On This Day ... in 1810 & Others
Troops commanded by Major General Abercromby captured the Ile de France - modern-day Mauritius - having been landed by a powerful Royal Navy force.
1915: Siege of Kut began in Mesopotamia when the forces of Major General Charles Townsend were besieged by the Turks. The Kut garrison surrendered in April 1916.
1917: Captain Lascelles of the Durham Light Infantry conducted a determined defence against German attacks, despite being wounded. His company drove off an initial attack, but a subsequent assault captured one of their trenches.
Lascelles immediately led a counter-attack with the last twelve men under his command in the face of heavy machine-gun fire, driving out over five times their number. He suffered a further two wounds.
A third German attack finally proved successful, and Lascelles was captured, but despite his injuries he later succeeded in escaping, and was awarded the Victoria Cross for his gallantry.
Further north, in Belgium, Private Nicholas of the New Zealand Canterbury Regiment stormed a German strongpoint manned by 17 Germans armed with machine-guns. He was also awarded the Victoria Cross.
1940: The British government ordered 60 merchant ships from the USA to replace losses in the Atlantic
US President Franklin D. Roosevelt embarked on the USS Tuscaloosa to inspect bases acquired from Great Britain under Destroyer-for-Bases agreement
1942: At Tebourba in Tunisia, a determined German defence was proving difficult for the Allies to breach. Major Le Patourel of the Hampshire Regiment took four volunteers forward and silenced several machine-gun nests. Even when his four companions fell casualty, he pressed on alone, armed only with a revolver and grenades. Eventually he was wounded and taken prisoner. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.
In the Med, a Royal Navy force of three cruisers and two destroyers caught an Axis convoy laden with reinforcements including tanks headed for North Africa at night. RAF aircraft dropped illumination flares, and radar-controlled gunnery proved devastating, sinking the four ships in the convoy plus its escort
1944: The Greek Civil War broke out in a newly-liberated Greece, between communist and royalist forces
1945: A jet aircraft landed aboard an aircraft carrier for the first time. Lieutenant Commander Brown landed a Sea Vampire aboard HMS Ocean in the English Channel.
Comments
"1945: A jet aircraft landed aboard an aircraft carrier for the first time. Lieutenant Commander Brown landed a Sea Vampire aboard HMS Ocean in the English Channel."
Here's a picture of the landing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Brown_(pilot)
"Captain Eric Melrose "Winkle" Brown, CBE, DSC, AFC (born 21 January 1919) is a former Royal Navy officer and test pilot who has flown more types of aircraft than anyone else in history. He is also the Fleet Air Arm’s most decorated pilot, and holds the world record for aircraft carrier landings.
After World War II‚ Brown commanded the Enemy Aircraft Flight, an elite group of pilots who test-flew captured German aircraft. That experience makes Brown one of the few men qualified to compare both Allied and Axis "warbirds" as they actually flew during the war.
Fluent in German, he helped interview many Germans after World War II, including Wernher von Braun and Hermann Göring, Willy Messerschmitt and Dr. Ernst Heinkel."
His book, "Duels in the Sky", draws on his experience and he said if he had to fight for his life, he would choose either the Spitfire or Mustang. Forced to choose one or the other, he would go with the Spit, but felt that pilot experience and luck would be the determining factors, not the aircraft in a duel a outrance"
Col Beausaber (One of whose maternal uncles flew as B-24 flight engineer/top turret gunner out of East Anglia with the 8th Air Firce)
Posted by: Beausaber | December 3, 2009 7:47 PM