On This Day ... in 1597 & Others
England was spared a Spanish invasion at Falmouth by the intervention of the weather. For the third time a huge Armada had been assembled, with over 140 ships carrying 9,000 men. The best of the English fleet was absent under the Earl of Essex, engaged in fruitless patrolling off the Azores hoping to catch the Spanish silver convoy from the West Indies, and the approach of the Armada was quite unsuspected in England.
Fortunately, a gale caught Don Martin de Padilla's ships some thirty miles off the Lizard, scattering the fleet and sinking 28 of his ships. The first inkling the English had of their close escape was when one of the Spanish ships was forced to come into port at St Ives - even worse, it transpired that her master had previously spent three years on reconnaissance around the English coast helping plan the invasion. The episode helped secure Essex's fall from favour with Queen Elizabeth.
1798: A squadron under Sir John Warren successfully intercepted a French squadron off Donegal Bay attempting to aid Irish rebels.
1917: The First Battle of Passchendaele opened. The earlier successes during the Third Ypres offensive had allowed the British troops to gain the Ypres ridge, but it was as yet not wholly secure.
However, the weather now deteriorated, and the badly scarred terrain began to turn into the infamous quagmire forever associated with the name Passchendaele. The renewed assaults failed.
Two VCs were won on the first day. Captain C. Jeffries originally from Wallsend, New South Wales, serving with 34th (New South Wales) Australian Battalion, was killed leading an attack during which he had eliminated three machine-gun positions and taken over fifty prisoners.
Private Halton, King's Own Regiment, charged alone several hundred yards to destroy a machine-gun which had inflicted heavy casualties on British troops.
1918: When a sniper pinned down British troops in a French village, Private Lester, Lancashire Fusiliers, volunteered to rush his position. In the exchange of fire, both men died. Lester was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously.
1940: The day saw a succession of German raids, while the Midlands received particular attention during the night.
Comments
On October 12, 1944, a parachute formation which included the 4th, 5th and 6th Para battalions and lst Indian Pathfinders was tasked to capture the airfield at Megara, 30 miles west of Athens, and restore the legally elected Government from communist inspired forces.
Bad weather hit the operation and when one company of 4 Para jumped on Megara airfield in wind speeds of 35mph, they suffered 50 per cent casualties. Constant high winds prevented the remainder of the force from jumping until the following day.
For the next three months, the Brigade was busy following up the withdrawal of German forces and restoring law and order. The most important task in Operation Manna lay in Athens.
Conditions there had deteriorated rapidly between the Government forces and communist backed political groups of the KKE and ELAS. In Athens in December, and early January 1945, vicious riots between rival political factions, which resulted in heavy street fighting constantly involving the Paras. The scale of these activities can be seen in the fact that the Brigade was feeding 20,000 civilians a day at the time, and on one day of the final battle they killed 170 rebels, wounded 70 and took 520 prisoners. This continued until January 1945, when the rebels were finally defeated and the brigade was withdrawn to Italy in February 1945.
Posted by: Mark Turner | October 12, 2009 11:37 AM