On This Day ... in 1916 & Others
Efforts to relieve Townshend's force trapped at Kut in Mesopotamia led to an action amidst ruins at El Orah. Lance-Naik Lala of the 41st Dogras Infantry rescued two wounded officers lying only yards from the enemy positions, and not only dressed their wounds but covered them with his own clothing to keep them warm until he was able to carry them to safety during the night. Captain Sinton, a medical officer, also distinguished himself in the care of the wounded, despite himself being shot in both arms and the body. Both men were awarded the Victoria Cross.
1920: British forces in Somaliland launched the Combined Forces operation that finally broke the power of the so-called Mad Mullah - Mohammed bin Abdullah Hassan. The Army provided men from the Somaliland Camel Corps, the King's African Rifles and the 101st Grenadiers of the Indian Army; the Royal Navy contributed five ships including the seaplane carrier HMS Ark Royal; and the Royal Air Force provided a flight of DH9 bombers. The campaign opened with an air raid on the Mullah's headquarters at Medishe, where a bomb came within a few feet of killing him.
1940: HMS Exmouth, a destroyer, was sunk by a U-boat in the Moray Firth, with the loss of 189 men.
1941: The 6th (Australian) Division began its attack on Tobruk on Libya. The port city was well fortified strongpoint, defended by 25,000 Italian troops
1969: USCGC Point Banks while on patrol south of Cam Rahn Bay received a call for help from a 9-man ARVN detachment trapped by two Vietcong platoons.
Petty Officers Willis Goff and Larry Villareal took a 14-foot Boston whaler ashore to rescue the ARVN troops. In the face of heavy automatic weapons fire, all 9 men were evacuated in two trips. For their actions Goff and Villareal were each awarded the Silver Star for their actions. The citation read
The nine men would have met almost certain death or capture without the assistance of the two Coast Guardsmen.
Comments
Gotta love the Coasties. Takes a special kind of brave to go into harm's way to save lives.
Does Britain still have a Lifeboat Service/Coast Guard?
Posted by: Larry Anderson | January 21, 2009 2:25 PM
Larry, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution flourishes, and when I pass one of their collecting points - usually an old WW2 sea mine - I drop in a pound or two.
The Coastguard exists. I don't know much about it, except to see their distinctive choppers occasionally, just the ticket for ferrying injured Western Islanders to hospital.
At one point the Lifeboats thought they needed government money, but I understand they got into trouble for not being able to prove they rescued the requisite proportions of minorities, one-legged lesbians and so on, so they went back to relying on the generosity of the public.
A fine body, the Lifeboats, mostly volunteers.
Posted by: Jeff Wood | January 22, 2009 10:17 PM