On This Day ... in 1915 & Others
Royal Flying Corps aircraft conducted early interdiction operations against railway facilities at Courtrai and Menin, in an attempt to disrupt German efforts to reinforce their front-line as the British offensive at Neuve Chapelle began.
On the ground, two VCs were won. Private Buckingham, of the Leicestershire Regiment, was decorated for his repeated efforts to rescue wounded men from No Man's Land.
Gobar Sing Negi of the 39th Garhwal Rifles was killed leading a bombing party along the German trenches; each time, he was the first man around a corner, the most dangerous manoeuvre, which eventually cost him his life. The British offensive initially made good progress, but Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria's Sixth Army then stabilised their defences and held the line.
1917: In the Atlantic, the merchant steamer Otaki, commanded by Lieutenant Smith, Royal Naval Reserve, ran into a disguised German raider. The raider demanded that Otaki surrender, but Smith fought back, although his ship only had a single elderly 4.7" gun, against the raider's heavy armament of four modern 5.9" and one 4.1" weapons. Despite the disparity in firepower, Otaki badly damaged her opponent before Smith ordered his crew to abandon ship. He himself went down with the Otaki, and was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.
1918: In Egypt, Turkish forces mounted heavy counter-attacks on British troops who had successfully advanced. Private Whitfield of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, attacked alone a Turkish machine-gun team that had set up in a dangerous position, and having eliminated them, turned the machine-gun on the rest of the Turkish force. He then led a successful raid by a bombing party armed with grenades which helped further establish the security of the British position. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.
1944: An unusually large number of Bomber Command aircraft - 93 - flew on special duty missions during the night to support the Resistance movements in Occupied Europe, as agents and supplies were dropped to strengthen them before the Normandy landings planned for that summer.