
1864 Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse: a lull in fighting, but Union Maj. Gen. John Sedgewick is killed by a sharpshooter. Red River Campaign: Union engineers finish building a dam @ Alexandria, La., resulting in the Federal fleet escaping down river. 2nd Schlieswig War: naval Battle of Heligoland
1915 2nd Battle of Artois
1940 U-9 sinks French sub Doris
1941 U-110 captured by R.N. with Enigma code machine intact
1945 Channell Islands liberated by British
1992 Armenians capture Shusha
 
May 10
1775 Green Mountain Boys capture Ft. Ticonderoga
1796 Battle of Lodi
1801 Tripoli declares War on the US
1857 Sepoy Mutiny begins in India
1861 US troops attack Camp Jackson, St. Louis, Mo capturing 637 pro Confederate State Militiamen & 10,000 muskets
1862 Ft. Pillow exchanges fire with USS Cincinnati & USS Mound City, near Memphis, Tenn.
1863 Gen Stonewall Jackson dies
1864 Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse: Large union attack @ "the Mule Shoe".
1865 Jeff Davis captured. On the Tombigbee River in Ala. CSS Nashville & Morgan surrender. Quantrill is killed in Ky.
1940 Germany invades Belgium, Netherlands & Luxembourg
1969 Vietnam: Battle of Hamburger Hill begins
 
May 11
1745 Battle of Fontenoy
1846 US declares War on Mexico
1862 Peninsula Campaign: CSS Vtrginia's draft is too deep to allow her to escape the advancing Union Army by steaming up the James River, so she is destroyed to prevent capture
1864 Battle of Yellow Tavern, Va Gen. JEB Stuart is killed.
1943 US troops invade Japanese held Attu Island in the Alutians
1944 Allied offensive against the German Gustav Line in Italy begins
1945 USS Bunker Hill heavily damaged by Kamakazes
 
May12
1264 Battle of Lewes
1780 British capture Charleston, S.C.
1797 France captures Vinice
1821 Battle of Valtetsi
1862 Union troops occupy Baton Rouge
1863 Vicksburg Campaign: Battle of Raymond, Ms
1864 Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse: Union attack takes the "Mule Shoe" but is halted @ "The Bloody Angle". Confederates evacuate the defences @ Dalton, Ga.
1865 Battle of Palmito Ranch, Texas, the last battle of the Civil war, begins
1885 Battle of Batoche, Canada
1942 2nd Battle of Kharkov
1968 Vietnam: Battle of Coral-Balmoral
1957 Mayagues Incident with Cambodia begins
 
May 13
1568 Battle of Langside
1864 Battle of Spotsylvania Couthouse: Fighting ends @ The Bloody Angle @ 0400, a rare night fight from the previous day fighting continued into the wee hours. Atlanta Campaign: Battle of Resaca begins
1865 Battle of Palmito Ranch ends, the last battle of the Civil War is a CS win.
1912 Royal Flying Corp. Est
1940 Germany attacks France
1943 Axis troops in N. Africa surrender
 
May 14
1509 Battle of Agnadello
1741 1st naval Battle of Cape Finistere
1863 Union troops capture Jackson, Ms
1864 Battle of New Market, Va begins
1940 The Netherlands surrender to the Germans
 
May 15
1525 Battle of Frankenhausen
1718 1st machine gun patented in U.K.
1862 Peninsula Campaign: Battle of Ft. Darling. Union troops, supported by USS Monitor & gunboats USS Galana, Port Royal, Naugatuck & Aroostock, unsucsessfully attack the Fort.
1864 Battle of New Market, Va ends. Atlanta Campaign: Battle of Resaca, Ga ends
1904 Siege of Port Arthur: IJN Battleships Yashima & Hatsuse sink in Russian minefield
1940 US sub USS Sailfish (ex Squalus) recommisoned
1948 Arab-Israeli War starts
 
May 16
1771 Battle of Alamance Pre American Revolutionary War battle between Rebels & N.C. Militia
1811 Battle of Albuera
1863 Vicksburg campaign: Battle of Champion's Hill, Miss.
1864 Battle of Drewry's Bluff, Va
1919 US Navy NC-4 begins the 1st trans-Atlantic flight
 
May 17
1863 Vicksburg Campaign: Battle of the Big Black River
1900 British break the Siege of Mafeking
1940 Germans occupy Brussels
1943 RAF Dam Buster air raids
 
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