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On This Day ... in 1899 & Others

Off Samoa, HMS Calliope survived an appalling typhoon. The German and US navies were engaged in a stand-off over national interests on the island and their warships - three apiece - failed to leave the harbour. All six warships were wrecked, with the loss of about fifty US and ninety German lives.

1935: Adolf Hitler denounces the arms restrictions imposed by the Versailles Treaty and decrees a law establishing a peacetime army of 500,000 men.

1940: The Government of Argentina deports the German crew of Admiral Graf Spee into the interior and forbids them to wear their uniform

The President of Panama transmits a protest to Great Britain over British violation of the Pan-American Neutrality Zone in the Wakama Incident that took place off the coast of Brazil on 12 February.

The heavy cruiser HMS Dorsetshire had stopped the German freighter SS Wakama 12 miles off Cabo Frio, Brazil and Wakama's crew scuttled her so that their ship will not fall into British hands

1941: Today and tomorrow, the German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sink 16 merchantmen off Newfoundland

1943: In New Guinea, an aircraft from 22 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force flown by Flight Lieutenant Newton suffered multiple hits from anti-aircraft fire while making a bombing run on a Japanese target. Despite the damage, Newton held the aircraft on course and conducted a successful attack. He then nursed the stricken aircraft safely back to base. The following day, however, his aircraft was shot down. He and a crew member survived the crash but were executed by the Japanese. Newton was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

1944: Bomber Command dispatched 130 aircraft against the railway facilities in Amiens, while 617 Squadron conducted a precision attack on the Michelin tyre factory at Clermont-Ferrand. No aircraft were lost.

1945: Bomber Command's 5 Group launched a devastating raid on Wurzburg, dropping over 1,100 tons of bombs in just 17 minutes, destroying 89% of the city. However, over Nuremburg, the target for 1 Group, the Luftwaffe's night-fighters showed they were still a force to be reckoned with: 24 Lancasters out of 231 were lost, a rate of 10.4%.

The island of Iwo Jima was finally declared secure

1949: Clothes rationing ended in Great Britain, nearly 4 years after the end of WW II. Food rationing continued until June 1954.

On This Day ... in 1360 & Others

During the Hundred Years War, 3,000 French raiders sacked and burnt Winchelsea, one of the Cinque Ports. It was a mainstay of English naval strength in the period & the attack was an effort to divert Edward III from his campaign in France and force him to return home.

1781: At Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina, Nathanael Greene's American Revolutionary army attempted to stop the British advance under Lord Cornwallis. After two hours of fierce fighting in dense undergrowth, the Revolutionary troops, despite a numerical superiority of 2:1, were forced to retire by Cornwallis' far better trained British and German troops. However, it proved to be a pyrrhic victory for Cornwallis, and the casualties he suffered, somewhat over a quarter of his force, were sorely missed later in the year at Yorktown.

1944: Bomber Command dispatched 863 Lancaster, Halifax and Mosquito aircraft to Stuttgart, whilst a further 140 bombed railway yards at Amiens, and 22 aircraft raided an aircraft engine factory near Metz. The Stuttgart force flew close to the Swiss border, and two damaged Lancasters were forced to divert to Swiss airfields, where they were duly interned. The Metz raid was aborted due to weather, the Amiens raid was a success, but the Stuttgart mission was regarded as a disappointment, with most bombs falling in open countryside due to unusually poor marking by the Pathfinders.

On This Day ... in 1757 & Others

Rear-Admiral John Byng was executed by firing squad aboard HMS Monarch. The son of the successful Admiral Sir John Byng, he had been made the scapegoat for the fall of the important harbour at Port Mahon on Minorca in 1756. Byng had not been defeated at sea, but his caution had denied him a clear victory in action with the French, and he had then retired over hastily to Gibraltar, leaving the isolated garrison at Port Mahon no option but to surrender. Byng found himself left similarly isolated by the Government, was convicted at court martial of cowardice, and refused clemency. The French writer Voltaire famously remarked in Candide
"dans ce pays-ci [Britain], il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres".

1915: Following the British offensive at Neuve Chapelle, the Germans struck back with a limited offensive of their own at St Eloi, south of Ypres. The British troops held The Mound, an extensive spoil heap from the local brickworks some thirty feet high - a significant advantage in the low-lying landscape. The Germans had managed to dig two tunnels under the British positions; packed with explosives, these mines were detonated in the early evening, destroying the machine-gun posts. An immediate charge by German infantry took what was left of The Mound, and forced the British back out of the village of St Eloi. A night counter-attack retook the village, although The Mound stayed in German hands.

1943: A 6 day series of battles bagan in the Atlantic. Convoys HX-229 and SC-122 are attacked by a large wolfpack of 20 German U-Boats which had enough prior intelligence to find the convoys and sink a total of 21 ships

A total of 40 U-Boats had been assembled for an attack on the convoy presumed to be SC 122. First contact was made in the morning of 16 March by the "Raubgraf" group, and during that day and the following night, 8 U-Boats made contact and claimed 14 ships sunk, and 6 damaged.

On the night of 16 March, a second convoy was reported 120 miles ahead of the first, this second being identified as an SC (in fact, SC122) and it was at this point it was realized that the first convoy already under attack was actually HX229.

Almost half of the U-Boats involved scored results for the loss of only one of their own number.
The Admiralty monthly report concluded that

The Germans never came so near to disrupting communication between the New World and the Old as in the first twenty days of March 1943

1945: The largest bomb of the Second World War, Barnes Wallis' 22,000lb Grand Slam "earthquake" weapon, was used in action for the first time by 617 Squadron against the important viaduct at Bielefeld, the target of many previous bombing raids. Several of Barnes Wallis' smaller but still massive Tallboys were also dropped, and the attack, carried out with great accuracy, proved devastating, with 100 yards of the viaduct brought down.

On This Day ... in 1858 & Others

As British troops slowly penetrated deeper into the defences at Lucknow, Mutineer artillery shells set fire to a British sandbagged position. Able Seaman Edward Robinson, a member of the Royal Naval brigade serving ashore at the siege, leapt onto the sandbags, and despite heavy fire from enemy proceeded to beat out the flames or throw blazing sandbags clear. He was seriously wounded in the process, but survived to receive the Victoria Cross. His citation reads

For conspicuous galantry shown on 13th March 1858 in having at Lucknow, under heavy musketry fire within 50 yards, he leapt on top of the burning earthworks to extinguish burning sandbags. He managed to put out some and the rest he threw clear, before being seriously wounded in the shoulder and being dragged back to shelter by his gun crew.

He was invalided from the Royal Navy later in 1858 and was employed as a Coastguard for 10 years followed by 10 years in the Naval Reserve Office. Through the friendly interest of the then Duke of Edinburgh (son of Queen Victoria) who kept closely in touch with the Nation's heroes at his mother's request,

Robinson was employed as a gardener at Windsor Castle. When this became difficult for him, he was appointed Gatekeeper at the Old Windsor entrance to the Home Park, a position normally held for soldiers and sailors of good character. He lived in Albert Bridge Lodge with his family and died there on 15th March 1896.

1884: Major-General Sir Gerald Graham advanced from Suakin as the situation in Sudan worsened, encountering Mahdist forces at Tamai. A ferocious Mahdist assault succeeded in breaking one of the two British squares, but the other held firm, and eventually prevailed. Private Edwards of the Black Watch won the Victoria Cross for his lone defence of a gun, despite a serious spear wound during a bayonet fight. Lieutenant Marling, serving with the Mounted Infantry, was similarly decorated for saving the life of a wounded soldier at very close range with the enemy.

1892: During an expedition in the Gambia to suppress slavery, troops from the West India Regiment attacked a fortified gate at Toniataba. As a major and twelve men worked to batter down the gate, several muskets suddenly appeared at a row of loopholes only a few feet away. The major's back was turned and in the direct line of fire, but he was saved by Lance Corporal Gordon, who threw himself forward, pushed the officer clear, but took the full blast of the volley himself. Gordon was shot through the lungs, but survived to receive the Victoria Cross. His medal is proudly displayed in the Jamaican Defence Force Museum.

1900: Following the British victory at Paardeberg 18-27 February, Lord Roberts' troops managed to push through Boer delaying actions and took Bloemfontein, capital of the Orange Free State on 13 March. As part of the operation, a cavalry raid behind enemy lines north of the town destroyed a section of railway to hinder Boer efforts at relief. As the raiders headed back towards the British lines, under close pursuit, one of the horses, ridden by a Royal Engineer, failed to climb a very steep bank. Sergeant Engleheart of the 10th Hussars turned back, despite heavy enemy fire, and used his expertise as a horseman to help the sapper and his horse up the slope and away to safety. Engleheart was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1915: The British offensive at Neuve Chapelle was halted, as it became clear that the significant gains achieved on the first day (10 March) would not be repeated - an attack on Aubers failed disastrously - German reinforcements continued to reach the area, artillery ammunition ran short, and casualties rapidly mounted to a total of 7,000 British and 4,200 Indian troops.

1917: An attack by the 7th Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment was met by very heavy machine-gun and artillery fire, and ground to a halt in No Man's Land, with the survivors seeking what shelter they could in craters. Private Cox, a stretcher bearer, went out into the barrage, and worked tirelessly to rescue casualties. On four occasions, he managed to carry back wounded men on his own. Once all the wounded from the Bedfordshires had been recovered, he made his way over to a flanking battalion and assisted their medical orderlies in clearing their wounded. He continued in similar fashion for the next two days, and was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1940: The peace treaty ending the (Soviet-Finnish) ‘Winter War’ was signed in Moscow

1941: Glasgow and Clydeside suffered their first major Luftwaffe raid. 236 aircraft dropped 272 tons of high explosive and 59,400 incendiaries. In the shipbuilding town of Clydebank only seven houses were left undamaged, and three-quarters of its population were made homeless. The raid left 1,100 civilians dead and further 1,000 injured.

1944: In Burma, Lieutenant Cairns of the Somerset Light Infantry, but attached to the South Staffordshire Regiment, led his platoon in an attack on a Japanese position on a hill. As they closed the enemy, a Japanese officer attacked Cairns with a sword, severing his left arm. Cairns, however, managed to kill his opponent, then seized the sword and continued to lead the attack, killing several Japanese with it before he collapsed from his wounds. The ferocity of his courage induced the Japanese troops to turn and run - almost unheard of at that stage of the war. Cairns died of his wounds, and was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

The unescorted merchantman Peleus was hit by two torpedoes from U-852 and sank rapidly about 500 miles north of Ascension Island. The U-boat tried to destroy all evidences of the sinking by shooting at debris and rafts from the ship. During this action some survivors were killed and only four men were alive when the U-boat left the area. One of them later died, the remaining three survivors were picked up by the Portuguese SS Alexandre Silva on 20 April and taken to Angola

On This Day ... in 1339 & Others

Despite the failure of their attempt almost exactly a year before (26 March 1338) to take Gorey Castle on Jersey, the French fleet, reinforced by Italian mercenary galleys, attacked the island again. The castle's garrison had been reinforced to some 300 men and they once more drove off the French assault.

1664: New Jersey becomes a British colony as King Charles II granted land in the New World to his brother James, the Duke of York

1879: Zulu forces surprised a wagon train escorted by men of the 80th Regiment at the Ntombe River. The commanding officer, Captain Moriarty, was killed in the first rush, and the other officer, Lieutenant Hayward, abandoned his men and fled. The situation was only saved by Sergeant Booth, who rallied a few men and covered the retreat of the main party for more than three miles before the Zulus broke off their pursuit.

His action having saved at least fifty lives, Booth was awarded the Victoria Cross & later achieved the rank of colour-sergeant.

The London Gazette described him as a Colour Sergeant, but on the day of the Battle of Ntombe, he was actually a Sergeant, his promotion came the following day to replace a Colour Sergeant killed in the action. The gazetting of his VC was delayed due to the fact the surviving officer from the action Lt. Henry Hollingworth Harward was court-martialled for cowardice, the trial commenced on 20 February 1880 and concluded on 27 February 1880, during the course of the trial Booth's award appeared in the London Gazette on 24 February 1880.

1900: Lord Roberts column reached Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State as part of his strategy of extending the war into the heart of the Boer republics

1915: No less than seven VCs were won in a single day at the height of the British offensive at Neuve Chapelle.

Corporal Anderson, Yorkshire Regiment, repelled an enemy attack with grenades and rifle fire.

Guardsman Barber, Grenadier Guards, used grenades in a lone attack so effectively that large numbers of Germans surrendered to him; he was killed in action later in the day.

Lance Corporal Fuller, also Grenadier Guards, achieved a similar feat, taking 50 prisoners single-handed.

Company Sergeant Major Daniels and Corporal Noble of the Rifle Brigade cut paths through heavy barbed wire entanglements, fully exposed to enemy fire. Both were wounded, Noble fatally.

Captain Foss, Bedfordshire Regiment, led just eight men to recapture a trench and take prisoner 52 Germans, who had previously wiped out a much larger British attack.

Private Rivers, Sherwood Foresters, twice broke up German counter-attacks on his own ; he was killed on the second occasion.

Further north, in Belgium, Lieutenant Martin, Royal Engineers, despite already being wounded, led a small bombing party armed with large numbers of grenades in an attack on a difficult section of German trenches. He and his men took the position, then held it for well over two hours against German counter-attacks, before being ordered to retire due to lack of progress elsewhere in the attack. Martin received the eighth Victoria Cross of the day.

1940: The Royal Navy’s Home Fleet returned to station at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands from Rosyth and Loch Ewe after the completion of a substantial improvements to anti-aircraft and anti-submarine defences.

Plans were finalised for the invasion of Norway. Landings were planned at Narvik and Trondheim in order to secure the rail line to Sweden and its large iron-ore fields, thereby denying Germany vitally needed raw materials

1941: The original incident used in Compton Mackenzie's Whisky Galore occured in the Hebrides when a cargo ship (Politician) ran aground with her holds full of whisky. Islanders hid the quarter of a million bottles from Customs officers

1942: Japanese Prime Minister General Tojo Hideki urged Australia to submit to Japanese rule or face an invasion like the recently conquered Dutch East Indies

1943: Bomber Command returned to Essen, which it had bombed with significant accuracy on 5 March. Once again, the new Oboe blind-bombing system allowed Pathfinder Mosquitoes to mark the target with precision, and the Main Force bombing was centred on the huge Krupps armaments factory, causing yet more damage.

On This Day ... in 1845 & Others

The First Maori (or Flagstaff) War began, when Maoris under Hone Heke Pokai attacked colonial settlers and drove them away, following a protracted dispute over a flagstaff erected the previous year on Maiki Hill to fly the Union Flag.

1858: During the assault on the rebel-held city of Lucknow, no less than four Victoria Crosses were won. Captain Wilmot of the Rifle Brigade led his company in fierce street fighting, and at one point found himself with only four men, facing a heavy Mutineer counter-attack. One of his men fell badly wounded in the legs, whereupon Corporal Nash and Private Hawkes (himself badly wounded) managed to carry the casualty slowly back to safety, whilst Captain Wilmot used their rifles to cover the retreat. Wilmot, Nash and Hawkes all received the VC.

The fourth VC was won by Lieutenant McBean of the 93rd Regiment, who killed eleven men in hand-to-hand fighting whilst storming a breach in the walls of the Begum Kothi, one of the main strongpoints in Lucknow's defences.

1917: British, Indian and ANZAC forces captured Baghdad, having broken the Turkish defences along the Dialah River.

1944: In Burma, Nand Singh, a Naik with 1/11th Sikh Regiment, led his section in a counter-attack after the Japanese had succeeded in taking a British position on a ridge-line. He led his men up a very steep and exposed hillside, in the face of heavy machine-gun fire, and despite being repeatedly wounded in the leg, face and shoulder, did not rest until all three trenches had been taken. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

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 William 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.

On This Day ... in 1858 & Others

At Lucknow, Lieutenant Thomas Adair Butler of the 1st European Bengal Fusliers swam across the Goomtee River under enemy fire to conduct a reconnaissance of the mutineers' positions for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross. His citation reads

On 9th March 1858 at Lucknow, India, in order to ascertain the enemy position and to inform his superiors, Lieutenant Butler swam the River Goomtee, on the banks of which the city stands, mounted the Parapet on a fieldwork and remained there for a considerable time, exposed to the enemy's fire. He stayed there until the relieving force arrived.

He was later promoted to major and passed away at Camberley, Surrey, at the age of 65

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Francis Farquharson of the Black Watch led an assault on an artillery position which threatened the British advance.

He was awarded the VC & his citation reads

For conspicuous bravery, when engaged before Lucknow, on 9 March 1858, in having led a portion of his company, stormed a bastion mounting two guns, and spiked the guns, by which the advanced position held during the night of 9th March was rendered secure from the fire of artillery. Lieutenant Farquharson was severely wounded, while holding an advanced position on the morning of 10th of March.

He recovered from his wounds to later achieve the rank of Major & died in 1875

1943: RAF Bomber Command attacked Munich with 264 aircraft. The western part of the city suffered particular damage, including the BMW aircraft engine factory and the headquarters of the anti-aircraft defences. Eight RAF bombers failed to return.

1945 U.S. bombers launched a new bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history.

The bombing of the downtown Tokyo suburb of Shitamachi had been approved only a few hours earlier. Shitamachi was composed of roughly 750,000 people living in cramped quarters in wooden-frame buildings. Setting ablaze this "paper city" was an experiment in the effects of firebombing; it also destroyed the light industries, called "shadow factories," that produced prefabricated war materials destined for Japanese aircraft factories.

The civil defences of Shitamachi were overwhelmed, fire brigades being hopelessly undermanned, badly trained, and poorly equipped. At 5:34 p.m., Superfortress B-29 bombers took off from Saipan and Tinian, reaching their target at 12:15 a.m. on March 10. 334 bombers, flying at a mere 500 feet, dropped their loads, creating a giant bonfire fanned by 30-knot winds that helped raze Shitamachi and spread the flames throughout Tokyo.

On This Day ... in 647 & Others

St Felix, first bishop of East Anglia, died. Felix was born and consecrated in Burgundy, but came to England to help in the conversion of the English. The fellow-feeling was mutual: in the eighth century a number of the English, most famously Boniface and Willibrord, would return to the continent to convert the heathen on the Continent.

Felix came to Honorius (c.630-653), fourth archbishop of Canterbury in line from St Augustine who had brought Christianity from Rome to King Æthelberht of Kent in 597. Honorius sent Felix on to East Anglia, which had switched between Christianity and paganism several times since the East Anglian king Rædwald became a Christian at the Kentish court in the first decade or so of the seventh century. (Bede tells the story that when Rædwald got home, his wife convinced him not to abandon his old gods so easily, so Rædwald had shrines to his heathen gods and the Christian god in the same temple.)

Rædwald's son Eorpwald succeeded sometime after 616, initially as a pagan but he was converted by the Northumbrian king Edwin sometime around 630. Shortly after Eorpwald became Christian, he was killed, and the country turned pagan again.

1702: Queen Anne ascended the throne upon the death of King William III

1862: The Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia destroyed the Union sloop USS Cumberland by ramming and the frigate USS Congress by gunfire in Hampton Roads, VA.

In Washington, D.C., many of senior officials panicked, convinced that Virginia posed a grave threat to Union sea power and coastal cities. They were unaware of Virginia’s serious operational limitations. Her deep draft, weak power plant and extremely poor sea keeping characteristics restricted her use to deep channels in calm, inland waterways.

Union worries were alleviated the next day, when Virginia returned to Hampton Roads to attack the grounded steam frigate USS Minnesota. There she found the Union's own pioneer ironclad, USS Monitor waiting. A second historic battle ensued, with the two opponents firing away, without mortal effect, until the action ended in a tactical draw.

1916: During the Battle of Es Sinn in Mesopotamia, a battalion of the Manchester Regiment succeeded in capturing a section of the Turkish lines in an effort to relieve the besieged garrison of British and Indian Army troops at Kut-el-Amara.

However, a vigorous Turkish counter-attack threw the Manchesters back again. Their safe withdrawal was made possible by the gallantry of one individual, Private Stringer, who had been posted on the extreme right of the line.

He held his ground as the rest of the battalion fell back, and, well supplied with hand grenades, single-handedly broke up the Turkish pursuit until all his grenades had been used up. Only then did he retire to join his colleagues, who had been able to consolidate a defensive position a little way back.

Three days later he saved the lives of two officers, for which he was Mentioned in Despatches and the Serbians awarded him the Milosh Obilich Gold Medal for Bravery. Some time after this he was wounded and developed enteric fever and jaundice. He was retuned to Britain in June 1917.

As a result of his wounds he was given a disability pension and a job as a doorkeeper with the Manchester Assistance Board which he kept until he retired at age 62, with time out during World War II for a stint as a munitions worker. He died on the 10 November 1957.

His citation reads

For most conspicuous bravery and determination. After the capture of an enemy position, he was posted on the extreme right of the Battalion in order to guard against any hostile attack. His battalion was subsequently forced back by an enemy counter-attack, but Private Stringer held his ground single-handed and kept back the enemy till all his hand-grenades were expended. His very gallant stand saved the flank of his battalion and rendered a steady withdrawal possible.

1917: After the disastrous attempt to cross the Dialah River in Mesopotamia on 7 March which had already seen the award of a VC to Signaller White, only Captain Reid of the King's Regiment was left on the enemy side of the river, with a small number of troops. For over 30 hours, Reid and his men held off constant Turkish efforts to eliminate them, with no ammunition or supplies able to reach them, and no possibility of escape. Their continuing presence on the enemy banks proved the necessary advantage when, finally on 10 March, a successful crossing was made by the main force. Reid was awarded the Victoria Cross.

In France, troops from the Rifle Brigade were digging to repair a newly captured trench, when an unexploded bomb was unearthed, and its fuze was seen to activate. Second Lieutenant Cates immediately threw himself on the bomb, and his body absorbed the blast, saving the lives of his men. Cates' self-sacrifice was recognised by a posthumous Victoria Cross.

Russia's February Revolution (so called because of the Old Style calendar being used by Russians at the time) began with rioting and strikes in St Petersburg

1918: In Belgium, Lance Corporal Robertson, Royal Fusiliers, commanded a Lewis Gun team. They succeeded in repelling a German attack, but Robertson realised that more enemy troops were mustering. He therefore sent his men back with a warning to the main British positions, remaining behind with only one man and the Lewis Gun. The two of them broke up a second German attack, causing large casualties, but Robertson then decided to withdraw some way, no reinforcements having reached him. He continued fighting off further attacks, despite the death of his comrade, and finally reached the British lines severely wounded with all his ammunition used up. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1940: The destroyer HMCS Assiniboine & cruiser HMS Dunedin captured the German SS Hanover near Jamaica. Hanover was later rebuilt as escort carrier HMS Audacity.

The effort expended to capture Hanover, however, allowed German freighters SS Mimi Horn & SS Seattle to escape the Caribbean and make a break for Germany. Mimi Horn was scuttled to avoid capture in the Denmark Strait on 28 March. The Seattle was lost during the early phases of the invasion of Norway on 8-9 April

1941: The destroyer HMS Wolverine avenged the battleship Royal Oak, sunk at Scapa Flow in 1939, when she caught the U-boat responsible, U-47 commanded by Gunther Prien, in bad weather in the North Atlantic. U-47 was shadowing a convoy OB.293, but was spotted by Wolverine as a rain squall cleared, and sunk after a series of determined depth charge attacks. Prien, one of the most successful of all U-boat commanders, was lost with his crew.

Convoy SL-67 escaped attack from the German battleships Scharnhorst & Gneisenau because the battleship HMS Malaya is present. Hitler had ordered that no risk of damage to German capital ships is to be run.

The US Senate passed the Lend Lease bill by a vote of 60 to 31. The House of Representatives had passed the bill by a vote of 260 to 165 on 8 February 1941 but there are differences in the two bills and it was sent to a joint committee to resolve the differences

1942: A Japanese convoy arrived in Huon Gulf during the night of the 7th/8th and under cover of a naval bombardment landed assault forces at Salamaua and Lae without opposition.

The 2nd Maizuru Special Naval Landing Force and 400-men of a naval construction battalion landed at Lae while a battalion group of the 144th Regiment landed at Salamaua.

The RAAF 32 Sqn flying Hudsons based at Seven Mile Airstrip, Port Moresby attacked the transports and scored a direct hit on an 8,000-ton ship, which is later seen to be burning and listing

1943: USS Sable had been launched in 1923 as SS Greater Buffalo commissioned today. The conversion consisted of removing the old superstructure and building a flight deck of 500 to 535 feet (152.4 to 163.1 meters) over the hull. A small island was built on the starboard side and smokestacks were placed behind the island to vent the gases. USS Sable's flight deck was steel, the first US aircraft carrier to be constructed of that material. The Sable was one of two paddlewheelers used on the Great Lakes for training of naval air crews

Admiral Standley, United States Ambassador to Russia, made statement in Moscow that news of important American aid was being kept from Russian people. "It is not fair to mislead Americans into giving millions from their pockets, thinking that they are aiding the Russian people, without the Russian people knowing about it"

1965: The US Seventh Fleet landed the first major units (3,500 Marines) in South Vietnam at Danang

On This Day ... in 1917 & 1918

A river crossing operation in Mesopotamia involving the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment came under very heavy fire, and the first two boats were lost with their occupants. The third boat was also raked by fire, and every man aboard killed or wounded, save only Private Jack White, a signaller.

Unable to control the boat on his own, he improvised a towing line from a supply of field telephone cable he was carrying, then dived overboard, and slowly towed the heavy pontoon back to shore despite a continuing barrage of fire, saving the lives of all the wounded aboard, as well as a large quantity of equipment. White was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1918: British forces intervened in the Russian Civil War and began naval operations against Red revolutionaries in the Murmansk and Archangel areas.

1940: Cunard Line's newest ship, RMS Queen Elizabeth was given a heroine's welcome when she docked in New York City. The 83,673 ton passenger liner, the biggest in the world, dashed across the Atlantic at an average speed of 24.5 knots, relying on her speed to evade the U-boats and dropping her destroyer escort one day out. The voyage was kept a firm secret until the liner shrouded in wartime gray, appeared over the horizon moving towards Nantucket.

On This Day ... 1902 & Others

Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service was established

1941: German planes successfully lay mines in the Suez Canal, temporarily closing it to British shipping

The workers at John Brown's shipyards in Glasgow, went out on strike

1941: Churchill issued his Battle of the Atlantic directive. Catapult armed merchantmen (CAM) were to be fitted out, merchant ships to be given AA weapons as a first priority, and more Coastal Command squadrons formed with radar equipped aircraft.

Port and dockyard congestion were to be dealt with and the defence of ports greatly improved. These and numerous other matters are to be dealt with as a matter of the very highest priority. In the North Atlantic, the battle raged and the very survival of Great Britain depended upon its outcome.

During the month, a total of 63 Allied and neutral ships totalling 365,000 tons were lost in the Atlantic from all causes. In return, the Germans lost 5 U-boats

1942: Aircraft carrier HMS Eagle arrived in Malta, delivering 18 badly need Spitfires to bolster air defences. In addition, 7 Blenheim bombers are also sent to enable offensive actions to commence against Axis convoys

On This Day ... in 1933 & Others

In German parliamentary elections, the Nazi Party won 44 percent of the vote, enabling it to join with the Nationalists to gain a slender majority in the Reichstag

1943: Bomber Command began what Sir Arthur Harris called "The Battle of the Ruhr", with a sustained series of attacks on the German industrial heartland.

The first attack was on Essen, home of the Krupps armaments complex and much other heavy industry. 442 aircraft were sent against the city, one of the aircraft clocking up Bomber Command's 100,000th sortie of the war. Essen was always one of Bomber Command's most difficult targets, since it was very heavily defended, and usually hidden under a heavy industrial haze. On this occasion, however, the new Oboe precision bombing system, fitted to Pathfinder Mosquitoes, allowed the target to be marked accurately, and 160 acres were destroyed, with heavy damage caused to the Krupps works.

1945: Rifleman Bhanbhagta Gurung of the 2nd Gurkha Rifles successfully hunted down a Japanese sniper who had kept his section under fire at Snowdon East in Burma. He then went forward alone and killed the defenders in four enemy positions, including a machine-gun team in a bunker. Supported now by three other Gurkhas, he defended the captured bunker against a Japanese counter-attack, driving the enemy back with very heavy losses. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

On this day ... in 1941 & Others

Five Royal Navy destroyers and two troop transports landed 500 British Commandos, Royal Engineers and Free Norwegian troops at dawn on the Lofoten Islands, in the first Commando raid, Operation Claymore. In the eight hours they were ashore, the raiders destroyed the oil factories on the islands (some 3,600 tonnes - 800,000 gallons - of oil and glycerine) and returned with 315 volunteers for the Norwegian forces, 60 ‘Quisling’ collaborators plus 225 German prisoners.

Through naval gunfire and demolition parties, 18,000 tons of shipping were sunk and the boarding of the German armed trawler Krebs yielded a set of rotor wheels for an Enigma cypher machine and its code books, a most significant haul

One humorous incident which took place was the sending of a telegram from Stamsund addressed to A.Hitler,Berlin, it read: "you said in your last speech German troops would meet the British wherever they landed. Where are your troops?"

The only casualty was a British officer who accidently shot himself in the thigh (nothing changes - Ed)

1942: The submarine HMS Torbay, under Commander Anthony Miers, followed an Axis convoy and succeeded in penetrating the heavily defended anchorage at Corfu.

Torbay proceeded to fire torpedoes at two large transports and a destroyer - both transports were reported sunk - then retreated out to sea under very heavy depth charge attack. Torbay escaped successfully, and Miers was awarded the Victoria Cross for the exploit. His citation reads:

Lieutenant Commander Anthony Cecil Chapel Miers DSO Royal Navy Whilst on patrol in HM Submarine Torbay off the Greek coast on the 4th March 1942. Lieutenant Commander Miers sighted a northbound convoy of four troopships entering the South Corfu Channel and since they had been too far distant for him to attack initially, he decided to follow in the hope of catching them in Corfu Harbour. During the night 4/5 March, Torbay approached undetected up the channel and remained on the surface charging her battery. Unfortunately the convoy passed straight through the channel but on the morning of the 5th March, in glassy sea conditions, Miers successfully attacked two store ships present in the roadstead and then brought Torbay safely back to the open sea. The submarine endured 40 depth charges and had been in closely patrolled enemy waters for seventeen hours

Miers later achieved the rank of Rear Admiral but remained a controversial figure after two incidents earlier in the war that took place while commanding HMS Torbay.

In November 1940 he was given command of HM Submarine Torbay. He sailed on his first offensive patrol in March 1941 to hunt for the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, then continued to Gibraltar, then Alexandria, to join 1st Flotilla. Miers' first patrol from Alexandria in July 1941 featured two incidents which gave rise to the accusation of war crimes.

The Admiralty then sent a strongly worded letter to Miers advising him not to repeat the practices of his last patrol

1943: The Battle of the Bismarck Sea was fought with a Japanese convoy of 12 transports and 10 warships bound for New Guinea. The convoy was destroyed by Allied land based aircraft

The March 4, 1943, entry in the diary of Lowell Thomas, the famous radio newscaster, was typically succinct:

From the coast of New Britain to the coast of New Guinea, the waters are strewn with the wreckage of Japanese ships and airplanes. the battle of the Bismarck Sea was spectacular victory.

Japanese losses totalled:
8 transports and 4 destroyers sunk
20 fighters destroyed
3,000-5,000 troops killed

Allied losses in comparison were 2 bombers and 3 fighters lost.

The brilliantly conceived and executed operation had smashed Japanese hopes of regaining the initiative in New Guinea and eliminated any possibility Australia might be invaded. But there was still a 'terrible yet essential finale' to come.

For several days after the battle allied aircrews patrolled the Huon Gulf, searching for and strafing barges and rafts crowded with survivors. It was grim and bloody work which many found nauseating, but as one RAAF Beaufighter pilot said, every enemy they prevented from getting ashore was one less for their Army colleagues to face. And after fifteen months of Japanese brutality, the great immorality, it seemed to them, would have been to have ignored the rights of their soldiers

On This Day ... in 1838 & Others

British troops, supported by local militia from Fort Malden attacked William Lyon Mackenzie's rebels encamped on Pelee Island, on Lake Erie. About 400 of Mackenzie's republican supporters planned to use the island as a starting point for their "liberation" of Canada. Following a spirited bayonet charge by British troops, the rebels abandoned the island and retreated across the frozen lake back to the United States

1895: On the North West Frontier, word was brought to the garrison at Chitral Fort that an officer had been badly wounded some 1.5 miles distant. Surgeon-Captain Whitchurch immediately set out with a rescue party. They reached the wounded officer, but as they were carrying him back, they came under very heavy fire. Three of the stretcher bearers were killed, whereupon Whitchurch hoisted the officer onto his back, and carried him the remainder of the way to the fort, all the time under fire. Sadly, the officer's wounds proved fatal, but Whitchurch was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1901: Lieutenant Frederic Brooks Dugdale of the 5th Royal Irish Lancers, earned the Victoria Cross for his rescue under fire of two wounded and unhorsed troopers during a Boer War skirmish. He dismounted and put one of the men in his own saddle, then caught one of the riderless horses, mounted it and pulled the second casualty up behind him. He then took both horses and the wounded back to the British lines.

1942: Bomber Command launched its largest raid thus far of the war, in an attempt to conduct night low-level precision bombing against the large Renault factory at Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, which was an important source of trucks for the German military. Some 235 bombers attacked, in an hitherto unprecedented concentration over the target - 121 per hour - which demonstrated that the risk of collision at night was lower than feared, no accidents being suffered. The raid's great success - 300 bombs fell directly on the factory, causing an estimated loss of production of 2,300 trucks - was marred by heavy casualties amongst the French civilian population; 367 were killed.

The same night, the Lancaster bomber, the finest heavy bomber of the war, made its operational debut with 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron ; four aircraft laid mines off the German North Sea coast.

1945: During an attack by the Green Howards on Japanese bunkers in Burma, Lieutenant William Basil Weston distinguished himself leading the charge on a number of strong-points. In the attack on the last and most difficult bunker, Weston fell wounded in the entrance. He deliberately pulled the pin from one of his grenades, and blew up himself and the bunker. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

On This Day ... in 1944 & Others

The frigates of the Royal Navy's First Escort Group brought the longest continuous U-boat hunt to a successful conclusion, destroying U-358, but losing HMS Gould.

The hunt started on 29 February, and HM Ships Affleck, Gould, Gore and Garlies dropped some 104 depth charges over the following two days. Gore and Garlies had to withdraw to Gibraltar for fuel, but Affleck and Gould continued the attack. U-358 succeeded in torpedoing Gould, but was then forced to the surface and finished off by Affleck's gunfire.

1945: Naik (Corporal equivalent) Fazal Din of the 10th Baluch Regiment conducted a lone attack on a Japanese bunker, which was pinning down his section.

Having eliminated its defenders, he then attacked a second, from which six Japanese charged forth. A Japanese officer ran his sword through Fazal Din's chest, but as he pulled the blade out, the mortally wounded Naik wrestled it from his grip, and killed the officer with his own sword. He then killed a second Japanese soldier with the sword, as his men advanced to capture the bunker. Fazal Din managed to stagger back to report the success of the attack, before dying from his injuries. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

Elsewhere in Burma, Gian Singh, a Naik of the 15th Punjab Regiment, single-handedly attacked a series of Japanese positions.

Despite being wounded, he cleared a series of trenches and a concealed anti-tank gun, then led his section forward to complete the reduction of the enemy position. He received the Victoria Cross.

1969: Concorde flew for the first time

1970: Ian Smith declared Rhodesia a republic saying,

Rhodesia did not want to seize independence from Britain. It was forced upon us

and cutting its last link with the British Crown. Mr Smith signed a proclamation officially dissolving the current parliament and introducing a new Republican Constitution.

On This Day ... in 1596 & Others

Following the failure to take the Panamanian Isthmus, and the deaths of Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake, the remnants of the previous year's expedition to the West Indies was headed home under the command of Sir Thomas Baskerville when it was caught by a Spanish fleet off the north-west coast of Cuba near the Isle of Pines. Thus occurred the only fleet engagement of the Anglo-Spanish war, other than the Armada battles of 1588.

The English ships enjoyed the advantage of the wind, but had to fight through the Spanish in order to get away, past a headland. They succeeded in this, and after a desultory pursuit by the Spaniards, finally got clear and eventually reached England without further mishap in May.

1858: During the Indian Mutiny, Lieutenant Aikman, commanding a force of 100 infantry, was alerted to the presence of some 700 mutineers, including cavalry and artillery. Notwithstanding the odds, nor the fire coming from an enemy fort close by, Aikman led his men in an immediate attack, and comprehensively routed his opponents, capturing their artillery. In the process, Aikman received a severe sword wound to the face, but survived to receive the Victoria Cross.

1942: The cruiser HMS Exeter, famed for her role in the defeat of the Graf Spee at the River Plate in 1939, and damaged two days earlier at the Battle of the Java Sea , [see 27 Feb] attempted to escape through the Sunda Strait, escorted by the destroyers HMS Encounter and the USS John D Pope. Not far ahead of them, the Dutch destroyer Evertsen, also making a run for the Strait, was spotted at dawn by Japanese ships and sunk. Daylight allowed Japanese aircraft to spot Exeter and her consorts, and two Japanese heavy cruiser squadrons were tasked to deal with them. The already damaged Exeter fought back for over an hour in a most unequal fight, whilst her escorts did their best to protect he with a smoke-screen. Exeter finally went down at 1130, followed shortly afterwards by Encounter. John D Pope survived a little longer by hiding in a sudden squall, before she too was destroyed by the heavy cruisers.

1943: 302 aircraft of Bomber Command mounted a successful raid on Berlin, causing significant damage, including to twenty factories. Some 22 acres of the large railway repair workshops at Tempelhof were destroyed.

1945: During fierce fighting in the Hochwald Forest, Major Tilston of the Canadian Essex-Scottish Regiment led his company in an assault on a formidable German position behind a belt of barbed wire ten feet deep. Despite being wounded in the head, Tilston was the first to reach the enemy position, where he killed a machine-gun crew, before heading towards a second strongpoint. He was hit again, in the hip, but continued to lead another successful attack. Although then wounded a third time, and almost unconscious, he refused medical attention until he had issued orders for the defence of the newly-won territory.

In another infantry attack, this time at Kervenheim in the Rhineland, soldiers from the King's Shropshire Light Infantry were pinned down by heavy machine-gun fire from a farmhouse. Private Stokes dashed forward alone and, despite being wounded, broke into the building, emerging shortly afterwards with twelve prisoners. He refused medical attention and attacked a second building, where he took five more prisoners. Although by now seriously weakened, he insisted on taking part in a third attack, but was killed twenty yards short of his objective.

Both Private Stokes and Major Tilston were awarded the Victoria Cross.

1950: Nuclear scientist & Communist spy Klaus Fuchs was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for espionage.

1954: The US has produced the biggest ever man-made explosion so far in the Pacific archipelago of Bikini, part of the Marshall Islands. The 15 megaton hydrogen bomb was up to 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. It was so violent that it overwhelmed the measuring instruments, indicating that the bomb was much more powerful than scientists had anticipated.

One of the atolls has been totally vaporised, disappearing into a gigantic mushroom cloud that spread at least 100 miles wide

On This Day ... in 1940 & Others (29 Feb)

1940: The wreck of the Admiral Graf Spee was sold to a ‘local company’ for scrap, having been scuttled after the Battle of the River Plate . The hulk, resting in 20 feet of water, was slowly sinking into the muddy seabed.

Only later did it become clear that the ‘local company’ was in fact a front for the British Embassy which wanted access to the wreck for intelligence purposes.

To this end, technicians had been flown in to assess in particular, the capabilities of German maritime radar. Much of this equipment was removed and shipped back to Great Britain for further examination.

1944: In Anzio, Italy, the Allies fend off a German attack on their right flank.

1952: The island of Heligoland was restored to Germany. In 1807 it was seized by the British during the Napoleonic wars and given up by them to Germany in 1890. It was utilised as a major naval base under the German Empire during the First World War and again during World War Two.

On 18 April 1945 over a thousand Allied bombers attacked the islands. 128 people (mostly anti-aircraft crews) were killed and the civil population (having been protected by rock shelters) were evacuated straight after the raid. The Royal Navy detonated 6,800 tons (6,909 metric tons) of explosives on 18 April 1947 in a concerted attempt to completely destroy the main island, and whilst military installations were destroyed, most of the island remained.

In 1952 the islands were restored to the German authorities, who had to clear huge amounts of un-detonated ammunition before it could be reinhabited.

On This Day ... in 1337 & Others

Sir Andrew Murray or Moray was the son and namesake of William Wallace's companion-in-arms. Although less well known than his father, Andrew Moray, his career in many ways was of greater significance. As the Guardian of Scotland, he took advantage of Edward III's distraction by the French threat to his Gascon possessions, and spent the month of February eliminating English garrisons in northern Scotland. The last day of the month saw St Andrews fall after a three-week siege, which had seen its walls assailed by "Buster", a formidable siege engine.

1579: Francis Drake, on his extended raiding circumnavigation of the world in the Golden Hind, captured the Spanish Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion off the Ecuadorian coast, carrying 26 tons of silver.

1825: The Convention on dividing Russian and British possessions in North America is concluded

1940: Royal Navy divers recovered three rotors from a top-secret Enigma enciphering machine on board U-33. The U-boat, caught minelaying off Scotland, scuttled herself after being forced to the surface by depth charges from the sloop HMS Gleaner.

1942: The Australian and US cruisers, HMAS Perth

and USS Houston, survivors of the Battle of the Java Sea attempted to escape from Batavia through the Sunda Strait. However, in the night they encountered the Japanese invasion fleet in Bantam Bay. Massively outgunned, they went down fighting to the last. Less than half their ships' companies survived, to face long years of imprisonment in Japanese camps.

The Japanese invasion of Java signalled defeat in the Netherlands East Indies and was another in the series of victories won by the Japanese in the opening six months of the Pacific war.

Admiral Yamamoto, Commander of the Combined Fleet, issued Navy Directive No. 60, which states that the Japanese Navy is to consider Soviet ships as "absolutely neutral"

1991: At 0500 GMT, Coalition forces suspended offensive military operations in the Gulf, Kuwait having been liberated after a ground campaign lasting 100 hours. Troops from seventeen nations had either participated in the ground offensive or had manned defensive positions in Saudi Arabia, guarding against any attempted Iraqi counter-attacks. 1st (British) Armoured Division had advanced 200 miles, destroyed or captured some 200 tanks, 100 armoured vehicles and 100 artillery guns. 7,000 prisoners had been taken by the Division, including 2 Iraqi divisional commanders. British fatalities in the Gulf, from first deployment in August 1990 to the cessation of hostilities, totalled 47, of which 24 were suffered during operations.

On This Day ... in 1814 & Others

Whilst British troops under Lieutenant-General Hope beseiged Bayonne, Wellington led his main force against the main French field forces in the south of France, commanded by Marshal Soult. Wellington launched his attack with 44,000 men against Soult's 36,000 men drawn up on a ridgeline at Orthes.

Sir Rowland Hill led the right wing in a diversionary attack, whilst Sir William Beresford and Sir Thomas Picton led the main assaults on the left and in the centre. After initial successes, both Beresford and Picton's attacks stalled, but Wellington spotted an opening in the disjointed French lines, and himself led three battalions to exploit the weakness.

The French defeat was completed by Hill, who had managed to get behind Soult and force him to run for a bridge before his escape route was totally cut. Wellington's victory secured the British presence on French soil, and opened up routes to Bordeaux, which promptly surrendered, and Toulouse.

1881: During an action with Boers, Lance Corporal Farmer, a medical orderly, stood exposed to enemy fire, holding a white flag over a group of wounded men, in an effort to spare them further attack. The Boers kept up their fire, and Farmer was badly wounded in the arm holding in the flag. However, he rose again to his feet, and continued to hold high the flag with his other arm, until he was shot in that limb as well. His efforts to protect the men, at great personal risk, was recognised with the award of the Victoria Cross.

1900: Nineteen years later, during the Boer War, troops from the West Yorkshire Regiment attacked up the northern slope of Terrace Hill, near Tugela in Natal. Their advance was met with a barrage of fire, and faltered. Captain Mansel-Jones braved the enemy fire to remuster his men, and, despite suffering a very serious wound, led them once more up the hill in a charge which took the Boer position. He received the Victoria Cross.

1942: As the Japanese advance rapidly spread throughout the Dutch East Indies, the Dutch Rear-Admiral Karel Doorman led out a force of Dutch, British, Australian and US cruisers and destroyers in a desperate effort to locate an invasion convoy en route to Java. The Japanese fleet enjoyed superior firepower, and, crucially, the benefit of spotting aircraft. The largest surface action since the battle of Jutland commenced at 1600, and the Japanese advantage in numbers of heavy guns, plus their incomparable torpedoes, soon showed, with Doorman's flagship De Ruyter and HMS Exeter suffering damage, and the destroyer Kortenaer sunk. Commander May in the destroyer HMS Electra mounted a gallant but suicidal attack which succeeded in saving HMS Exeter. As night fell, HMS Jupiter blew up on hitting a stray mine, and the Japanese crowned their victory with a night torpedo attack that claimed the Dutch cruisers De Ruyter and Java. Doorman was lost with his flagship.

Meanwhile in France, the newly formed Parachute Regiment mounted a daring raid on a German radar station on the cliff tops at Bruneval, near Le Havre. Intelligence had identified the location as one of an increasing number of radar sites in Occupied Europe, but important technical details of the equipment's capabilities were needed to develop counter-measures, especially for Bomber Command aircraft. Major John Frost, commanding C Company of the 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, was tasked with capturing the station and bringing back to the UK key parts of the Wurzburg radar set. His 120 men were accompanied by an RAF Flight Sergeant radar technician, who had never parachuted before, to inspect the radar in situ, and a team of Royal Engineers. Frost named his three assault groups Drake, Rodney and Nelson, in recognition of the force's dependence on the Royal Navy to retrieve them from the beaches that night.

Twelve RAF Whitley bombers from 51 Squadron RAF dropped Frost's men accurately on the cliff tops. Although caught totally by surprise, German troops in the area fought back. However, the Wurzburg was captured, along with one of its operators, and Flight Sergeant Cox identified the essential parts of the radar to be carried down to the waiting landing craft. The raid provided invaluable intelligence on the Wurzburg system, a specialised precision radar system for controlling anti-aircraft guns, searchlights and night-fighters.

To this day, one of the sub-units of the 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, is named Bruneval Company.

On This Day ... in 1815 & Others

Bonaparte made his escape from the island of Elba, an event that plunged Europe into a panic and which reached its climax with the Battle of Waterloo, later in the year

1852: The troopship HMS Birkenhead was en route to Cape Town when it hit an uncharted rock during the night, about three miles off the South African shore, near the appropriately named Danger Point.

Certainty is difficult given the loss of papers in the wreck, but the ship is believed to have had 638 passengers and crew aboard. These included 476 soldiers, from a number of different regiments of the British Army, on their way to reinforce the garrison in the Cape Colony, but also 7 women and 13 children.

The rock tore open the hull, and about 100 soldiers asleep below were drowned immediately. Everyone else mustered on deck, where it was clear the ship was sinking quickly. Only three lifeboats could be used; all the women and children were placed in these, with a few crew to man them. The senior army officer aboard, Lieutenant Colonel Seton of the 74th Foot, drew the soldiers up on parade on the deck, and emphasised the need for absolute discipline if the lifeboats were not to be swamped. Some cavalry horses aboard were freed and driven into the sea in the hope that they might be able to swim themselves ashore. The soldiers stood firm, even as a mast crashed down around them and the ship split in two.

She sank in less than 25 minutes. Only 193 people survived the ordeal - although the weather was excellent, sharks claimed many of the men in the water, as well as most of the horses.

The women and children first ethos was later called the 'Birkenhead Drill' and was celebrated in verse by Rudyard Kipling in Soldier an’ Sailor Too

To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all about,
Is nothing so bad when you've cover to 'and, an' leave an' likin’ to shout;
But to stand an’ be still to the Birken’ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew,
An’ they done it, the Jollies - 'Er Majesty’s Jollies - soldier an' sailor too!
Their work was done when it 'adn’t begun; they was younger nor me an' you;
Their choice it was plain between drownin' in 'eaps an' bein' mopped by the screw,
So they stood an' was still to the Birken'ead drill, soldier an' sailor too!

The bravery and discipline of the soldiers was admired around the world; indeed, an account was later read to every unit of the Prussian army, by order of the Kaiser, as an exemplar of military behaviour.

1903: The Kano-Sokoto expedition was mounted to extend British rule thoughout the northern territories of Nigeria, and in particular to suppress the slave trade. On 26 February, a small party of 45 locally recruited soldiers from the Northern Nigerian Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Wright, were attacked by no less than 3,000 tribesmen, including 1,000 cavalry. For two hours, the soldiers beat back repeated attacks, until eventually the tribesmen started to withdraw in good order. Lieutenant Wright then led his men forward in a charge, and succeeded in turning the withdrawal into a rout. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1915: During the continuing efforts of the Franco-British naval force at the Dardanelles to destroy the Turkish coastal defences, a small party of seamen was landed under the command of Lieutenant Commander Robinson, to demolish a battery at Kum Kale. They were met with heavy fire, and Robinson feared that the men's white uniforms made them too easy a target. He therefore ordered them to remain under cover, and went forward alone. Despite the enemy fire, he succeeded in reaching a gun whose crew had fled, and laid a demolition charge. That gun destroyed, he returned to his men, collected a further supply of explosives, and returned alone to destroy a second position. He subsequently played a leading role in four operations to clear minefields in the straits, and was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1935: RADAR was successfully demonstrated for the time. As Nazi Germany had grown more belligerent finally, and only after years of appeasement, improvements were being made to the state of Great Britain’s air defences

Robert Watson-Watt, a Scottish physicist, had been working on methods of using radio-wave detection to locate thunderstorms in order to provide warnings to airmen. Realizing that a similar system could be used to track enemy aircraft, he drafted a report titled "The Detection of Aircraft by Radio Methods," and presented it to the newly formed committee for the scientific survey of air defence.

Before committing resources to the idea, the Air Ministry insisted on a demonstration. On February 26, 1935, a trial took place using a British Broadcasting Service short-wave radio transmitter to track a Royal Air Force bomber. Encouraged by the success of the trial, the British military installed a chain of radio detection and ranging (RADAR) stations along the east and south coasts of England in time for the outbreak of war in 1939.

By providing crucial advance information about incoming German aircraft, the system enabled the outnumbered Royal Air Force to win the Battle of Britain and to prevent a German invasion. In recognition of the enormous importance of his RADAR, Robert Watson-Watt was knighted in 1942.

1942: Although the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen had succeeded in escaping from Brest to Germany in the Channel Dash, they remained priority targets. Gneisenau was spotted by reconnaissance aircraft in drydock in Kiel, undergoing repairs to the damage inflicted by a mine during the dash. 49 Bomber Command Wellington, Hampden and Halifax aircraft attacked, and a direct hit was scored on the battlecruiser, in the bows, killing 116 crew and causing such severe damage that she never returned to service. Three bombers failed to return.

1949: While HMCS Athabaskan was on fuelling stop at Manzanillo, Mexico, ninety Leading Seamen and below - constituting more than half the ship's company - locked themselves in their messdecks, and refused to come out until getting the captain to hear their grievances.

The captain acted with great sensitivity to defuse the crisis, entering the mess for an informal discussion of the sailors' grievances and carefully avoiding using the term "mutiny" which could have had severe legal consequences for the sailors involved. Specifically, while talking with the disgruntled crew members, the captain is known to have placed his cap over a written list of demands which could have been used as legal evidence of a mutiny, pretending not to notice it.

At nearly the same time, similar incidents happened on Crescent at Nanjing, China and on the the carrier Magnificent in the Caribbean, both of whose captains acted similarly to that of the Athabaskan.

Among the grievances was the assertion of "an uncaring officer corps harbouring aristocratic British attitudes inappropriate to Canadian democratic sensitivities".

On This Day ... in 1570 & Others

Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I although the formal announcment wasn't until 27 April

1836: Inventor Samuel Colt patented his revolver in the US having obtained his first European patent the year before

1941: British troops operating from Kenya occupied Mogadishu, as Italian resistance in Somaliland collapsed.

1944: Bomber Command mounted a devastating attack on Augsburg, the first occasion it had attacked that city in strength. Good weather and poor anti-aircraft defence contributed to a very concentrated attack by 594 aircraft carrying more than 2,000 tons of bombs. The raid subsequently proved somewhat controversial, given the level of destruction in the old city centre. Some 700 Germans were killed, but perhaps 90,000 rendered homeless. An important aircraft component factory was successfully damaged, as well as factories associated with the MAN engineering works, which produced U-boat engines.

During fighting along the banks of the Tigris in Mesopotamia, troops from the South Lancashire Regiment repeatedly attempted to advance along a gully, but suffered heavy casualties each time from a Turkish machine-gun. Private Readitt took part in each of five attacks, and on each occasion was the only survivor. However, the attacks slowly forced the Turks to give ground. When the officer commanding the operation was killed, Readitt when forward once more, alone and on his own initiative. He advanced right up to the Turkish position, and although he was unable to remain there for long, he inflicted damage with grenades. He slowly retired, and located a good defensive position a short distance away, which he proceeded to hold on his own. Eventually, other soldiers managed to advance and join him, and consolidate the position. Readitt was awarded the Victoria Cross and later achieved the rank of Sergeant.

He died in 1964.

1945: Following fierce fighting in Holland, a platoon of The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada had been reduced to just one sergeant and four men during a series of German night counter-attacks. Sergeant Cosens positioned the four riflemen to give him covering fire, then ran to a supporting tank. Standing fully exposed on the tank, he directed its fire to good effect, breaking up another attack. He than asked the tank to bulldoze a way into a German-occupied farm. Cosens went into the farm alone and killed or captured all its defenders. He then succeeded in clearing another two buildings on his own, before being killed by a sniper. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

1951: In Korea, 3rd battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, captured Hill 614 at the second attempt.

Control of this important piece of high ground enabled the United Nations' forces northward advance to the Albany Line to continue.

On This Day ... in 1900 & Others

In South Africa, Sergeant James Firth of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment twice braved enemy fire to rescue wounded men. He was badly wounded in the face on the second occasion.

Elsewhere, near Hart's Hill, Colenso, Lieutenant Edgar Thomas Inkson of the Royal Army Medical Corps

rescued a wounded man, carrying a maimed fellow officer to safety for some 400 yards through heavy fire.

Inkson and Firth each received the Victoria Cross and Inkson later achieved the rank of Colonel during World War I.

1901: Corporal John Clements of Rimington's Guides suffered a bullet in the lungs during a skirmish with Boers. Lying alone, the Boers called on him to surrender, but he instead chose to fight on, and killed three of his opponents at close range. The others promptly chose to surrender to him instead. Clements survived his wound and received the Victoria Cross.

1944: Bomber Command attacked Schweinfurt, the main German industrial centre for ball-bearing production, perceived as a bottle-neck industry which could seriously affect armaments production. 734 aircraft took part, following up on a USAAF raid the previous day. The RAF tried a new tactic, dispatching the force in two waves separated by two hours, in the hope that the Germans would exhaust their night-fighters against the first wave, leaving a clear run for the second. This apparently worked, since of the 33 aircraft lost, only four from the second wave were thought to have fallen to fighter attack. The bombing, however, proved relatively ineffective, with many aircraft dropping short.

On This Day ... in 1633 & Others

Samuel Pepys was born. Although now best remembered as a diarist, his greatest achievements were as the first Secretary to the Admiralty Board, where he did much to reform the administration of the Royal Navy under the Restoration, and laid the foundations for the development of the Service in the eighteenth century into the pre-eminent naval power.

1815: Sir George Prevost, commanding British forces in Canada, submitted his progress report on the Lachine Canal project.

This project, drafted on the heels of the recent war with the United States, would be the first in a system of defensive canals meant to circumvent the St. Lawrence should it be captured by the Americans in a future war

1858: At Sultanpore in India, Lieutenant Innes of the Bengal Engineers rode ahead of the advancing British troops to drive the enemy away from an artillery piece. He then charged a second gun, which was being more resolutely manned and was well placed to maul the advancing troops. Innes killed a gunner and captured the gun, which he then defended until reinforcements arrived. His citation reads

At the action of Sultanpore, Lieutenant Innes, far in advance of the leading skirmishers, was the first to secure a gun which the enemy were abandoning. Retiring from this, they rallied round another gun further back, from which the shot would, in another instant, have ploughed through our advancing columns, when Lieutenant Innes rode up, unsupported, shot the gunner who was about to apply the match, and, remaining undaunted at his post, the mark for a hundred matchlock men, who were sheltered in some adjoining huts, kept the artillerymen at bay until assistance reached him.

He received the Victoria Cross, as did Major Gough, decorated for a series of actions over the previous months, culminating in a skirmish on 23 February when he saved the life of a fellow officer.

1900: During the Boer War, a British colonel fell wounded in the open. Boer snipers kept his body under close watch, and drove back any attempts to reach him. The colonel himself sustained a further eight wounds. Private Albert Curtis of the East Surrey Regiment nevertheless was determined to rescue him. After several aborted attempts, Curtis managed to reach the colonel, and proceeded to dress his wounds, all the time under constant fire. The colonel insisted that he be left, since the risks of carrying him were so high. Curtis ignored him, and managed to carry him back to the British lines, helped by another man who succeeded in coming to his aid. Curtis was awarded the Victoria Cross.

His citation reads

On 23rd day of February, 1900, Colonel [R] Harris lay all day long in a perfectly open space under close fire of a Boer breastwork. The Boers fired all day at any man who moved, and Colonel Harris was wounded eight or nine times. Private Curtis, after several attempts, succeeded in reaching the Colonel, bound his wounded arm, and gave him his flask - all under heavy fire. He then tried to carry him away, but was unable, on which he called for assistance and Private Morton came out at once. Fearing that the men would be killed, Colonel Harris told them to leave him, but they declined, and after trying to carry the Colonel on their rifles, they made a chair of their hands and so carried him out of fire

Private Morton was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal

1917: As British forces once more advanced up the Tigris towards Kut in Mesopotamia, Major George Campbell Wheeler led a small party of nine Gurkhas across the river and stormed an enemy position. The Turks reacted swiftly to this incursion, and dispatched a force well armed with grenades to retake the trench. The Gurkhas met them with a bayonet charge, during which Wheeler received a severe bayonet wound to the head. Nevertheless, he remained in command and consolidated his defences, having established through his initiative a valuable bridge-head on the enemy bank. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1940: In a victory parade celebrating the destruction of the German pocket battleship Graf Spee at the Battle of the River Plate,

700 officers and men of cruisers HMS Ajax & HMS Exeter marched through cheering crowds to Guildhall in London

1942: On the island of Java, Allied forces began their evacuation. The main Australian force on Timor surrendered to the Japanese. However, some did not surrender and continued to wage a guerilla war from behind enemy lines

Submarine HMS Trident

sighted the German heavy cruiser KMS Prinz Eugen in the North Sea and fired three torpedoes; one of which struck aft, damaging Prinz Eugen's rudder and blowing away 30 feet of her stern.

She limped to Lo Fjord at Drontheim where temporary repairs were undertaken

The Mutual Aid Agreement was signed between the governments of the United States and Great Britain

The first shelling of the US mainland during World War II occurred when a Japanese submarine fired on an oil refinery in Ellwood, California

1945: Captain Swales, South African Air Force, serving with 582 Squadron RAF, was appointed the Master Bomber to lead a raid on Pforzheim. As he circled the target, controlling the bombing runs, his Lancaster was twice attacked by German fighters. Swales chose not to take evasive action, since this would have interfered with his control of the raid. Two of the Lancaster's engines were knocked out, as well as the rear turret. Swales nevertheless continued to direct the bombing with great accuracy, and only turned for home once the raid was complete. On the way back, the badly damaged aircraft hit turbulent cloud over Belgium, and became uncontrollable. Swales ordered his crew to bail out, whilst he struggled to hold the aircraft steady. They all parachuted safely, but Swales had no opportunity to escape before the Lancaster crashed. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, Bomber Command's last such decoration.

Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima was captured. US Secretary of the Navy, John Forrestal is quoted as saying upon seeing what has become one of the most famous images of WWII

This picture will assure the existence of the US Marine Corps for another five hundred years

The British Pacific Fleet, renamed Task Force 57, sailed from the Caroline Islands for Okinawa

1967: Major P.J. Badcoe of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam, lead an attack against Viet Cong troops to rescue a wounded American medical advisor. It was the first of three acts of bravery between February and April 1967 for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

On 23 February 1967 he was acting as adviser to a regional force company in support of a sector operation in Phu Tho district when he monitored a radio transmission which reported the death of an American subsector advisor and the wounding of an American medical advisor. With complete disregard for his own safety Badcoe moved alone across 600 metres of fire-swept ground, attended to the wounded medical adviser and ensured his safety. He then organized a force of platoon strength and led them in a successful assault against the enemy machine-gun post near the body of the American advisor. He killed the machine-gunners in front of him, picked up the body of the dead American and ran back , over open ground still covered by hostile fire, to the regional command post.

Exactly one month later, on 7 April, Badcoe was on an operation with the 1st Army of the Republic of Vietnam Division Reaction Company, supported by armoured personnel carriers, in the Huong Tra district. As the 1st Army moved forward to its objective the company came under heavy small arms fire and had to withdraw to a nearby cemetery for cover. Badcoe and his radio operator were left fifty metres in front of the others, under heavy mortar fire. Badcoe ran back and rallied his men and got them moving but they were again stopped by heavy fire. He rose to throw grenades but was pulled down by his radio operator. When he got up to throw another grenade he was killed by a burst of machine-gun fire. Soon after friendly artillery was called in on the enemy position and it was assaulted and captured.

1991: The USS Missouri destroyed targets on Favlaka Island off the coast of Kuwait City. Coalition ground forces continued to engage Iraqi forces with artillery, attack helicopters and tactical aircraft throughout the border area

On This Day ... in 1797 & Others

The last attempted invasion of the British mainland was mounted at the Welsh village of Fishguard, when a small French Revolutionary force landed. The Directory in Paris believed that the people of Britain would rise in revolution against the Crown and Government if given a suitable lead. The 1,400 troops of the "Black Legion" who landed at Fishguard, including a large percentage of newly impressed convicts, some reportedly still in leg irons, were, however, hardly the elite of the French forces, lacking both the discipline of the remaining regular army, or the elan and zeal of the Revolutionary militia. Their commander was a septuagenarian Irish-American adventurer, Colonel William Tate. The original plan had been for his force to descend on Bristol, but Royal Navy patrols put paid to that, and so the warships carrying his troops diverted to Cardigan Bay, where they quickly landed the men on the evening of 22 February, then ran back to France before the Royal Navy could find them.

Once ashore, Tate's men lost what little discipline they had. Twelve of them were captured by a redoubtable Welsh woman, Jemima Nicholas, the wife of the local cobbler.

Mrs Nicholas, remembered in local lore as Jemima Fawr (Jemima the Great), promptly rounded them up with a pitchfork and marched them into town. Many of the other French troops were preoccupied in looting from cottages - in particular, large quantities of strong drink which the locals had themselves only recently liberated from a wrecked Portuguese merchant vessel.

The local home guard forces - the Fencibles and Militia - mustered at Haverfordwest, under the command of Lord Cawdor, and arrived at Fishguard on 24 February. Despite their own lack of military expertise, it was clear to Tate that his rabble would stand no chance, and he surrendered the following morning.

1881: Private Osborne of the Northamptonshire Regiment, won the Victoria Cross during an action in the First Boer War, when he rescued a wounded man under very heavy fire.

1901: Queen Victoria died at the age of 82

1905: Thousands of demonstrating Russian workers were fired on by Imperial army troops in St. Petersburg on what became known as "Red Sunday" or "Bloody Sunday”

1917: British troops succeeded in capturing a number of Turkish trenches at Sanna-i-Yat in Mesopotamia. The Turks launched a vigorous counter-attack, and managed to retake part of the position. However, Sergeant Steele of the Seaforth Highlanders, assisted by another soldier, managed to position a machine-gun in an advantageous spot. Steele then manned the gun and for several hours was able to frustrate Turkish attempts to exploit their success. When finally another Turkish attack did break through, Steele managed to rally the British troops, and led them in a successful counter-attack of their own, during which he suffered a severe wound. His gallantry and leadership was recognised by the award of the Victoria Cross.

US President Wilson pleaded for an end to war in Europe, calling for "peace without victory".

1941: The heavy cruiser USS Louisville arrived at New York with US$148,342,212 in British gold brought from Simonstown, South Africa, to be deposited in American banks

In the Western Desert, Australian infantry with British tank and artillery support, including gunfire from Royal Navy gunboats and monitors, took the key Libyan town of Tobruk in the face of fierce resistance from its Italian garrison

1942: Sir Arthur Harris' was appointmented Air Officer-in-Chief Commanding Bomber Command.

In Leningrad, the mass evacuation of civilians begins via the "ice road" across Lake Ladoga. (About 440,000 people are transported out of Leningrad between 22 January and 15 April 1942)

General Douglas MacArthur was ordered to leave the Philippines. MacArthur made his way to Australia from where he directed much of the war against Japan. His famous promise that "I shall return" was kept when US forces returned to the Philippines in 1944.

Japanese carrier-based aircraft from the Akagi & Kaga attacked Rabaul on New Britain Island for the third straight day, destroying the last of its fixed defences

1972: Five women and an army priest were killed in an IRA terrorist bomb attack on the 16th Parachute Brigade headquarters at Aldershot

On This Day ... in 1941 & Others

As British forces continued their steady advance in Italian East Africa, Fleet Air Arm Albacore biplanes

from the carrier HMS Formidable bombed Massawa in Eritrea.

1942: British troops in Burma retreated to the Sittang river as the Japanese advance on Rangoon continued to make progress.

1956: In Kluang Malaya, Australian and British aircraft bombed the jungle base of the 7th Independent Platoon, Malayan Races Liberation Army in Central Johore. The raid was carried out by Lincolns of No. 1 Squadron RAAF and Canberras of No. 12 Squadron RAF. It wiped out the camp and was regarded as the most successful of the 4,000 sorties flown by the Australians in Malaya.

On This Day ... in 1472 & Others

Orkney and Shetland were annexed to the Crown of Scotland as security for the dowry of Princess Margaret, daughter of Christian I, King of Norway and Denmark, and wife of James III of Scotland

1653: A second day of 3 days of fighting between the Dutch Admiral Marten Tromp and General-at-Sea Robert Blake took place

1907: The huge Prince of Wales Basin was opened at Devonport by its Royal namesake, after ten years work turning the 114 acre site into a thoroughly modern fitting-out yard to support the large and technically advanced new ships entering service.

1942: The Japanese landing in Portuguese Timor heralded the beginning of a long and gruelling guerrilla campaign waged by elements of the Australian 2/2nd Independent Company with the support of friendly Timorese.

In the Philippines, the American submarine USS Swordfish embarked President Manuel Quezon, his wife & two children, Vice President Sergio Osmeña, and other Philippine government officials off Mariveles.

Quezon was carried to Mindanao and attempted to remain in the Philippines. MacArthur quietly arranged for him to be kept under close escort, as he did not trust Quezon not to try to cut a deal for neutralization of the Philippines with the Japanese.

Quezon and Osmeña were eventually carried to Australia and thence to the US. Quezon died in the US but Osmeña went ashore at Leyte and resumed his duties as Philippine President as the US cleared the Archipelago. Quezon's reluctance in 1942 to leave the Philippines might have resulted from the knowledge that he was dying from tuberculosis and that he would have preferred to die in the Philippines

1944: Norwegian resistance successfully sank the passenger and vehicle ferry Hydro crossing Lake Tinnsjø. The ferry was carrying heavy water from Ryukan, Norway bound for Germany. Heavy water was necessary for continued experiments by the German nuclear program.

The heavy water was being transported in railway freight cars on board. London had ordered one resistance group to blow up the ferry, and without advising this first group it had also ordered another group to blow up the train that would be carrying the freight cars south.

In addition the RAF had orders to bomb the ship carrying the heavy water from Norway to Germany.

The Norwegians of the first group realized that destruction of the cross-lake ferry would cause a loss of civilian lives, and queried London if the mission was necessary. Confirmation was given, so the ferry shipment was scheduled for a Sunday morning, when civilian passengers would be at a minimum. 19 pounds of explosive were planted on Hydro. The charges blew at 1045, when the ferry was over the deepest part of the lake, and as the ferry tilted down by the bow, the freight cars wrenched free from their tethering lines and sank into 1,300 feet of water.

Passengers and crew abandoned ship frantically, but 26 passengers, crew and children went down with the ferry; 27 others, including the Hydro's Captain Sorensen and 4 German servicemen were rescued.

On This Day ... in 1807 & Others

A squadron of ships under Vice-Admiral Sir John Duckworth

forced a passage of the Dardanelles, and completely destroyed a Turkish fleet of 13 ships.

1915: British and French warships began a bombardment of the Turkish forts guarding the Dardanelles. This first bombardment proved a significant misjudgement, precisely because of its success; the Turks and their German advisers realised how inadequate the defences in the area were, and put in hand efforts to reinforce them that would later cost the allies serious losses.

1917: HMS Q-18, disguised as Lady Olive, was attacked by the U-boat UC-18 a few miles west of Jersey. The sinking Q-18 lured UC-18 within range before opening fire with her concealed guns, and managed to sink the submarine before going down herself.

1942: Japanese aircraft mounted their first air raid on Darwin, Australia. Over the next twenty months, the port was to endure some 64 air raids. Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Force units were all involved in its defence during the period.

The attack was carried out by 188 aircraft: 36 fighters, 71 level bombers and 81 dive-bombers from the Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu & Soryu. This was equivalent to the force that attacked Pearl Harbor. 54 medium bombers from Kendari in the Celebes carried out a second attack.

The attack was considered then, and many Australians still believe, to presage a Japanese attack on Australia. It was however simply intended to neutralize Darwin as a base from where Allied forces might operate against the Japanese invasion of the Eastern Netherlands Indies. In this it was outstandingly successful.

1945: During the 14th Army's advance through Burma, a mass of retreating Japanese became surrounded & trapped in a saltwater crocodile infested mangrove swamp. The Japanese refused to surrender & instead took their chances in the swamp. Matters came to a head on the the night of the 19th.

That night was the most horrible that any member of the [marine launch] crews ever experienced. The scattered rifle shots in the pitch black swamp punctured by the screams of wounded men crushed in the jaws of huge reptiles, and the blurred worrying sound of spinning crocodiles made a cacophony of hell that has rarely been duplicated on earth. At dawn the vultures arrived to clean up what the crocodiles had left. … Of about 1,000 Japanese soldiers that entered the swamps of Ramree, only about 20 were found alive.

On This Day ... in 1653 & Others

The great Dutch Admiral Marten Tromp, with eighty warships, escorted a huge convoy of 150 homeward-bound merchantmen up the Channel - legend has it that he tied a broom to his masthead to show his intention to sweep the English from the seas. General-at-Sea Robert Blake

commanded some eighty-five English warships, and intercepted Tromp off Portland on 18 February, and a running battle lasting three days developed. The Dutch merchantmen kept to the French side of the Channel, with their escorts forming a protective screen. The first two days proved indecisive; Tromp manoeuvered with great skill, although he was displeased with the indiscipline of some of his captains. Finally, on the third day, the English broke through the defences off Cap Gris Nez, and captured some sixty merchantmen. Tromp was forced to hug the French coast with his remaining ships, and the English broke off the action, assuming that the Dutch would be wrecked so close to a lee shore. Splendid seamanship by Tromp, however, allowed him to save his force from disaster and reach home.

1897: Following the murder of the British Consul-General in Benin, Mr Phillips, and seven others in January, a punitive expedition was dispatched under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir Harry Rawson. His force comprised a Naval Brigade of seamen serving as infantry, and 500 police from the Niger Coast Constabulary. Despite considerable resistance, the force succeeded in taking Benin city on 17/18 February.

1900: The advance of Sir John French's cavalry had not only relieved Kimberley on 15 February, but also posed a significant threat to the rear of Piet Cronje's Boers. They withdrew, pursued by the main British force, but on 17 February were beaten to a crossing over the Modder River by French's cavalry. On 18 February, Kitchener, temporarily in command due to Lord Robert's illness, launched an attack on Cronje's laager at Paardeberg. The attack was beaten off, but the Boers proved unable to escape, and eventually surrendered on 27 February.

During Kitchener's attack, two posthumous Victoria Crosses were won. Sergeant Atkinson of the Yorkshire Regiment risked his life repeatedly, braving heavy enemy fire seven times to fetch water for wounded men. On his last sortie, he was hit in the head and died of the wound a few days later.

Similarly, Lieutenant Parsons of the Essex Regiment went to the aid of one of his men who had been hit twice. Having helped the man reach cover and dressed his wounds, Parsons ran through enemy fire to the river to fetch water, then carried him back to safety. Returning to the front line, Parsons was killed in action a short time later.

1944: 19 RAF Mosquito aircraft, from 21, 464 RAAF, 487 RNZAF Squadrons and the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit attacked Amiens prison in Operation Jericho, releasing delayed-action bombs at very low level to breach the walls of the prison and allow prisoners held by the Gestapo to escape.

102 prisoners were killed, but 258 did succeed in escaping.

Group Captain Pickard and his navigator, Flight Lieutenant Broadley, who led the attack, were shot down and killed, having delayed their departure from the target area to ensure the success of the raid.

On This Day ... in 1782 & Others

Vice Admiral Sir Edward Hughes and Commodore Chevalier de Suffren fought the first in what proved an epic series of battles for control of the Indian Ocean.

1794: A Royal Navy squadron landed British troops to take a Republican French fortification in Corsica at San Fiorenzo.

1917: The German U-boat U-85 spotted a vulnerable merchant ship, Farnborough, west of Fastnet, and hit her aft in the engine-room with a torpedo. As the merchantman's crew could be seen taking to a lifeboat, U-85 surfaced to finish off her badly damaged victim, which was already sinking.

However, the hunter now became the hunted - Farnborough was in fact HMS Q-5, one the famous Q-ships, commanded by Commander Campbell. As the "Panic Party" escaped in the lifeboats as planned, Campbell remained behind with a small gunnery team, ignored the rising water, and patiently waited for his target to close to point-blank range. Their concealed guns opened fire on the U-boat at only 100 yards, and hit her with almost every round out of 45 fired, quickly sinking her. Campbell then summoned help to tow Q-5 towards shore, where she was safely beached. Campbell received the Victoria Cross.

On This Day ... in 1762 & Others

British forces captured the island of Martinique having defeated its French garrison.

1917: On the Western Front, every officer in a company of the Royal Fusiliers fell casualty during an attack near Courcelette. Nevertheless, Lance-Sergeant Palmer ignored heavy fire at point-blank range to painstakingly cut a path through entanglements of barbed wire, then rushed an enemy machine-gun nest and captured it. Gathering the survivors of the company, he established a barricade which he then defended against no less than seven fierce counter-attacks. Running out of grenades, he went back to the British lines for a fresh supply. In his absence, an eighth counter-attack finally dislodged his men. But returning, Palmer led them back to retake the position, and hold it. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1940: The German supply ship Altmark, carrying 299 British merchant seamen captured by the pocket battleship Graf Spee during her raiding voyage in 1939, sought sanctuary from the Royal Navy in neutral Norwegian waters at Jossing Fjiord. Since the German ship had breached Norwegian neutrality, Captain Vian in HMS Cossack ignored Norwegian efforts to stop him and pursued Altmark, coming alongside her that evening to liberate the British prisoners.

1942: Lieutenant Roberts and Petty Officer Gould, of the submarine HMS Thrasher, won the Victoria Cross for a remarkable act of bomb disposal.

Petty Officer Thomas Gould was serving as Second Coxswain aboard the submarine HMS Thrasher during a patrol off Crete, 16 February 1942. Thrasher succeeded in sinking a merchantman in a convoy, but then came under very heavy attack from escorts and enemy aircraft, with about 33 depth charges dropped on her.

Eventually, Thrasher got clear, and surfaced at nightfall to recharge her batteries. An unusual clicking sound was heard near the gun, and the First Lieutenant, Lt Roberts, and PO Gould went forward to investigate. They discovered an unexploded 100lb bomb lodged in the deck of the submarine's casing. The two men managed to lift the bomb from the hole it had made, and carefully carried it to the bows, where they safely dropped it overboard. However, upon returning to the damaged section of casing, they spotted a second bomb, wedged between the casing and the pressure hull of the submarine. The only way to get to the bomb would be to crawl along the hull in the two-feet high gap below the casing, between pipes. The submarine was still in enemy-controlled waters, and if it had to submerge whilst the men were in the casing, they would be drowned since the casing was free-flooding.

Roberts and Gould nevertheless entered the casing, and crawled by torchlight to the bomb. Ominous noises could be heard from it, but Gould eventually managed to work the bomb loose. Then, clutching the bomb in his arms as he lay flat, he was slowly pulled along by Roberts some twenty feet to an access grating. Eventually, after 40 minutes struggle in the cramp, wet and dark of the casing, they were able to lift the bomb clear and it was thrown overboard. Both men received the Victoria Cross for their heroism. Thomas Gould retired from the Royal Navy as a Lieutenant in 1945 & passed away at the age of 87, in 2001

1944: Major Hoey led a company of the Lincolnshire Regiment in an attack on Japanese positions in the Arakan region of Burma. The company became pinned down by fire from a Japanese strong point, whereupon Hoey went forward alone, despite having already been wounded in the head and a leg. He succeeded in eliminating every defender in the position, but was then mortally wounded. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

1945: Again in Burma, Jemadar Prakash Singh commanded a platoon of 4/13th Frontier Rifles, defending against massive Japanese attacks. Prakash Singh was wounded in both legs, and his second-in-command took over the leadership of the unit. However, he was in turn badly wounded; Prakash Singh then crawled back to the firing line and resumed command. He suffered another pair of wounds in his legs, but continued to drag himself about on his hands to direct the defence. A fifth wound proved fatal, but even as he lay dying, he continued to encourage his men, shouting out a traditional Dogra war-cry; his men succeeded in holding the position, despite the odds against them. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

On This Day ... in 1942 & 1968

Lieutenant General Arther Percival surrendered Singapore, the worst defeat in British military history, the prospects for further defensive operations being hopeless. 130,000 military personnel entered captivity, which many did not survive

Born in Aspenden, Hertsfordshire, on 26 Decemeber 1887. Percival was educated at Rugby School and worked in London with Naylor, Benzon & Company Limited from 1907-1914. He was wounded in France in World War I and continued to serve in the army, finally being appointed General Officer Commanding Malaya. He surrendered to the Japanese on Sentosa Island, Singapore, February 1942 and spent the rest of the war in captivity in Manchuria. He died on 31 January 1966.

1968: The first test-firing of a Polaris missile from a Royal Navy submarine - HMS Resolution - was successfully conducted

On This Day ... in 1779 & Others

Captain James Cook was killed by natives in Hawaii during his third voyage of exploration

1797: Admiral Sir John Jervis, with only 15 ships of the line, caught 28 Spanish ships of the line off Cape St Vincent en route to join forces with the French fleet. Jervis, flying his flag in HMS Victory, took full advantage of the scattered disposition of the Spanish fleet to break through their formation, and an act of particular initiative by Commodore Nelson, towards the rear of the British line in HMS Captain, turning to attack alone, ensured that the Spanish were unable to evade. Four Spanish ships were captured, two taken by HMS Captain.

1900: The town of Kimberley was finally relieved when troops under Sir John French broke the Boer seige.

1916: Near Hooge in Belgium, the Germans had succeeded in digging a mine from their own lines to beneath the British trenches. Packed with explosives, the mine was detonated at the start of a surprise attack. A large stretch of the British trenches was devastated by the explosion, which left a huge crater. Lieutenant McNair of the Royal Sussex Regiment was among the soldiers caught in the blast. But despite the shock of the event, McNair quickly organised a small team to rush to the front of the crater with a machine-gun in time to drive off the German infantry assault. The first wave of attackers having been driven off, McNair then turned to the task of summoning reinforcements, as well as assistance to dig out casualties. The communication trench, which should have offered a safe route back to the rear lines, had been blocked by the mine explosion, so McNair was forced to run back in the open, fully exposed to enemy fire. His prompt actions denied the enemy any success in breaching the British lines, and he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1941: British forces captured the important port of Kismayu in Italian Somaliland.

1942: As it became clear that Singapore was likely to fall, ships attempted to evacuate as many non-essential personnel as possible, running a gauntlet of Japanese air and naval attack. The merchant ship Vyner Brooke, carrying 65 Australian nurses, was sunk. The survivors made their way ashore to Banka Island, whereupon the nurses were murdered by Japanese troops; only Sister Vivian Bullwinkel survived.

Also at sea, HMS Li Wo, a tiny auxiliary patrol vessel armed only with one 4" gun, encountered a Japanese invasion fleet headed for the East Indies. Undeterred, her commanding officer, Lieutenant Wilkinson RNR, attacked. Massively outgunned, Li Wo managed to close the enemy and rammed a transport ship before going down in action with a heavy cruiser. There were only ten survivors. Wilkinson was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

On This Day ... in 1878 & Others

Vice Admiral Sir Geoffrey Thomas Phipps Hornby took a Royal Navy squadron up the Dardanelles to Constantinople as a warning to Russia not to threaten the city during the implementation of the armistice at the close of the Russo-Turkish war.

1941: The British offensive in Italian Somaliland under Lieutenant General Cunningham continued to make good progress, with the Gold Coast Regiment moving up the coast towards the port of Kismayu, whilst South African Air Force aircraft and the cruiser HMS Shropshire bombarded Mogadishu, and Fleet Air Arm Albacore bombers from HMS Formidable bombed Massawa in Eritrea.

1942: German Operation Sealion is formally cancelled. This is the plan for the cross channel invasion of England.

Admiral Erich Raeder, head of the German Navy, brings a new plan to Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Raeder proposes that the Germans drive through Libya, into Egypt, and keep on going through Iraq, Iran, and all the way to India, thus drying up Britain's oil supply, hooking up with the Japanese, and winning the war. To do so, the German will have to divert more resources to the Mediterranean, starting with massive supplies to North Africa. To do that, the Germans will have to invade Malta. Hitler orders the Luftwaffe's Air Fleet 2 to hammer Malta and knock out its airfields and will to resist.

In the United States, a Congressional subcommittee recommended the immediate evacuation of all Japanese-Americans from strategic areas on the West Coast. The US Army has already drawn up a plan to move the Japanese-Americans east of California's Sierra Nevada mountains

1943: 56 Ventura and Boston light bombers attacked targets along the enemy occupied coastline, including the steelworks at Ijmuiden, the docks at Boulogne and lock-gates at St Malo. All aircraft returned safely.

1945: 805 aircraft of RAF Bomber Command dropped 2,600 tons of bombs on Dresden, an important transport centre for the German army on the Eastern Front, generating a firestorm which left an estimated 50,000 dead.

On the western German borders, the Canadian First Army finally secured the 50 square miles of the Reichswald, a thickly forested ridge which formed the centrepiece of German defences in the area.

1965: 1st Australian SAS Squadron advance party departed for Borneo.

On This Day ... in 1900 & Others

At Pink Hill (also known as Hobkirk's Farm) in the Cape Colony, the Battle of Rensburg was fought. Australian and British troops were attacked by a superior Boer force resulting in the deaths of 7 Australians and the wounding of 22 others.

The following account of the battle was given by a Boer prisoner to a correspondent from the Daily Mail:

I saw a long row of their dead and wounded laid out on the slope of a farmhouse that evening - they were all young men, fine big fellows. I could have cried to look at them so cold and still. They had been so brave in the morning, so strong, but in the evening a few hours later they were dead, and we had not hated them nor they us.

Our field cornet gave the order to cease firing and called on them to throw down their rifles or die. Then one of the big officers -- a great rough-looking man, with a voice like a bull, roared out "forward Australia! no surrender!" These were the last words he ever uttered for a man on my right put a bullet clean between his eyes and he fell forward dead. We found later that his name was Major Eddy, of the Victorian Rifles.

He was as brave as a lion but a Mauser bullet will stop the bravest. His men dashed at the rocks like wolves; it was awful to see them. They smashed at our heads with clubbed rifles or thrust their rifles up against us through the rocks and fired. One after another their leaders fell. The second big man went down early, but he was not killed. He was shot through the groin, but not dangerously. His name was Captain McInerney.

There was another one, a little man named Lieutenant Roberts; he was shot through the heart. Some of the others I forget. The men would not throw down their rifles; they fought like furies. One man I saw climbed right on to the rocky ledge where big Jan Aldrecht was stationed. Just as he got there a bullet took him and he staggered and dropped his rifle. Big Jan jumped froward to catch him before he toppled over the ledge, but the Australian struck Jan in the mouth with his clenched fist and [he] fell over into the ravine below and was killed.

We killed and wounded an awful lot of them, but some got away; they fought their way out. I saw a long row of their dead and wounded laid out on the slope of a farmhouse that evening - they were all young men, fine big fellows. I could have cried to look at them so cold and still. They had been so brave in the morning, so strong, but in the evening a few hours later they were dead, and we had not hated them nor they us.

1917: Sergeant Frederick Booth of the South African Police, at the time time serving with the Rhodesian Native Infantry, showed considerable courage during a fierce skirmish with German forces in Tanganyika. In particular, he went out alone to rescue a badly wounded man lying under heavy rifle fire in the bush. Then, after some troops nearby suffered a reverse, he succeeded in rallying them and leading them back to retake their position. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1942: The German ships Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen made their notorious Channel Dash from Brest to Germany. Lt Cdr Eugene Esmonde DSO

won a posthumous Victoria Cross during the British attempts to stop them.

On This Day ... in 1744 & Others

Admiral Thomas Mathews, who combined the roles of British naval commander in the Mediterranean and plenipotentiary representative at the court of the King of Sardinia, had forced a Spanish squadron of twelve ships of the line to seek refuge in Toulon. France had not as yet officially joined the war on the Spanish side, but Louis XV ordered his fleet of sixteen ships in Toulon to help escort the Spanish ships to their intended destination in Italy. The combined fleet was spotted at first light by the British fleet, which numbered some thirty ships.

By early afternoon, battle had been joined.

But Mathews failed to communicate his intentions properly, and furthermore was on extremely bad terms with his second-in-command, Vice Admiral Richard Lestock.

Whatever the reason, Lestock's division failed to engage, and only one Spanish ship was sunk. The result was so disappointing to the British public, who by now expected the Royal Navy to triumph on every occasion, that twenty officers were subsequently tried by courts martial, including Lestock and Mathews. Lestock was acquitted, but Mathews was disgraced.

On 3 June 1746, just two days after his acquittal Lestock was promoted Admiral of the Blue and given command of a large squadron. The original plan called for the launching of an assault on Quebec, but an attack on the French port of Lorient was decided instead. Despite planning difficulties, the force was landed and nearly succeeded in taking the city. The result was ultimately a failure and was viewed as such by a disappointed public, but Lestock appears to have acquitted himself well. After the success of the operation, he hoped to receive an appointment to command a spring expedition to North America, but his health suddenly declined, and he died of a stomach ailment on 13 December 1746.

1864: During the Third New Zealand War's so-called Hauhau campaign - named for the warcry of the Pai Marire sect amongst the Maoris of North Island - an action was fought at the Mangapiko River. A soldier fell wounded close to a Maori position, whereupon Major Charles Heaphy of the Auckland Militia ran to his aid.

The Maoris fired a volley of musketry at him: Heaphy was wounded in three places, and a further five ball rounds tore through his clothes and cap. However, he succeeded in getting the casualty into shelter and remained with him for the rest of the day until help was able to reach them. Heaphy received the Victoria Cross for his actions.

1951: The Chinese Army launched the fourth phase of its offensive in Korea.

On This Day ... in 1858 & Others

At Choorpoorah, Lieutenant John Tytler of the 66th ( Goorkha ) Bengal Infantry, won the Victoria Cross in an action during the Indian Mutiny, when he charged alone through round shot, grape and musketry from enemy artillery and, despite being wounded three times, engaged the gunners single-handed until reinforcements arrived and the guns were taken.

He later rose to the rank of Brigadier General commanding the 4th Gurkha Rifles, Indian Army, and died of pneumonia at the age of 54 at Thal in the Kurram Valley on India's North West Frontier (now in Pakistan).

1906: Only one year and one day after being laid down, HMS Dreadnought was launched.

A remarkable leap in the application of modern technology to battleship design, driven forward by the visionary First Sea Lord, Admiral Jackie Fisher,

she mounted three times as many heavy guns as previous battleships, and was powered by newly developed turbine engines, which offered her an advantage in speed of some 16% over almost other battleships. All previous battleships were rendered obsolete at a stroke, and Dreadnought became the generic name for all capital ships built to her principles.

Dreadnought boasted one last archaic touch - she was the last Royal Navy ship to be designed with a ram, as a backup weapon of last resort. And oddly enough, the one enemy vessel which she sank in her career was dispatched with said ram: the U-boat U-29, which she rammed and sank in the North Sea on 18 March 1915.

1941: Two RAF Whitley bombers dropped paratroopers near the aqueduct at Tragino in Italy, in the first-ever British parachute operation, code-named Colossus. The aim was to blow up the aqueduct, largely for propaganda purposes. 38 men, of what was then named the 11th Special Air Service Battalion - the Parachute Regiment had yet to be formed - were dropped at night. One man drowned when he landed in a lake. The others succeeded in blowing up the aqueduct, but then were captured whilst they tried to make their way to the coast to be picked up by a Royal Navy submarine.

On This Day ... in 1916 & Others

The tiny naval war fought on the waters of Lake Tanganyika (the inspiration for the film African Queen) came to a close when the Royal Navy manned vessels Mimi and Fifi (pictured below)

caught and sank the last remaining German vessel, Hedwig von Weissman.

1941: Force H under Vice Admiral Somerville bombarded Genoa, whilst Fleet Air Arm aircraft from HMS Ark Royal attacked Spezia, Leghorn and Pisa.

1942: The Pacific War Council, composed of representatives from the U.K., Australia, Netherlands East Indies, and New Zealand, is formed in London

Approximately 8,000 Japanese troops landed near Makassar City and south of Makassar at Jeneponto on Celebes Island. They immediately advanced for Makassar City, where they capture a bridge and the Dutch troops who were guarding the bridge.

A company of native soldiers opened fire on the Japanese causing casualties and in reprisal, the Japanese tied the Dutch soldiers in groups of three and threw them from the bridge into the water to drown

1943: Organized Japanese resistance on Guadalcanal ended

1944: The very successful anti-submarine group led by Captain F J Walker

in HMS Starling fought a notable action in defence of convoy SL.147, sinking U-238 and U-734.

Over 150 depth charges were used in a long and relentless battle, one of the depth charges successfully exploding a German torpedo just a few yards before it would have hit Starling. Exhausted by his relentless patrols of the North Atlantic,

Captain Walker, awarded the Distinguished Service Order no less than four times, suddenly died aboard ship in July 1944.

1945: U-864 was sunk in the North Sea west of Bergen by torpedoes from the British submarine HMS Venturer (pictured below)

While submerged west of Bergen, Lt Andy Chalmers was in the control room when he heard faint underwater sounds on the hydrophones, and Launders spotted a periscope at about 5,000 yards range. Chalmers trimmed the boat in silence for three hours while Launders the Captain stalked his quarry, calculating the range by the loudness of its noise.

U-864, commanded by Korvettenkaptän Ralf-Reimar Wolfram,

was making "suicidal" use of its periscope, which was protruding about four feet above the surface. Venturer fired four torpedoes, and two minutes 12 seconds later there was a loud explosion.

This is the only known sinking of one submarine by another when both boats were submerged throughout the engagement. Venturer was cued by Ultra on to U-864, which carried an Me 163 rocket-powered interceptor, 64 tons of mercury, heavy water, and some 20 Luftwaffe officers as well as German and Japanese engineers

Capt. Alexander Solzhenitsyn commander of an artillery battalion, is arrested and sentenced to eight years in a camp for criticizing Stalin in a letter to a friend

Today is also known as Black Friday by the Royal Canadian Air Force. No.404 Squadron, flying Bristol Beaufighters on an anti-shipping strike against remaining German naval units moored at Fordefjord, Norway was bounced by fighters. A total of 6 aircraft were lost to the Fw-190s and flak

On This Day ... in 1857 & Others

During the war with Persia, the 3rd Bombay Light Cavalry charged 500 enemy infantry who had adopted a defensive square formation, almost impenetrable to cavalry attack. Nevertheless, Lieutenant Arthur Moore jumped his horse over the bayonets into the midst of the formation. But his horse was shot dead and fell, trapping Moore beneath its body and breaking his sword.

Lieutenant John Grant Malcolmson came to Moore's rescue, fighting his way into the enemy ranks until he reached his comrade, who was defending himself with what remained of his sword.

The two then escaped from the enemy formation, Moore clutching Malcolmson's stirrup. Both men were awarded the Victoria Cross. Their citation reads

On the occasion of an attack on the enemy led by Lieutenant-Colonel Forbes, CB, Lieutenant Moore the Adjutant of the regiment, was perhaps the first of all by a horse's length. His horse lept into the Persian square and instantly fell dead, crashing down his rider and breaking his sword as he fell amid the broken ranks of the enemy.

The thoughtfulness for others, cool determination, devoted courage and ready activity shown in extreme danger by this young officer, Lieutenant Malcolmson, appear to have been most admirable, and to be worthy of the highest honour.

1902: Surgeon Captain Arthur Martin-Leake, serving with the South African Constabulary, braved heavy and accurate Boer rifle fire to tend a casualty lying only 100 yards from the enemy at Vlakfontein. He then moved on to attend to a severely injured officer. Whilst dressing his wounds, Martin-Leake was himself wounded. However, he continued his medical duties until exhaustion finally forced him to rest. Even then, he refused to accept a water ration until all the other wounded had been served. Martin-Leake was awarded the Victoria Cross.

Twelve years later, serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps in France in October and November 1914, he became the first of only three men to be awarded the Victoria Cross twice, winning a Bar for conspicuous gallantry over a period of eleven days when he repeatedly rescued casualties lying exposed to enemy fire.

1942: The first Japanese troops succeeded in crossing the Johore Strait and landed on the north-west shore of Singapore Island, forcing back the defenders from the Australian 8th Division.

1963: The P1127 prototype, forerunner of the Hawker Harrier, made the first test vertical landing and take-off from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal off Portland

1991: USS Wisconsin attacked a dozen Iraqi artillery emplacements with 36 rounds of its 16-inch guns in support of a Marine reconnaissance probe into occupied Kuwait

Using its remotely pilot vehicle to visually relay pictures and gun-firing coordinates of targets, the battleship's harassment and interdiction mission was designed to pin down and confuse Iraqi gunners during the Marine attack

On This Day ... in 1941 & 1944

Heavy fighting continued at the Italian colonial mountain stronghold of Keren in Eritrea. Richpal Ram, a Subadar (Captain equivalent) of the 6th Rajputana Rifles, led his company in an attack that succeeded in taking an Italian position. However, reinforcing him proved impossible. Nevertheless, he led his men in defending against no less than six fierce Italian counter-attacks, until, ammunition completely exhausted, he succeeded in extricating the survivors back to the main British lines.

Five days later, on 12 February, he once more distinguished himself in the attack, until he lost a foot in an explosion. He continued to urge his men forward until he died of his wound. For these combined acts of gallantry, he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1944: During the efforts by the Germans to contain the beach-head at Anzio, Major Sidney, Grenadier Guards, led a series of successful counter-attacks fought at very close range. Sidney was himself badly wounded, but, although increasingly weak from loss of blood, insisted at remaining at his post until he was sure that the battalion's position was safe. Only then did he consent to have his injuries attended to. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

On This Day ... in 1806 & Others

Vice Admiral Sir John Duckworth caught a squadron of French warships at San Domingo, capturing three and sinking two.

1840: The Maori peoples sign the Treaty of Waitangi accepting Queen Victoria's sovereignty in their lands (New Zealand).

1901: Boer forces mounted a night attack on British positions at Bothwell Camp. When a sentry fell wounded, Sergeant Traynor left the safety of his trench to rescue the casualty. Carrying him back, Traynor was himself hit. A lance corporal came to his aid, and between them they managed to get the man to safety. Despite the severity of his wound, Traynor then insisted on remaining at his post until the Boer attackers had been driven off. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1922: World powers sign the Washington Naval Treaty providing for limitation of naval armament

1933: Squadron Leader Gayford and Flight Lieutenant Nicholetts took off from RAF Cranwell in the specially constructed Fairey Long Range Monoplane Mk II in an attempt to set a new world record for non-stop flight.

Two days later, they touched down at Walvis Bay in South Africa, having covered some 5,309 miles.

1941: As the Italian Tenth Army struggled to break through the British armour blocking its retreat at Beda Fomm, the Australian 6th Division took the key port of Benghazi.

On This Day ... in 1810 & Others

British troops under Sir George Beckwith, supported by a fleet commended by Vice Admiral Cochrane, captured Guadeloupe. Beckwith had distinguished himself as a regimental officer during the American War of Independence & he subsequently iserved in high administrative posts & in numerous successful military operations in the West Indies during the French Revolutionary & Napoleonic wars.He attained the full rank of general in 1814 & commanded forces in Ireland, 1816-1820. He died in London on the 20th of March 1823.

1917: Captain H.W. Murray of the Australian 4th Division ( Australia's highest decorated soldier during World War I ) won the Victoria Cross at Stormy Trench north-east of Gueudecourt, France.

Capt Murray led his company in an attack and quickly captured the enemy position, fighting back three heavy counter attacks by the enemy. He encouraged his men, led bombing and bayonet parties and carried wounded men to safety.

1920: The RAF College at Cranwell was established for the training of officer cadets, under the command of the great aviation pioneer, Air Commodore Longcroft.

1941: Lieutenant General Sir Richard O'Connor's superb campaign in the Western Desert came to fruition, as the first units of the British 7th Armoured Division emerged from a great sweep across the desert to cut off the Italian Tenth Army's line of retreat at the village of Beda Fomm.

A small force of motorised infantry, artillery and armoured cars under Lieutenant Colonel Combe of the 11th Hussars blocked the road, and despite repeated Italian efforts to break through, held their position. Meanwhile, as British tanks arrived on the scene from their gruelling march across the desert, they harried the flanks of the huge column of Italian men and equipment, while 6th Australian Division, which had pursued the Tenth Army along the coast, closed in from the north-east. The Italians were forced to surrender on 7 February. With just two divisions, O'Connor had advanced over 500 miles and captured 130,000 prisoners, 400 tanks and 1,300 artillery pieces.

On This Day ... in 1783 & Others

Great Britain declared a formal cessation of hostilities with its American colonies

In April 1782 Benjamin Franklin rejected informal peace feelers from Great Britain for a settlement that would provide the 13 States with some measure of autonomy within the British empire. Franklin insisted on British recognition of American independence and refused to consider a peace separate from France, America's staunch ally. Franklin did agree to negotiations with the British for an end to the war. Joined by peace commissioners John Adams and John Jay, Franklin engaged the British in formal negotiations beginning on September 27, 1782. Although Franklin demanded the cessation of Canada to an independent America, he knew that the British Government of Lord Shelburne, opposed to American independence, was unprepared to accept that offer. Two months of hard bargaining resulted in a preliminary articles of peace in which the British accepted American independence and boundaries--a bitter pill to George III--resolved the difficult issues of fishing rights on the Newfoundland banks and prewar debts owed to British creditors, promised restitution of property lost during the war by Americans loyal to the British cause, and provided for the evacuation of British forces from the 13 States. The preliminary articles signed in Paris on November 30, 1782, were only effective when a similar treaty was signed by Britain and France, which French Foreign Minister Vergennes quickly negotiated. France signed preliminary articles of peace with Great Britain on January 20, 1783, which were followed by a formal peace of Paris signed on September 3, 1783.

1874: A minor action was fought at Odasu during the Ashanti War, which cleared the way for Wolseley's expeditionary force to enter the undefended capital Kumasi that evening. Lieutenant Bell of the Royal Engineers was awarded the Victoria Cross for his leadership of a team of African labourers, who, unarmed, worked determinedly to clear obstacles despite at times being caught in a crossfire between the opposing forces.

1917: On the Western Front, Captain Murray of the 13th New South Wales Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force led his company in a successful attack which took a key enemy position. The Germans counterattacked fiercely, but Murray's men beat off three successive attacks. A night attack pushed the Australians back briefly, but Murray led them forward and the position was once more taken and held. Murray himself was notably at the forefront of the action throughout, whether leading bayonet charges or carrying wounded men to safety, and was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1918: The destroyer HMS Zubian sank a German mine-laying U-boat off the coast of Essex. Zubian was most unusual, in that she had been built from the salvaged remnants of two Tribal class destroyers, Zulu and Nubian. Nubian's bows were destroyed by a torpedo hit in October 1916, whilst her sister Zulu had been severely damaged astern by a mine just over a week later. Both ships were judged irreparable by conventional standards, but it proved possible to graft Zulu's undamaged bows onto Nubian's undamaged mid and stern sections. Named Zubian, the hybrid then returned to full active service with the Dover Patrol. She served until the end of the war, sinking the mine-laying U-boat UC-50 on 4 February 1918 off the coast of Essex, and was broken up at Sunderland in 1919.

1945: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met in the Crimean town of Yalta at the beginning of a week-long conference to map the concluding stages of the war and the post-war shape of Europe.

On This Day ... in 1646 & Others

Sir John Lord Byron surrendered Chester to the Parliamentarians, as the Royalist cause continued to collapse across England & Wales.

1690: The Crown colony of Massachusetts issued the first paper money in America

1807: A British military force, under Brig-Gen. Sir Samuel Auchmuty captured the city of Montevideo, then part of the Spanish Empire, now capital of Uruguay

1783: Spain recognised the newly created United States

1915: Turkish attempts to capture the Suez canal, vital to Allied shipping, were repulsed largely by Indian troops

At the start of the First World War Egypt was officially part of the Ottoman Empire, but since 1882 had been ruled by the British. Free and secure access to the Suez Canal was vital to the British Empire. The most valuable parts of the Empire were east of Suez, as were the dominions of Australia and New Zealand and their invaluable volunteers. At the start of 1915 crucial reinforcements were travelling through the canal on their way to the Western Front, where the Australian and New Zealand divisions would soon be considered to be amongst the best troops available to Britain.

The British had seen off the attack on the canal, but they would now pay for their passive defence. Two companies of Ghurkhas attempted a counterattack on 3 February, but otherwise the Turks were allowed to escape. Even so, Djemal Pasha’s men had suffered around 1,400 casualties (according to his own figures). British losses were only 150, but the policy of defending the western bank of the canal came under attack. The next Turkish probe towards the canal would be met in the Sinai, at the battle of Rumani

1917: The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, which had announced a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare

1930: The Communist Party of Vietnam was established

1939: The first group of Canadian volunteers from the Spanish Civil War return to Halifax.

There is a great controversy over whether they should have even been allowed back in the country. By fighting in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion the volunteers broke Canadian law prohibiting enlistment in foreign armies.

1942 - Port T, a top secret British naval base on Addu Atoll, in the Indian Ocean, became operational

1943: Bomber Command dispatched 263 aircraft against Hamburg. The weather proved most unfavourable. Many aircraft were forced to abort after encountering heavy icing over the North Sea. The Pathfinders attempted to use H2S radar for blind bombing marking over the city, but did not enjoy much success, and such aircraft of the Main Force as did find the target caused relatively little damage. 16 bombers failed to return, most victims of Luftwaffe nightfighters.

Australians forces lauched a counter-attack at Wau, having held it against repeated Japanese attacks, forcing them into retreat. At the end of the fighting some 1,200 Japanese had been killed as had some 300 Australians.

1944: United States warships shelled Paramushiru Island, the first navy attack on Japanese home territory. Also in the Pacific, US forces captured the Marshall Islands

1945: The Soviet Union agreed to enter the Pacific Theatre conflict against Japan. Over Berlin, 1,000 B-17s continued the bombing of the German capital as part of Operation Thunderclap

1960: The Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, has had a frosty reception from politicians in South Africa after speaking frankly against the country's system of apartheid.

In a speech to MPs in the Houses of Parliament in Cape Town, Mr Macmillan spoke of the "wind of change" blowing through the continent of Africa, as more and more majority black populations in the colonies claim the right to rule themselves.

1969: In Cairo, Yasser Arafat was appointed Palestine Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress

1989: After suffering a stroke, P.W. Botha resigned both party leadership and the presidency of South Africa

On This Day ... in 1141 & Others

During the Anarchy, Earls Ranulf of Chester and Robert of Gloucester marched on Lincoln with a mainly Welsh army, to relieve the castle, held by Ranulf's men, which was under siege by King Stephen. Stephen was outnumbered but chose to fight, despite the advice of his nobles: his father had borne an undeserved reputation for cowardice as a Crusader, and Stephen seems to have been determined to avoid similar smears. However, the battle went against him as his (probably outnumbered) cavalry were driven from the field after initial success against the Welsh levies, and the King was captured along with many of his closest supporters. The accession to the throne of the Empress Matilda, Robert of Gloucester's half-sister and the only surviving legitimate child of Henry I, thus seemed assured.

1643: Prince Rupert descended on Cirencester with 4,000 Royalists, overwhelming the Parliamentarian garrison. After a fierce fight, the town was taken, and 1,100 Parliamentarian troops captured.

1709: The real Robinson Crusoe, Alexander Selkirk, on whom Daniel Defoe based his famous novel, was rescued after spending five years on the uninhabited islands of Juan Fernandez.

Defoe interviewed Selkirk in a sailors' pub. The friendly old Tudor-era tavern, located along the backwater mooring area of the Floating Harbour in Bristol, was named Ye Llandoger Trow after the Welsh community of Llandoger, from whence the cargo barges or "trows" routinely sailed across the Bristol Channel and up the Avon River into the City.

The atmosphere of the same tavern also inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's literary description of the meeting place of Little Jim Hawkins with that peculiar old pirate, Long John Silver, for his famed tale, "Treasure Island".

1942: The Japanese launched their first air raid on Port Moresby in New Guinea, in preparation for a planned amphibious assault. The Japanese had hoped to occupy Port Moresby as a base from which to cut off shipping to Eastern Australia however their defeat in the Battle of the Coral Sea thwarted the planned naval attack and invasion.

1943: During a Bomber Command raid on Cologne, a Stirling equipped with the new H2S ground-mapping radar was shot down near Rotterdam. The Germans were able to recover much of the H2S parts from the wreckage, and were shocked to realise the advances made by British and US engineers, especially the secret Magnetron valve which had made centimetric wavelengths possible.

1968: Australian troops recaptured Baria following the Viet-Cong Tet offensive.

On This Day ... in 1806 & Others

George III renamed the Naval Academy at Portsmouth the Royal Naval College.

1829: HMS Black Joke captured a Spanish slave-ship off West Africa.

1873: The Royal Naval College opened at its new location at Greenwich.

1915: At Cuinchy in France, Lance Corporal O'Leary, a Canadian serving with the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, led an attack on a barricaded German position. He killed all five Germans manning the barricade, then carried on with a lone charge on a second barricade sixty yards further on. There he killed another three enemy, and took two prisoners. His gallantry allowed a potentially formidable defensive position to be taken without losses amongst his comrades.

1917: Germany commenced "unrestricted" submarine warfare against merchant shipping.

1942: The Royal Air Force Regiment, formed for the defence of airfields, was established by Royal Warrant, it's motto 'Per Ardua', translates as 'Through Adversity', with its insignia crossed No.4 Lee Enfield rifles encircled by an astral crown.

British intelligence suffered its most serious setback of the war when the Germans changed their Enigma code used by their U-boats. The British didn't break this code, called "Shark," for a year, giving the Germans a major advantage in the Battle of the Atlantic. To make matters worse, by this stage of the war, the Germans had broken the British merchant ship code.

On This Day in 1606 & Others

Guy Fawkes, convicted for his part in the "Gunpowder Plot" against the English Parliament and King James I, was executed.

1874: The most serious action of the Ashanti War was fought at Amoafu where Sir Garnet Wolseley prevailed, leading a force of 2,200 British and African troops and police against Kofi Karikari, the aggressive Asantehene.

1879: An escorted British convoy came under attack in Afghanistan. Among the casualties was an Indian cavalryman of the 13th Bengal Lancers, who fell wounded from his horse and continued to come under heavy fire from tribesmen. Lieutenant Hart of the Royal Engineers ran no less than 1,200 yards through the firing to reach the wounded man. He then proceeded to defend him, driving away the closest attackers until other soldiers were able to join him and help carry away the casualty. Hart received the Victoria Cross.

1917: Germany served notice it was beginning a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare

1918: A tragic series of accidents befell two flotillas of Royal Navy submarines working with the Grand Fleet at night: Operation E.C.1, usually called by the sardonic name of the Battle of May Island, or sometimes the geographically correct Battle of the Isle of May, was a disastrous series of accidents amongst Royal Navy ships on their way from Rosyth in Scotland to fleet exercises on the misty night of 31 January to 1 February 1918. This saw the loss of two submarines, damage to three other submarines and a light cruiser, and the deaths of over 100 men, all of the Royal Navy. Although it took place during the First World War it was an entirely accidental tragedy and no enemy forces were present.

1941: Second Lieutenant Premindra Singh Bhagat of the Royal Bombay Sappers & Miners began a remarkable four-day mine-clearing effort in Abyssinia as British and Indian troops pursued retreating Italian forces. He and his men cleared mines along some 55 miles of tracks. His Bren Gun carrier was twice knocked out by mines, he was also ambushed, and one of his ear-drums was shattered by an explosion. Nevertheless, he continued to lead tirelessly from the front, and was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1942: British forces withdrew to Singapore, having been driven from the Malayan peninsula, to what was believed to be the impregnable fortress of Singapore.

1943: German forces surrendered at Stalingrad.

1945: In Burma, Royal Marines and Army Commandos of 3 Commando Brigade held off heavy Japanese counter-attacks at Kangaw. At one point, some 300 Japanese concentrated against a position held by just 24 soldiers under Lieutenant Knowland. The crew of a Bren Gun positioned forward were wounded; Knowland went forward, and picking up the Bren Gun fired it standing, fully exposed to the advancing enemy at a range of only ten yards whilst his casualties were helped to reach safety. He continued to lead the defence through twelve hours of continual attack until he finally received a fatal wound. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

On This Day ... in 1649 & Others

King Charles I was beheaded

1857: Uniform was formally introduced in the Royal Navy for ratings.

1902: The Anglo-Japanese Naval Treaty was signed.

1942: Japanese troops landed on the island of Ambon in the East Indies, defended by Dutch and Australian troops. The island was taken despite a determined defence.

1943: RAF exploited the superlative performance of the unarmed Mosquito bomber to make its first ever daylight raids on Berlin to spoil the celebrations for the tenth anniversary of the Third Reich. Three Mosquitos, unescorted, conducted a nuisance raid in the morning, whilst three more returned in the afternoon. That evening saw the first major use of the H2S ground-mapping radar by Bomber Command heavy bombers, in a night attack on Hamburg. The city was chosen because its many waterways and docks showed up clearly on H2S, the radar being at its best in showing the contrast between land and water.

1968: The Tet Offensive began in Vietnam. While the attacks were a military defeat for the Communist forces it proved to be a propaganda victory accelerating the American public's growing opposition to the war and causing United States military planners to question whether victory was possible.

On This Day ... in 1856 & Others

Queen Victoria instituted the Victoria Cross, Britain's first formal gallantry award, by Royal Warrant.

1941: The Italian colony of Dernaon on the Libyan coast fell to an assault by the Australian 6th Division, whilst the British 7th Armoured Division swept south-west through the desert in a major strategic encirclement which closed the net on the Italian Tenth Army at Beda Fomm on 5 February as it attempted to retreat along the coast road.

1943: The Battle of Wau, New Guinea, began as the Japanese recognised that Allied possession of Wau posed a significant threat to important Japanese bases at Lae and nearby Salamaua. The Japanese sought to take the town but were defeated after weeks of heavy fighting.

1945: The Royal Navy's carrier force in the Far East launched a follow-up strike against the Japanese oil refineries at Palembang in Sumatra.

On This Day ... in 1069 & Others

The Norman occupation of northern England suffered a setback when Robert de Comines and his men were massacred in Durham after they had drunkenly sacked the city.

De Comines took refuge in a church, but the Northumbrians set it alight to drive him out of sanctuary, then killed him.

The rebellion provoked William the Conqueror to embark on his Harrying of the North: indiscriminate slaughter and pillage north of the Humber to bring the English to heel. The 'harrying' was so severe that as Simeon of Durham recorded that there was no village inhabited between York and Durham, a distance of some 60 miles. This act was seen as excessive force, even for the time. Oderic Vitalis, the author of Ecclesiastical History wrote

I dare not commend him for an act which levelled both the bad and the good in one common ruin by a consuming famine...I assert, moreover, that such barbarous homicide should not pass unpunished.

1316: The Sheriff of Glamorgan was holding court outside the walls of Caerphilly Castle when Llywelyn ap Gruffydd ap Rhys, also known as Llywelyn Bren, mounted an attack. Llywelyn had previously protested to Edward II over the excessively harsh treatment of the Welsh in Glamorgan by royal officials during a period of bad harvests and famine, but the only response had been a charge of treason; he therefore resorted to armed rebellion.

The Sheriff was captured and his men either killed or driven into the inner defences of the castle. Although Llywelyn could not take the inner bailey, the castle's outer bailey was destroyed. Llywelyn later surrendered himself in March, to spare his men when cornered by an English punitive expedition.

His captors, the Earl of Hereford and Lord Roger Mortimer, successfully interceded for his life and he was instead imprisoned in the Tower of London. However, Edward II's favourite Hugh Despenser later persuaded the king to renege, and Llywelyn was hanged, drawn and quartered the following year at Cardiff.

1596: During the failed expedition to the Panamanian Isthmus, which had already seen the death of his relative and fellow commander, Sir John Hawkins, Sir Francis Drake died of fever aboard the Defiance, off Porto Bello in the Caribbean, and was buried at sea. He was aged about 56. Sir Thomas Baskerville, who had led the soldiers in the campaign ashore, took command of the remnants of the expedition and brought them safely home, fighting through a Spanish fleet at the Isle of Pines off Cuba.

1881: 1,200 British troops under Sir George Pomeroy-Colley engaged about 2,000 Boers at Laing's Nekduring during the Transvaal War. Finding his advance blocked by them, Colley mounted an uninspired frontal attack, which suffered heavily from the accurate rifle fire of the Boers, and was forced to retire. The 58th (Rutlandshire) Regiment advanced with its Colours in the action - the last time a British regiment was to do so.

Trooper Doogan of the 1st Dragoon Guards was awarded the Victoria Cross for rescuing a wounded and unhorsed officer, despite being severely wounded himself. Lieutenant Hill of the 58th Regiment was similarly decorated: he first attempted to carry to safety a wounded fellow officer, until the man suffered another, fatal, wound. Hill thereupon turned to the aid of a second casualty and managed to get him back to the British lines. He then returned a third time and brought back another wounded man.

1901: During a Boer War skirmish, Farrier-Major William Hardham of the New Zealand Wellington Mounted Rifles went to the aid of a wounded man who had lost his horse.

Ignoring heavy fire, Hardham dismounted, put the casualty into the saddle, then ran alongside the horse, leading it and its burden to safety. Hardham received the Victoria Cross.

1918: Following the sortie by the Sultan Yavuz Selim (the German battlecruiser Goeben under a Turkish flag) on 20 January, Lieutenant Commander Geoffrey Saxton White was ordered to take the submarine E-14 into the heavily defended Dardanelles to attempt to finish off the battlecruiser, which was reported to have beached herself following extensive mine damage.

E-14 was unable to locate her target, but, spotting another enemy ship, attacked that with torpedoes. She was then subjected to a depth charge attack in the shallow waters of the channel by a Turkish patrol boat, which badly damaged her. Forced to surface, White decided to beach the submarine to give his crew the best chance of survival. He himself stayed on deck and was killed. He received a posthumous Victoria Cross.

On This Day ... in 1606

The trial of Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot began.

It ended with their execution on January 31.

1917: An attack by the 1st Battalion of the Border Regiment near Le Transloy in France was held up by a machine-gun post. Despite having been badly wounded in the eye, Sergeant Mott charged the position head-on and threw himself on the gunner, manhandling him to the ground. He managed to overpower the German and capture both him and the machine-gun. Mott was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1940: The then First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill (uneasy at the slow increase in war production) spoke at Free Trade Hall, Manchester: "each to our station... there is not a week, nor a day, nor and hour to be lost!"

The Plan for the German invasion of Norway and Denmark is given a formal codename "Weserubung"

1941: The Peruvian ambassador to Japan warned his American counterpart, Joseph Grew, that the Japanese planned to destroy the US fleet at the naval base of Pearl Harbor; Grew passed the information on to Washington but to no avail

For the first time in history, senior US & British military staff officers met in secret to hammer out a common strategy in case the United States found itself at war with Germany or Japan (or both) in alliance with Great Britain.

Following the capture of Tobruk two brigades of the 6th Australian Division under Major General Iven Mackay pursued Italian forces westwards and encountered an their rear guard at Derna.

1942: The aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable delivered a cargo of 48 Hawker Hurricane fighters to Java, for onward shipment to Singapore

1944: The Soviet Union announced the end of the German siege of Leningrad

1945: The Red Army liberated the Nazis' biggest concentration camp at Auschwitz in south-western Poland. The capture of Auschwitz cames as the Red Army made important advances on three fronts: in East Prussia to the north, in western Poland as well as Silesia in eastern Germany. Fighting continued around the historic Polish city of Poznan.

Stories of the treatment by the Japanese of American and Filipino soldiers after the surrender of Bataan and Corregidor were disclosed in official reports by the United States Army and Navy

1973: The Paris Peace Accords was signed, ending US participation in the Vietnam War

1980: Rhodesia opposition leader Robert Mugabe returned to his home country after five years in exile.

On This Day ... in 1788 & Others

The first British colony in Australia was formally founded, Royal Marines hoisting the Union Flag at Sydney Cove. HM Ships Sirius and Supply led the thirteen ship "First Fleet", which had sailed from the Solent in May 1787, carrying several hundred convicts, North America no longer being available for the transportation of criminals following the Revolution. The colony of New South Wales totalled 568 male and 191 female convicts with 13 children, guarded by 206 marines with 26 wives and 13 children. Twenty officials administered the colony.

The new colony was formally proclaimed as the Colony of New South Wales on 7 February.

1841: Commodore Sir James Bremer formally took over Hong Kong as a Crown Colony, following its cession to Britain by China during the Opium War.

On This Day ... in 1327 & Others

Edward III became King of England

1533: Henry VIII secretly married his second wife Anne Boleyn

1644: Royalist troops, primarily Irishmen from Leinster, under Lord Byron, threatened the Parliamentarian stronghold at Nantwich. Sir Thomas Fairfax was sent by Parliament to relieve the town. A confused action ensued, with the Royalists doing well until Nantwich's garrison threw its weight into the action. Byron and his surviving forces were forced to retire to Chester.

1791: Parliament passed the Constitutional Act of 1791 and split the old province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada

1917: During fierce fighting near Kut in Mesopotamia, Lieutenant Colonel Henderson led a battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in a counter-attack after Turkish troops had succeeded in taking a position. Despite already being wounded, he led from the front, running alone at the head of the attack for 500 yards through intense fire. The position was retaken at bayonet point, but Henderson suffered another two wounds, and fell in No Man's Land. Lieutenant Phillips went to his aid, and eventually managed to carry him to safety, but his injuries proved fatal. Both Henderson and Phillips were awarded the Victoria Cross.

1942: Having taken Rabaul in New Britain, Japanese troops landed at Lae in Papua New Guinea. This and other Japanese advances south helped prompt Canberra to order full mobilisation in Australia.

On This Day ... in 1865 & Others

During the Third New Zealand War's so-called Hauhau campaign - named for the war cry of the Pai Marire sect amongst the Maoris of North Island - Captain Hugh Shaw of the 18th Regiment won the Victoria Cross for leading a party to rescue a badly wounded soldier lying only thirty yards from a Maori position.

1915: The capital warships of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet clashed for the first time in the First World War at the Dogger Bank in the North Sea. Vice Admiral Franz von Hipper led out the battlecruisers of his First Scouting Group (Derfflinger, Seydlitz, Moltke) to attempt another bombardment of British coastal towns. However, the battlecruiser von der Tann was not available, having damaged herself in a collision whilst taking evasive action during the Royal Naval Air Service's pioneering air raid on Cuxhaven on Christmas Day
1914.

Hipper therefore took with his force the powerful armoured cruiser Blucher as a substitute. His force was successfully intercepted by Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty with his Battlecruiser Force - Lion, Tiger, Princess Royal, New Zealand and Indomitable. Hipper prudently turned to withdraw, but Blucher's inferior speed allowed the British battlecruisers to close the gap.

During the exchange of fire, Blucher took serious hits and Seydlitz came close to blowing up when a catastrophic ammunition fire destroyed both her stern gun turrets. Hipper was forced to abandon Blucher to her fate and run. However, Beatty's flagship HMS Lion had also been badly hit, and forced to withdraw from the fight. Badly phrased signals from Beatty (a serious failing he was to repeat at Jutland), and poor initiative on the part of the next most senior admiral, led to the other Royal Navy battlecruisers concentrating their efforts against the mortally damaged Blucher rather than pursuing Hipper. Thus although a tactical victory for the Royal Navy, Dogger Bank was mainly regarded by contemporaries as a missed opportunity.

1945: The Fleet Air Arm delivered a major air strike against the vital Japanese oil refineries at Palembang in Sumatra, launched from four fleet aircraft carriers.

1967: Australian forces had their first contact at Bien Hoa, South Vietnam. The fighting involved a series of contacts between units of the 1st Australian Task Force and communist forces in the area of the Bien Hoa - Long Binh complex near Saigon. Australian and American units sought to dominate the area and prevent enemy rocket attacks on nearby military bases and installations.

On This Day ... in 1915 & Others

Royal Flying Corps reconnaissance aircraft gave warning that Turkish troops were preparing for an attack on the Suez Canal. The subsequent offensive in early February was easily defeated.

1942: Four Swordfish biplanes of 830 Naval Air Squadron, based in Malta, succeeded in torpedoing a heavily escorted Italian supply ship in bad weather off North Africa.

In New Britain, the Japanese landed in overwhelming force at Rabaul. The town was converted by them into a formidable fortress.

1944: The Australian 7th Division succeeded in capturing Shaggy Ridge in New Guinea, severing Japanese supply routes.

In Italy, an advance by men from the London Scottish at Damiano Ridge was held up by intense machine-gun fire. Private Mitchell single-handedly charged up the hill, jumped into the weapon pit, and wiped out the crew. Shortly afterwards, the attack was pinned down a second time; once again, Mitchell broke the deadlock by charging the enemy, killing six and capturing twelve. He continued in similar style in two more attacks, until finally being killed by a German who had supposedly surrendered. Mitchell was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1945: 45 Commando Royal Marines distinguished itself in fighting around the Montforterbeek stream near the Maas in Holland. During the action, three Royal Marines from one troop fell wounded in open ground. Lance Corporal Harden, a Royal Army Medical Corps orderly attached to the Commando, braved enemy fire to reach them. Having dressed their wounds, he then hoisted the first casualty onto his back and carried him back to safety, but suffered a wound himself in the process. Despite this, he immediately returned with two stretcher bearers to collect the second Marine. Unfortunately, the Marine was hit as they carried him back and killed. Undeterred, Harden led the rescue party back for the third man, and this time was himself hit again and killed. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

On This Day ... in 1879 & Others

Disaster befell the centre column of Lord Chelmsford's army which had advanced into Zulu territory. Whilst Chelmsford was away leading a force against a reported Zulu concentration, the 1,250 British (mainly from the 24th Regiment - South Wales Borderers) and African troops left behind in camp at Isandlwana were attacked by 20,000 warriors under Ntshingwayo and overrun - very few survived the massacre.

Later that day, 4,500 Zulus led by Dabulamanzi attacked a small garrison of the 24th Regiment at Rorke's Drift.

The famous defence of the outpost cost 17 lives from the South Wales Borderers, and secured the award of no less than eleven Victoria Crosses. Three Victoria Crosses, two of which were posthumous, were also awarded for gallantry at Isandlwana.

The third, often forgotten, action that day was fought at Nyezane, where the right hand column of Chelmsford's army, commanded by Colonel Pearson, fought off another fierce Zulu attack.

More information on the famed Martini Henry is here & just to get you really in the mood...

1941: The 6th (Australian) Infantry Division with British tank and artillery support, including gunfire from Royal Navy gunboats and monitors, took the key Libyan town of Tobruk in the face of fierce resistance from its Italian garrison. After its capture the town was garrisoned by the 9th Div, elements of the 7th Div and other Allied units. The town was surrounded on three sides by the German Afrika Korps in April and remained besieged, but able to be re-supplied

1944: Commonwealth and US forces landed at Anzio in an attempt to break the deadlock in the Italian campaign, landing behind the formidable German defences of the Gustav line. The first day of the landings proved a great success, 50,000 men and 3,000 vehicles being put ashore with only 13 casualties, mainly caused by mines. German resistance escalated significantly, however, in the following days.

1945: 3 Commando Brigade, consisting of 42 and 44 Commandos Royal Marines, and 1 and 5 Army Commandos, conducted an assault landingat Kangaw in Burma.

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.

His Victoria Cross citation reads:

His Majesty the King has been graciously pleased to confer the Victoria Cross on No. 501 Lance Naik Lala, 41st Dogras, Indian Army, for most conspicuous bravery.

After dark he carried the first wounded officer back to the main trenches, and then, returning with a stretcher, carried back his Adjutant. He set a magnificent example of courage and devotion to his officers

Captain John Sinton, a medical officer, also distinguished himself in the care of the wounded, despite himself being shot in both arms and the body, winning the Victoria Cross.

His citation reads:

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty. Although shot through both arms and through the side, he refused to go to hospital, and remained as long as daylight lasted, attending to his duties under very heavy fire. In three previous actions Captain Sinton displayed the utmost bravery

He later achieved the rank of Brigadier (1943), was awarded the Russian Order of St George and Mentioned in Dispatches six times. In 1921 he transferred from the military to the civil branch of the Indian Medical Service which he continued to serve with until 1936.

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 reads

The nine men would have met almost certain death or capture without the assistance of the two Coast Guardsmen.

On This Day ... in 1558 & Others

After the loss of Calais on 6 January, the last remaining English possession in France was the nearby fort at Guines. After eight days bombardment by the Duc de Guise, Guines too capitulated.

1783: Hostilities ceased between Great Britain and the United States after American signing of the Treaty of Paris in the State House in Annapolis. With all of the north excepting New York town in colonial hands, and the south lost after the collapse of Cornwallis at Yorktown in October of 1781, it was apparent to the British forces left in New York -- and politicians in Britain -- that there was no point to further efforts. Though unofficial, a state of armistice spread rapidly, and except for a handful of quite petty confrontations by hardliners, hostilities practicably ceased.

1841: Hong Kong was ceded by China, after the Opium War, and was first occupied by Great Britain

1918: The Turkish battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim and light cruiser Midilli (formerly the German ships Goeben and Breslau, and still largely manned by German crews) sortied from the Dardanelles in a surprise attack on the Allied naval forces blockading the area.

Two Royal Navy monitors, used to bombard the Turkish positions - HMS Raglan and HMS M-28 - were sunk, and the remaining British and French ships, which should have been capable of dealing decisively with the attack, reacted too slowly. Only the destroyers Lizard and Tigress properly engaged the enemy, despite being much inferior in firepower. The two raiders paid a heavy price nonetheless, suffering multiple hits in the Allied minefields. Midilli/Breslau sank, and Yavuz/Goeben had to beach herself for repair.

1942: Heavy Japanese air attacks were launched on Rabaul in New Britain, in preparation for an amphibious invasion. Royal Australian Air Force Wirraways - training aircraft pressed into desperate front-line service - gallantly engaged the Japanese fighters and bombers despite utter inferiority in both numbers and capability.

Of the eight Wirraways of 24 Squadron RAAF, three were shot down, another was destroyed on take-off, and two were forced to crash-land. The Japanese took the town on 23 January and turned it into a massive fortress.

On This Day ... in 1643 & Others

Sir Ralph Hopton's Royalist Cornish army encountered Colonel Ruthven's Parliamentarians at Braddock Down, just outside Liskeard. Hopton's infantry were superior in numbers and quality, but Ruthven enjoyed an advantage in cavalry. The opposing armies drew up on opposite hills across a small valley. Eventually, Hopton, fearing the arrival of the Earl of Stamford with more Parliamentary troops, decided to attack. At the sight of the Cornish advance, Ruthven's newly levied troops turned and ran, and the rout was compounded by the inhabitants of Liskeard deciding to demonstrate their loyalties by turning on the fleeing troops.

1762: Mr Harrison's fourth version of his chronometer for accurately measuring longitude successfully passed its first test aboard HMS Deptford when the ship arrived at Jamaica after a three month voyage - the chronometer had lost only five seconds.

1826: At the conclusion of the First Burmese War, it became clear that whilst a treaty was being negotiated, some Burmese forces were still preparing for further action. Sir Archibald Campbell therefore attacked the troops concentrating at Malun on the Irrawaddy River. The attacking force consisted of British and Madras Army troops, supported by river gunboats. These included the steamer Diana - the first steam-ship to be used on military operations. Malun was taken, and the Burmese retreated on their ancient capital of Pagan.

1839: British troops landed at Aden to take possession of the port, which had been sold to Britain by the Sultan. The sale was opposed by the Sultan's son and local tribal leaders, and the force, backed by a Royal Navy bombardment, had to fight to secure the port. Peaceful cooperation was finally achieved in May 1840; the British possession covered some 80 square miles, with a further 9,000 square miles of tribal lands covered by the Aden Protectorate.

1915: Britain suffered its first ever air raid when two German Navy Zeppelins bombed Great Yarmouth, Sheringham, Thornham, Brancaster, Hunstanton, Heacham, Snettisham and King's Lynn.

1945: A position in Burma held by men of the 16th Punjab Regiment was attacked by a very large Japanese force. Lance-Naik Sher Shah crawled forward in amongst the enemy, and managed to break up two successive attacks, shooting them up from point-blank range. His leg was shattered by a direct hit, but he refused to withdraw, and remained in place to take on yet another attack. Sadly, this time he was hit in the head and killed. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

On This Day ... in 1778 & Others

Captain James Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands, which he dubbed the Sandwich Islands

1788: The first of 11 ships under the command of Captain Arthur Phillips arrived in Botany Bay, Australia, to establish a penal settlement. The first convicts arrived soon after

1806: Following the fall of Cape Town to British forces on 10 January, the whole of the Dutch colony in the Cape of Good Hope surrendered.

1919: The Peace Conference at Versailles, to draw up the terms for the formal end of the First World War, began. The Treaty was ultimately signed between Germany and representatives of 27 victorious powers and it punished Germany territorially and financially for her role in starting the First World War. The treaty was supposed also to prevent Germany from having the means to make war in the future.

1942: A harrowing four-day ordeal began in Malaya for Australian troops of 2/19th Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Anderson. They succeeded in knocking out some ten Japanese tanks, but then found themselves cut off by the rapid enemy advance. Anderson led his men back for fifteen miles through the enemy-held jungle, under attack the whole time. His unit briefly broke through the Japanese lines, but was then once more encircled. Anderson was forced to order the destruction of equipment, and, refusing to leave any wounded behind, eventually extricated his men via a circuitous route of at least another eight miles. He received the Victoria Cross.

1944: In Burma, Lieutenant Horwood led a small mortar observation team forward to take up a very exposed position in the front line. Over the next two days he ignored intense enemy fire to send back good intelligence, call in accurate mortar fire, and went out alone on a personal close reconnaissance of the Japanese positions, deliberately exposing himself to enemy fire so that his observer team could plot. Finally, on 20 January, Lieutenant Horwood was killed, having volunteered to lead the infantry attack on the positions he had scouted. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1945: A platoon of the Royal Scots Fusiliers was ordered to clear German troops from a Dutch village. Their attack immediately stalled under heavy fire, and one of the casualties was nineteen-year old Fusilier Donnini, who fell, hit in the head. However, when he recovered consciousness, he resumed the attack, charging under continual fire. Upon reaching the village, he flushed the defenders from the nearest house using a grenade, then pursued them. He was again wounded, but continued to fire his Bren Gun until a third hit killed him, as other members of the platoon completed the task of capturing the village, which proved to have been occupied by a much larger German force. Donnini was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

On This Day ... in 1858 & Others

At Shunsabad during the Indian Mutiny, Troop Sergeant-Major David Spence of the 9th Lancers won the Victoria Cross for galloping back to the aid of a wounded trooper whose horse had been shot from under him, rescuing the man from a large number of mutineers.

He later achieved the rank of Regimental Sergeant-Major. In 1862 he became a Yeoman of the Guard, a bodyguard to the Queen and not to be confused with the Yeoman Warders (Beefeaters) who protect the Tower of London. He died on 17 April 1877

1874: The Ashanti War had broken out in 1873 when Kofi Karikari attacked tribes under British protection. Sir Garnet Wolseley drove off the first attacks, then, having been reinforced, advanced into Ashanti territory in January 1874. On 17 January, Major Sartorius rescued under heavy fire a badly wounded African non-commissioned officer. Sadly, the NCO died of his injuries, but Sartorius' gallantry was recognised by the award of the Victoria Cross. His brother also won the VC five years later in Afghanistan.

1885: Major-General Stewart was advancing with the "Desert Column" of Kitchener's army attempting to relieve General Gordon besieged in Khartoum, when his 1,400 men came under attack at Abu Klea from some 10,000 Mahdists. The ferocity of the Mahdists' attack initially broke into the large British defensive square, but Stewart's men eventually drove them off with about 1,100 casualties: the British lost 74 men killed. Gunner Smith saved the life of an officer attacked by a Mahdist swordsman, and received the Victoria Cross. Stewart was killed in action two days later, and his successor failed to continue the advance with sufficient alacrity to save Gordon and his Egyptian garrison.

1912: The expedition led by Captain Scott arrived at the South Pole - only to find that the Norwegians led by Amundsen had just beaten them. Conditions on the return journey proved too much, and Scott's party perished only a few miles short from reaching a supply dump.

On This Day ... in 1636 & Others

The massive Sovereign of the Seas was laid down.

A huge (and overly decorated) warship for the time, she represented Charles I's efforts to build a prestige navy, the financing of which brought him into direct conflict with Parliament and contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642.

1780: Admiral Sir George Rodney won the "Moonlight Battle" off Cape St Vincent. An unusual night action in the age of sail, his fleet inflicted heavy losses on a smaller Spanish fleet, and allowed British supply ships to reach Gibraltar, where the garrison had been starved almost into submission.

1809: The British expeditionary force under Sir John Moore

in Spain, which had been forced to retreat in the face of massively superior French forces, fought a superb rearguard action at Corunna, where the Royal Navy had arrived to evacuate it. Marshal Soult's French army was mauled, but Sir John Moore, who had done much to resurrect the concept of light infantry in the British Army, was fatally wounded.

1881: During an action near Pretoria in the First Boer War, Lance Corporal James Murray of the Connaught Rangers and Trooper Danaher of the Transvaal Horse ran 500 yards through heavy fire from a unit of sixty Boers to rescue a badly wounded soldier lying in the open. Both men were awarded the Victoria Cross.

1917: Berlin sent the famous "Zimmermann telegram" to the German ambassador in Washington. The signal was intercepted by the British and decoded by Royal Navy cryptologists. The contents were then passed to the United States Government, where the revelation of German efforts to manoeuvre Mexico against the US provoked outrage.

1991: The Coalition commenced air operations against Iraq on the night 16/17 January, following Saddam Hussein's failure to withdraw from Kuwait.

On This Day ... in 1541 & Others

Francis I, King of France, signed a commission to begin colonisation of North America

In 1524, Francis assisted the citizens of Lyon in financing the expedition of Giovanni da Verrazzano to North America; on this expedition, Verrazzano claimed Newfoundland for the French crown. In 1534, Francis sent Jacques Cartier to explore the St. Lawrence River in Quebec to find certaines îles et pays où l'on dit qu'il se doit trouver grande quantité d'or et autres riches choses ("certain islands and lands where it is said there must be great quantities of gold and other riches") & in 1541, Jean-François de la Roque de Roberval was sent to settle Canada and to provide for the spread of "the Holy Catholic faith."

1559: Queen Elizabeth I was crowned in Westminster Abbey

1859: At an action at Maylah Gat during the Indian Mutiny, two privates of the Black Watch - Millar & Cook - took charge of their company when the officer & sergeant fell casualties, & were awarded the Victoria Cross.

At another fight at Chichumbah, Captain Clogstoun led a charge of only eight Indian sepoys against a force of mutineers. Although only he & one of his men survived the attack, they succeeded in driving their opponents off & forced them to leave behind much that they had looted from the town. Clogstoun also received the Victoria Cross.

1942: Lieutenant Goodman RNVR was awarded the George Cross for his bravery in dismantling an unexploded Italian torpedo of unusual design, fitted with a self-destruct mechanism.

1944: Australian troops took the last remaining Japanese stronghold on the Huon peninsula in New Guinea, destroying their 20th Division.

On This Day ... in 1676 & Others

Sir John Narbrough's squadron launched an attack on Algerine corsairs at Tripoli, destroying four of the ships.

1848: Boats from HMS Philomel succeeded in capturing a slave-ship anchored in a river-mouth in Sierra Leone.

1784: The United States ratified the peace treaty with England, ending the Revolutionary War

1813: The US Frigate Chesapeake captures the British brig Hero

1815: HMS Endymion, Tenedos and Pomone capture USS President

1881: During an action at Tweefontein during the closing stages of the Basutoland campaign, Surgeon McCrea of the 1st Cape Mounted Yeomanry won the Victoria Cross for his relentless efforts to care for the wounded, despite being seriously injured in the chest himself. He dressed his own wound, then returned to the needs of some 21 injured men, saving several lives.

1942: At Gemas in Malaya, the 8th Division inflicts heavy casualties on Japanese in an ambush. It was the first Australian contact with Japanese troops during the Second World War.

1944: The capture of Sio by the 9th Australian Division represented the final destruction of the Japanese 20th Division in the protracted Huon Peninsula campaign of 1943-1944.

1945: Fourteenth Army, under Lieutenant General Slim, commenced crossing the Irrawaddy River in Burma. Extensive use of deception and patrolling confused the Japanese defenders and disrupted their efforts to oppose the operation.

On This Day ... in 1842 & Others

The British Army suffered its worst disaster in the nineteenth century with the retreat from Kabul during the First Afghan War, which reached its bloody climax on 13 January. The retreat started from Kabul on 6 January, 4,500 British and Indian troops, with 12,000 camp followers setting out for Jalalabad under Major General Elphinstone. Harassed the whole way, with horrendous losses, the last survivors, mainly from the British 44th Foot, made a last stand at Gandamak near Jagdalak Pass. Only one man escaped the carnage, Dr William Brydon, the sole survivor of a small cavalry force that attempted to break out. He reached the safety of Jalalabad on his badly wounded pony, which died as it reached the gate - the inspiration for Lady Butler's famous painting "The Remnants of an Army".

1898: The publication of Emile Zola's J'accuse exposed the Dreyfus affair.

1916: During an action in Mesopotamia, the Commanding Officer of the 9th Bhopal Infantry fell, badly wounded. Sepoy Chatta Singh rushed to his aid, and, ignoring heavy fire, dug a shallow scrape to offer a modest degree of shelter. Then, having bandaged his wounds, Singh lay down on the exposed side of the officer, using his own body to shield him for five hours until night fell. Singh then went back to the British lines to get help, and successfully returned with a small party who managed to get the officer back to safety. Singh was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1935: A plebiscite in Saarland showed that 90.3% of those voting wished to join Nazi Germany

1942: Despite opposition, Admiral Karl Donitz, Flag Officer U-boats, begins Operation "Drum Roll" (Paukenschlag), the use of U-boats in the waters off the eastern coast of North America.

The submariners were surprised to find peacetime conditions on the US coast, with lighthouses and marker buoys still lit. In addition there was no radio silence and positions of merchant ships were frequently given away in radio communications.

These conditions and the inexperience of the USN escort vessels lead to a loss of 150,000 tons in the first month of the operation. The fact that "Drum Roll" could not begin until some weeks after the German declaration of war on the US indicates how unprepared the Navy was for this sudden development

In Germany, the ejection seat was tested by a German test pilot in a Heinkel He 280 jet fighter.

1991: Soviet Union troops attacked Lithuanian independence supporters in Vilnius

1992: Japan apologised for forcing Korean women into sexual slavery during World War II

1993: American, British and French aircraft carried out a series of bombing raids over southern Iraq. The Iraqis had repeatedly breached the "no-fly zone" set up after the Gulf War and launched raids into Kuwait, some two years after the end of the Gulf War.

On This Day ... in 1759 & Others

James Wolfe (1727-1759) was appointed Major-General and Commander-in-Chief of land forces in expedition against Quebec.

1915: Royal Navy ships landed a battalion of the King's African Rifles to seize Mafia Island off German East Africa.

1922: HMS Victory was taken out of service afloat, entering Number 2 Dock in Portsmouth, the world's oldest dry-dock, where she resides to this day.

1942: Hitler ordered the battle cruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst to sail from Brest to Norway, to threaten Allied convoy routes.

1943: The Japanese withdrawal from the Kokoda Trail enabled the Allies to plan the encirclement of important Japanese positions in the Buna, Sanananda and Gona beachhead. Sanananda was last of the three to fall to the Allies after weeks of heavy fighting.

1944: Leighton McCarthy presented his letters of credentials to President Roosevelt as the first Canadian Ambassador to the United States

1945: 3 Commando Brigade of the Royal Marines conducted an amphibious assault at Myebon in Burma, seizing the position from the Japanese and threatening their line of retreat.

1957: HMCS Magnificent, Canada's only aircraft carrier, arrives in Egypt carrying 405 soldiers, vehicles and supplies for the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF)

1991: The US Congress approved joint resolutions authorising the use of force against Iraq

On This Day ... in 1846 & Others

During the First New Zealand (or Flagstaff) War, which broke out after Hone Heke Pokai thrice cut down a flagstaff displaying the Union Flag on Maiki Hill in the far north of North Island.

The governor, Captain George Grey, led an attack on the Pa (a Maori fortification) at Ruapekapeka after attempts at reconciliation had failed. The Royal Navy landed some heavy artillery to assist in the breach of the stockade, but the assault itself proved something of an anticlimax, since the Pa proved empty - Hone Heke and his men had gone to church, never believing that the British would be so un-Christian as to attack on a Sunday. Grey took no reprisals, the Maoris dispersed their men, and peace returned to that part of the island.

1944: HMS Tally Ho, one of the Royal Navy submarine flotilla based at Trincomalee, caught the Japanese light cruiser Kuma in the Malacca Strait, one of the very few large Japanese warships then operating in the area, and sank her with two torpedo hits.

1973: The proclamation by the Governor-General, Sir Paul Hasluck, ended 11 years of Australian involvement in Vietnam, the longest duration of any war in Australia's history.

On This Day ... in 1645 & Others

Archbishop William Laud was beheaded at the Tower of London

The Long Parliament was summoned in November 1640 in response to the crisis brought about by the Bishops' Wars. Amongst its earliest proceedings were moves against the King's "evil councillors", the Earl of Strafford and Archbishop Laud. On 18 December, Denzil Holles, by order of the House of Commons, impeached Laud for high treason at the bar of the House of Lords. On 26th February 1641, articles of impeachment were brought up by Sir Henry Vane. Laud was accused of assuming tyrannical powers in Church and State, of subverting the true religion with popish superstition and of causing the recent disastrous wars against the Scots.

Laud was buried at All Hallows, Barking. After the Restoration, his body was reburied in a vault under the altar at the chapel of St John's College, Oxford.

1806: The Dutch colony at Cape Town surrendered to the expeditionary force led by Major General Sir David Baird.

1847: American naval forces occupied Los Angeles

1850: Robert McClure & Richard Collinson set sail in the Enterprise and Investigator from Plymouth to search for Franklin expedition that had been lost, looking for the North West Passage

1904: The Fourth Somaliland Expedition under Major General Sir Charles Egerton won a significant victory over the forces led by the so-called "Mad Mullah", Mahommed bin Abdullah, at Jidballi in British Somaliland, inflicting about a thousand casualties on the dervishes for the loss of 58 dead or wounded on the British side. The victory secured peace the area for about five years until the Mullah recommenced raiding in 1909. During the action at Jidballi, Lieutenant Smith of the 5th Somaliland Light Infantry won the Victoria Cross for his efforts (although they proved in vain) to rescue a medical officer and his assistant.

1912: The Royal Navy's leading aviation pioneer, Lieutenant Samson, made the first successful take-off from an RN ship, launching his Short seaplane off a ramp in the bows of the battleship HMS Africa. The American Eugene Ely had made the first ever ship-borne take-off 14 months previously, but the Royal Navy now made rapid strides to exploit aviation at sea, a field it was to dominate during the First World War.

1920: League of Nations was established as the ultimately disastrous Treaty of Versailles came into effect

1922: Arthur Griffith was elected President of the Irish Free State

1940: Following in the footsteps of the first AIF, four passenger liners departed from Sydney, New South Wales, carrying the Australian 16th Brigade. The second AIF, unlike their earlier counterparts who were sent to the UK, fought mainly in North Africa. The ships, escorted by the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia, linked with a convoy carrying the New Zealand 4th Brigade that sailed had from Auckland on 6 January

1941: The aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious narrowly survived an intense Luftwaffe dive-bomber attack in the Mediterranean whilst escorting a convoy from Alexandria to Malta. Illustrious was badly damaged, but managed to reach Valletta, where despite continuous further air attack, she was patched up sufficiently to retire to Alexandria for major repairs.

1942: After their rapid advance through Malaya, Japanese forces paved the way for their invasion of Singapore with a series of air raids against the island.

1944: Churchill and Roosevelt, in a joint announcement, reported that merchant shipping losses due to U-boats were 60 percent less than losses for the preceding year.

1959: The USSR recognizes the communist government of the Republic of Cuba

On This Day ... in 1806 & Others

Vice Admiral Lord Nelson was buried at St Paul's Cathedral.

Nelson was granted a state funeral unprecedented for someone not of royal blood. His body was shipped home preserved in a cask of brandy and raw alcohol.

The interior dome of St Paul’s was artificially lit for the first time and hung with enemy flags captured at Trafalgar, with special raked staging put up for the huge congregation that attended the service, which lasted more than three hours. At the end, Nelson’s body, in its elaborate outer coffin, was lowered into the crypt below and placed in the Italian marble sarcophagus that can still be seen there. Presented by George III from the Royal Collection, this was originally made for Cardinal Wolsey in the 16th century.

1838: 200 Canadian rebels and their American supporters, the Michigan wing of William Lyon Mackenzie's republican insurrection, landed on Bois Blanc Island on the Detroit River. The schooner Anne, one of two attacking vessels, was grounded near the town and was swiftly captured by the local militia. This act prompted the rebels to return to the United States

1916: The rearguard of the Newfoundland Regiment was evacuated from the Gallipoli peninsula, ending its role in the Dardanelles campaign.

1940: British ocean liner SS Dunbar Castle stuck a mine and sunk off the southeast coast of England. 152 passengers and crew lost their lives

1941: The Royal Navy's Force H, including the carrier HMS Ark Royal, provided cover for Operation Excess, a convoy of supply ships headed for Malta and Greece. Ark Royal dispatched six Swordfish torpedo bombers to reinforce 830 Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm, based on Malta, which was conducting a successful campaign of night attacks on Axis shipping and installations in Sicily. Italian SM79 bombers attacked Force H, but were intercepted by Ark Royal's Fulmar fighters and two were shot down by Lieutenant Tillard. Other Italian aircraft, including Stukas, attacked Malta, inflicting some damage to RAF aircraft on the ground. An air combat with 261 Squadron's Hurricanes saw two Macchi MC200 fighters shot down.

1942: Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, General Officer Commanding Malaya, issued instructions for withdrawal of the Indian 3 Corps into Johore, where a final stand before Singapore Naval Base was to be made.

1943: Tokyo radio announced that Nanking Government in China had declared war on the United States and Great Britain, and that a Sino-Japanese declaration had been signed for cooperation between the Chinese Government and Japan, the abolition of extraterritoriality, and the retrocession of concessions and settlements

1944: Prime Minister Churchill and General de Gaulle met at Marrakesh, Morocco, for discussions on the cooperation of a French expeditionary force in the invasion of Europe, and the degree of authority of the French committee in the control of civil affairs inside France after the invasion

1945: US landing on Luzon at the Lingayen Gulf, codenamed Operation Mike 1, began.

1966: Soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment began Operation Crimp, an attack on what proved to be a major Viet Cong tunnel complex.

On This Day ... in 871 & Others

On or around this date, Alfred the Great defeated the Danes at the Battle of Ashdown. The victory proved not to be decisive, however.

1746: As the Second Jacobite Rising continued, Bonnie Prince Charlie occupied Stirling

1780: Admiral Sir George Rodney captured a heavily escorted Spanish convoy off Cape Finisterre.

1806: The body of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson was taken by barge down the Thames from the Royal Naval Hospital Greenwich to Whitehall, before his funeral the following day at St Paul's Cathedral

1815: US forces led by General Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans, the closing engagement of the War of 1812

1838: The Essex Militia landed at Bois Blanc Island, off Amherstburg, to fend off an expected invasion by the Michigan wing of the "Patriot Army of the North-West"

1916: Allied forces evacuated Cape Helles at the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula, the last remaining position held in the Dardanelles

1940: A converted Wellington bomber fitted with an energized metal hoop to explode magnetic mines conducted its first successful trials over the North Sea

On This Day ... in 1813 & Others

Lt. Colonel Bruyeres, of the Royal Engineers, reported his findings on the state of defences along the St. Lawrence River. This was the main artery for transporting supplies and reinforcements from Lower to Upper Canada, and Bruyeres recommended a thorough strengthening of facilities along the route

1841: During the Opium War with China, fought to allow British traders to continue importing opium into the Manchu empire, Major Pratt of the 26th Foot led an amphibious assault on the Chinese forts guarding the Canton estuary at Chuenpi and Tai kok tau. The Royal Navy squadron covering the attack overwhelmed a force of war junks, the commanding junk being sunk by a rocket from HMS Calliope. The victory led to the cession to the British of Hong Kong 11 days later.

1901: A night attack by Boer forces on Monument Hill led to the capture of a position held by the Royal Irish Rifles. Private Barry, despite being wounded, persevered in smashing the breech of a Maxim machine-gun to render it useless to the enemy, and was killed after he refused to stop. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1915: A 12-man patrol of the North Waziristan Militia was caught by some 1,500 Khostwal tribesmen in the Tochi valley, India. Captain Jotham ordered his men to retreat, but one fell when his horse was shot. Rather than save himself, Jotham immediately turned back on his own to attempt a rescue, and was killed. He received the Victoria Cross.

1917: An aircraft of 20 Squadron Royal Flying Corps, flown by Sergeant Mottershead, was patrolling over the Passchendaele area when it was attacked by German fighters. The petrol tank caught fire, but despite being directly in the flames, Sergeant Mottershead managed to bring the aircraft down safely from 9,000' to crash-land behind the Allied lines. The observer was thrown clear and survived but Mottershead was trapped in the wreckage. He was eventually freed but died of his appalling injuries four days later in hospital. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1952: HMAS Tobruk bombarded Chomi Do on the Haeju Gulf north-west of Seoul, forestalling a North Korean invasion of Yongmae Do, an island about 12 miles from Inchon.

Torbruk commenced her fifth patrol on 1 January 1952 when she relieved HMS Whitesand Bay in the Haeju area, operating mainly in defence of Yongpyong-Do. Two or three bombardments were carried out daily during this phase and on 7 January Chomi Do was heavily attacked to prevent a threatened invasion of Yongmae Do. On 9 January TOBRUK was relieved by Cayuga.

After a patrol marked chiefly by snow storms and gales, she proceeded for Sasebo on 25 January, bringing to a close her first tour of duty in the Korean War. At the end of her five months of service in the operational areas, Torbruk had steamed some 39,000 miles and fired 2,316 rounds from her 4.5-inch guns.

On This Day ... in 1066 & Others

Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, was crowned King

1540: King Henry VIII married Anne of Cleves

1558: Calais, the last major English possession on the continent, was stormed by French troops who waded across the harbour. Hopelessly outnumbered, the weak garrison surrendered the town to the Duc de Guise in return for a free evacuation.

1649: The Rump Parliament voted to put Charles I on trial

1661: The Fifth Monarchists unsuccessfully attempted to seize control of London.

1781: At the Battle of Jersey, the last attempt by France to invade the island was defeated

1858: Private McQuirt, 95th Regiment, won the Victoria Cross during an Indian Mutiny action when he was badly wounded fighting three opponents in hand-to-hand combat. He suffered five sword cuts and a gunshot wound.

1893: Following banditry attacks on police and civilian communities in the Kachin Hills region of Burma, a military expedition was dispatched in December 1892 to restore order. On 6 January 1893, Surgeon Major Lloyd won the Victoria Cross during an assault on a fort. The officer commanding the attack fell badly wounded only ten yards from the enemy walls, whereupon Lloyd and an Indian NCO rushed forward to help him. Lloyd stayed with the wounded man tending his injuries, being shot at the whole time and being hit himself, whilst the NCO went back to bring up a stretcher party. Although they managed to get the wounded officer back to the British positions, he died shortly afterwards.

1900: The British garrison at Ladysmith, including a Royal Navy contingent from HMS Powerful manning heavy guns, succeeded in repulsing a Boer attack on their position at Wagon Hill. At one point the Boers succeeded in taking the hill, but a small force led by Lieutenant Digby-Jones and Trooper Herman Albrecht launched a successful counterattack. Both men were killed during the battle, but were awarded the Victoria Cross, as was Lieutenant Masterson, who had run through a hail of fire to deliver an urgent message asking for fire support before collapsing with bullets in both legs.

Elsewhere that day, the Boers attacked a hill at Caesar's Camp in Natal. Sixteen men of the Manchester Regiment held a position on the hillside against overwhelming odds. Fourteen were killed, but Privates Pitts and Scott held out alone for fifteen hours without water, engaged in a heavy fire fight until reinforcements finally relieved them. They both received the Victoria Cross.

1916: The battleship HMS King Edward VII was sunk by a German mine off Scotland. When she had been launched, the King had asked that she should always be used as a flagship. The operation on which she was lost was the first time that his request had not been honoured.

1929: Adolf Hitler, head of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), appointed Heinrich Himmler to replace Erhard Heiden as head of the 280 strong Schutzstaffel (defense squadron or SS).

1933: US Secretary of State Henry Stimson asked President Herbert Hoover to request legislation from Congress permitting the President to limit or forbid shipment of arms and munitions of war to any foreign state when such shipment would promote or encourage use of force in a conflict or dispute between nations

1937: The US Neutrality Acts of 1935 and 1936 applied to wars between nations and did not extend to civil wars. As a result, the US Congress passed a joint resolution forbidding the export of munitions to both the Nationalist and Republican forces in Spain. Under this act, the Roosevelt administration embargoed arms sales to both sides

1940: The New Zealand 4th Brigade sailed from Auckland for Egypt in six transports escorted by the battleship HMS Ramillies, heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra and New Zealand-manned light cruiser HMS Leander

1941: The heavy cruiser USS Louisville departed Simonstown for New York, having taken on board US$148,342,212.55 in British gold, for deposit in US banks

1942: A Japanese amphibious force landed at Brunei Bay in British Borneo

US President Roosevelt formally submitted a budget request to Congress of US$59 billion for Fiscal Year 1943. Congressmen were stunned at the proposal, but Roosevelt was undeterred. "These figures and similar figures for a multitude of other implements of war will give the Japanese and Nazis a little idea of just what they accomplished."

Roosevelt also announced that America’s land, sea and air forces would be sent to Britain

1943: Parkash Singh, a Havildar with 8th Punjab Regiment, drove his Bren Gun Carrier into heavy Japanese fire in an action in Burma to rescue the crews of two other carriers which had been knocked out. For this, and two similar rescue operations a fortnight later, he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1944: The master plan for an Allied invasion of North West Europe which had been codenamed "Overlord", was being drastically revised after examination by General Montgomery, the ground force commander under General Eisenhower.

The original plan had been prepared by an Anglo-US team led by Lieutenant General Frederick Morgan, the chief of staff to the supreme Allied commander. However because of the lack of landing craft, the assault force to be put ashore in Normandy was put at only three divisions. They would land north of Cean and, after consolidating the beachhead, swing North West to capture the port of Cherbourg.

An airborne division would protect each flank of the landing force and two seaborne divisions would follow as immediate reinforcements, leading to a build-up of 18 divisions.

In Churchill's view, an operation on such a limited scale could only be mounted if German forces in France were held down to 12 mobile divisions and enemy fighter strength was reduced.

On first seeing the plan, Montgomery said that the Germans would have no difficulty in containing such a small landing area, and severe congestion would follow when reinforcements were brought in. He took his objections to Eisenhower, who agreed with him.

In three days this week at St. Paul's School Montgomery’s 21st Army Group, hammered out a plan for five divisions to land on a 50-mile from the river Orne to the Cherbourg peninsula. A third airborne division would join the two already assigned to flank protection. The new plan called for a greatly expanded force of landing craft, so D-Day was delayed for a month, to the end of May

Since all remaining landing craft were recalled to the Mediterranean, Admiral Louis Mountbatten, Commander-in-Chief South East Asia Command (SEAC), canceled Operation Pigstick, a proposed operation on the southern Mayu Peninsula

1945: In the Lingayen Gulf, Japanese suicide plane attacks intensified against the Allied invasion force; kamikazes damaged the battleships USS New Mexico (killing members of an observing British military mission) and California, heavy cruiser USS Louisville, light cruiser USS Columbia and destroyers USS Allen M Sumner, Newcomb (she is also hit by friendly fire), O'Brien and Richard P Leary.

Kamikazes also attacked the minesweeping group, sinking the high speed minesweeper USS Long and damaging the USS Southard and high speed transport USS Brooks.

The destroyer USS Walke, on detached duty covering the minesweeping operations was attacked by four enemy aircraft; one crashed into the ship's bridge, drenching it with burning gasoline and mortally wounding Walke's commanding officer, Commander George F Davis. Davis nevertheless remained at his post, amidst the wreckage, rallying his crew. Carried below only when assured that his ship would survive, he died of his wounds and was subsequently awarded the Medal of Honor

As a consequence of the kamikaze attacks, Task Force 38 (Vice Admiral John S. McCain and grandfather of Senator John S McCain) shifted its focus from Formosa to begin operations against Japanese airfields and shipping in the Luzon area. In South China Sea off northern Luzon, Navy carrier-based planes sank a Japanese army cargo ship and six merchant tankers

On This Day ... in 1781 & Others

A British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Virginia

1846: The US House of Representatives voted to stop 'sharing' the Oregon Territory with the Great Britain

1895: The Dreyfus Affair continued with the conviction of French officer Alfred Dreyfus. He was stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island

1900: Lieutenant Milbanke, 10th Hussars, won the Victoria Cross on a reconnaissance patrol near Colesberg during the Boer War. His unit turned to escape when it came under heavy fire, but one of his men was unable to keep up since his horse was exhausted. Milbanke rode back to help and managed to get him onto his own horse, despite suffering a severe leg wound in the process, and got him to safety. Milbanke was awarded the Victoria Cross.

In Ireland John Edward Redmond called for a revolt against British rule

1918: The Free Committee for a German Workers Peace, which would in time become the Nazi party, was founded

1941: For the loss of 450 men killed and wounded, 6th Australian Division with British tank and artillery support captured Bardia in Libya, taking 40,000 Italian prisoners including four generals.
It was Australia's first major land battle of the Second World War.

Amy Johnson, the famous female pilot who flew solo to Australia in 1931, was killed when the RAF aircraft she was delivering as an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot ran out of fuel in very bad weather and crashed into the Thames Estuary. She was seen to bail out by the crew of HMS Haslemere, a patrol trawler, which went to her aid. Lieutenant Commander Fletcher, Haslemere's captain, dived into the icy water to rescue her, but was unable to keep her afloat. Although his crew managed to get him back on board, he himself died in hospital from the exposure he had suffered.

1942: The Soviet Army landed reinforcements on the Crimean coast near Eupatoria and Sudak, in an effort to break the siege of the Sevastopol naval base. However gains were very small in the face of firm German resistance

1943: HMNZS Achilles joined a US Navy Task Force in the bombardment of Japanese positions on Munda and Kolombangara islands during the Guadalcanal operations, and suffered some damage during a Japanese air attack.

1945: In the South China Sea, Japanese air attacks continue against the Lingayen Gulf-bound forces in the teeth of heavy antiaircraft fire and combat air patrol.

Of the minesweeping group, an infantry landing craft was damaged by a kamikaze, a small seaplane tender and a fleet tug were also damaged by near-misses.

Kamikazes attacking the bombardment and escort carrier groups succeeded in damaging heavy cruiser USS Louisville and destroyer USS Helm the escort aircraft carriers USS Manila Bay and USS Savo Island and the destroyer USS Stafford. Also damaged were the Australian heavy cruiser HMAS Australia and destroyer HMAS Arunta.

Japanese escort destroyers approached the minesweeping group but turned away at approach of USS Bennion, HMAS Gascoyne and the sloop HMAS Warrego; subsequently, planes from TG 77.4 (escort carrier group) sink the Momi and damage both the Hinoki and Sugi.

1951: UN Forces evacuated Inchon in Korea. British and Australian warships played a significant part in covering the operation, which successfully rescued some 69,000 personnel, 1,400 vehicles and 62,000 tons of equipment and supplies.

1968: Alexander Dubček came to power in Czechoslovakia, starting a train of events that became known as the Prague Spring

1976: Cambodia was renamed Democratic Kampuchea by the Communist Khmer Rouge

In Northern Ireland, 10 Protestant men were shot dead by IRA terrorists as they were returning home from work in a mini-bus. The attack happened on the Whitecross to Bessbrook Road in South Armagh as the men, all textile workers, returned home from a factory six miles away.

1985: Israel ended a major Ethiopian rescue mission, airlifting thousands of Jewish Ethiopian refugees out of Sudan. Operation Moses, which had been taking place in secret since 21 November 1984, was suspended when news of the covert airlift became public.

The Arab world was angered (again) by Khartoum's decision to co-operate with Israel and allow charter planes to fly from Sudan - which does not recognise the Israel.

1991: During Operation Eastern Exit, the US ambassador, the Soviet ambassador and 193 additional foreign nationals were evacuated from the US Embassy in Mogadishu to USS Guam and Trenton. The rescue operation was initiated from a range of 460 miles, and involved the first in-flight night refuelling of helicopters by USMC KC-130s.

1996: Hamas terrorist leader Yahya Ayyash was killed by an Israeli-planted booby-trapped cell phone

2005: Rear Admirals Francis Etche Agbiti and Samuel Kolawole of the Nigerian Navy were convicted and dismissed from service by the Courts Martial following the disappearance of the illegal oil bunkering ship, MT African Pride.

On This Day ... in 1872 & Others

In December 1871, Brigadier Generals Bourchier and Brownlow led two columns of Indian Army troops into the mountainous Lushai district of eastern Bengal and Assam, following a raid by tribesmen on a tea plantation which had resulted in the kidnap of the planter's daughter.

On 4 January 1872, Major Donald Macintyre, 2nd Gurkha Rifles, led an assault on the fortified village of Lalgnoora, and ignoring heavy fire was the first man over the nine-foot high stockade. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his gallantry. The expedition concluded the following month with the successful rescue of the hostage and the agreement of peace terms

1916: British forces led by General Aylmer

including a flotilla of river gunboats, began a series of operations against the German-led Sixth Turkish Army in a vain attempt to relieve the troops trapped in Kut-el-Amara under Major General Townshend. Townshend was eventually forced to surrender on 29 April 1916.

1923: Lenin finished his “Letter to the Congress.” On this day, he pointed out negative characteristics of Stalin and suggested that he be replaced as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Russia Communist Party

1942: Major General George Brett assumed command of the US Forces in Australia. One of his first orders is to divert two transports enroute from Brisbane to the Philippines to put in at Darwin. This effectively ended the effort to reinforce the troops in the Philippines

1945: Fleet Air Arm aircraft from the aircraft carriers Indomitable, Indefatigable and Victorious launched a major air strike against the Japanese oil refineries at Pangkalan Brandan in Sumatra.

1951: North Korean and Communist Chinese forces captured Seoul. HMCS Cayuga pulled away from Inchon, the last United Nations vessel to leave the area just before the North Korean Army overran the city

On This Day ... in 1833 & Others

Great Britain took control of the Falkland Islands

On January 2nd a British force had arrived at Port Louis (Soledad) and take possesion of the islands. The force consisted of HMS Clio under Captain Onslow and HMS Tyne. The Argentine armed schooner Sarandi under Don Jose Maria Pinedo was in port. Onslow gave Pinedo written notice that he had been ordered to exercise British rights of sovereignty and that the next morning he would raise the British flag and requested that Pinedo lower the Argentine flag and depart.

Pinedo waited upon Onslow and protested refusing to lower the Argentine flag. However on the morning of the 3rd, British troops landed raised the Union flag, lowered the Argentine flag, which was subsequently delivered to Pinedo. Sarandi left the islands taking aboard the Argentine soldiers that were on the islands.

1940: German U-Boat U-25 becomes the first Axis submarine to take advantage of Spain's offer to allow reprovisioning and refueling in its ports.

1941: At Alexandria, Midshipman Prince Philip of Greece joins battleship HMS Valiant, which, with battleships HMS Barham and Warspite, later bombarded Bardia, Libya, to assist with the British Army plans for its capture.

1942: Lieutenant Colonel Cumming commanded the 2nd Battalion of the 12th Frontier Force Regiment in a fierce defence against the Japanese at Kuantan, Malaya. When the Japanese took part of his position, Cumming led forward a small party in an immediate counterattack, winning time for the battalion to withdraw. Every man in the counterattack was killed or wounded, and Cumming himself suffered two bayonet wounds to the stomach. Nevertheless, he remained in command, and, using a Bren Gun Carrier, drove around the battlefield under heavy fire, collecting the wounded and mustering cut-off detachments. His gallantry and leadership allowed the remainder of the brigade to withdraw in relatively good order, and he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1942: Roosevelt and Churchill announced creation of a unified command in the Southwest Pacific, with British General Sir Archibald P Wavell as supreme commander of American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) forces in that area.

General Wavell was directed to;
(1) to hold the Malay Barrier (the line Malay Peninsula-Sumatra-Java-Northern Australia) and operate as far beyond the barrier as possible in order to check the Japanese advance
(2) hold Burma and Australia
(3) restore communications with the Philippine Islands through the Netherlands East Indies
(4) maintain communications within the theatre.

In another move, Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was named Commander in Chief of Allied Forces in China.

1942: Military planners come to the realization that it will be impossible to reinforce the Philippine Islands and the troops in those islands are doomed. When told of this, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson notes, "There are times when men must die".

1943: A two-man submersible Chariot, based on a modified torpedo, succeeded in penetrating Palermo harbour and sank the light cruiser Ulpio Traiano - the first such use of the device by the Royal Navy, which had copied it from the Italian Navy's Maiale that had been used to considerable effect against British shipping earlier in the war.

1945: British forces launched an attack on Akyab, Burma, including the deployment of a Royal Navy bombardment force. In the event, the Japanese proved to have withdrawn, and Akyab was liberated single-handed by a Royal Artillery officer.

1951: UN troops were forced to evacuate Seoul as Chinese and North Korean troops advanced south.

On This Day ... in 1492 & Others

The leader of the last Moor stronghold in Spain surrendered to Spanish forces loyal to King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I as the Reconquista ( الاسترداد / al-ʼIstirdād ) finally came to an end

The last of those centuries-old Islamic strongholds was the province of Andalucia, and was never Arab. 'The Iberian peninsula was taken early in the 8th Century by a people the indigenous Dark Ages Spanish routinely referred to as "Moors", who were not Arab at all (Arabs were in the Near East) , but out of an ancient tribe spread around present-day Morocco called "Mauri", from which the Romans got the term Mauritania (and the Cunard Line the name of its famous liner) for the region.

1602: The Spanish commander Del Aguila, sent to Ireland with an expeditionary force to help the Ulster rebel Hugh O'Neill, surrendered after being besieged at Kinsale by the English forces of Lord Mountjoy. The Spanish were granted a free evacuation back home. O'Neill, who had marched south to attempt a rescue of his ally, was forced to retreat north again, and, eventually realising his cause was hopeless, came to terms with the English the following year.

1757: A small force of only 2,400 British and Indian troops under Colonel Robert Clive recaptured Calcutta, where Nawab Surak-ud-Daula had imprisoned the European residents in the infamous "Black Hole".

1777: As the Amercian War of Independence continued, forces under the command of George Washington repulsed a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek near Trenton, New Jersey.

1779: The chapel of the Royal Naval Hospital at Greenwich was destroyed by fire. James "Athenian" Stuart was commissioned to rebuild it, and ten years later his Rococo masterpiece was completed.

1858: Lieutenant Roberts of the Bengal Artillery won the Victoria Cross during an action in the Indian Mutiny when he successfully recovered a standard captured by mutineers, then rescued a loyal Indian soldier under attack. Roberts enjoyed a spectacularly successful military career, rising to the rank of Field Marshal and enoblement as Earl Roberts of Kandahar. His son also won the Victoria Cross, posthumously, 41 years later in the Boer War.

1859: Towards the end of the Indian Mutiny, Private Addison of the 43rd Regiment stood over a wounded officer during an action near Kurrereah, defending him against overwhelming numbers. Both men survived, but Addison was himself seriously wounded and lost a leg. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1900: US Secretary of State John Hay announced an "Open Door Policy" to facilitate trade with China

1905: Japanese General Nogi received from Russian General Stoessel at 9 p.m. a letter formally offering to surrender, ending the Russo-Japanese War

1920: On the North West Frontier, Lieutenant Kenny, 39th Garhwal Rifles, commanded a small force deployed in an exposed position, which came under sudden very heavy attack from tribesmen. Kenny and his men held their position for over four hours, defeating three successive assaults. At length, they were forced to withdraw. Pressed hard by their opponents, the evacuation of the wounded proved difficult; to win them sufficient time to get clear, Lieutenant Kenny and a few men turned back and counter-attacked their pursuers. Kenny and his small party were all killed, but the rest of his men escaped. Lieutenant Kenny was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

1940: The Distinguished Flying Cross was awarded to two Canadian officers serving in the Royal Air Force; Pilot-Officer S.R. Henderson and Wing-Commander J.F. Griffiths. They were the first Canadians to be decorated during the Second World War

1941: The SS Nalgora, dispersed from convoy OB-261 on 22 December, was hit by one stern torpedo from U-65 about 350 miles north of the Cape Verde Islands and was sunk 20 minutes later by 70 rounds from the U-Boats deck gun.

The master, 101 crewmembers and three passengers were rescued after eight days adrift in lifeboats. 52 survivors were picked up by the British merchantman Nolisement and landed at Freetown, while 34 survivors were picked up by the British merchant Umgeni and landed in Glasgow on 13 January. 19 crewmembers in a lifeboat reached shore at San Antonio, Cape Verde Islands

A 100-mile swathe of ‘neutral’ Irish territory was bombed by German aircraft for the second time in 48 hours. It is thought that they might be intended to intimidate the Irish into remaining neutral in spite of Anglo-American pressure for the use of Irish bases to protect convoys

German bombing severely damaged Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff, Wales

The U.S. government announced its Liberty ship programme to build freighters in support of the war effort.

1942: The Philippine capital of Manila and the nearby naval base of Cavite were captured by Japanese forces

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation successfully optained the conviction of 33 members of a German spy ring headed by Fritz Joubert Duquesne in the largest espionage case in United States history

1943: Australian and US troops retook Buna in New Guinea after weeks of very heavy fighting that earned the settlement the sobriquet "Bloody Buna"

1944: German U-539 was the first U-boat to depart on a combat patrol equipped with the Snorkel breathing device

1945: Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay KCB, KBE, MVO, an important inovator in the field of amphibious warfare, was killed when his plane crashed on takeoff at Toussus-le-Noble. He was on route to a conference with General Montgomery in Brussels

1946: Unable to resume rule after World War II, King Zog of Albania abdicated but retained his claim to the throne.

1951: Chinese Army units broke the UN lines north of Seoul forcing ROK Divisions to retreat

2000: Admiral. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., known early in his career for modernizing the USN and later for ordering the spraying of Agent Orange in Vietnam, died

On This Day ... in 1586 & Others

Sir Francis Drake with three ships captured San Domingo.

1807: Curacoa was captured by British forces.

1889: Surgeon Crimmin was awarded the Victoria Cross for his gallantry during an action in Burma during the Karen-Ni Expedition, where he not only tended the wounded under heavy fire, but also fought off an attack on them with his sword, as well as joining the firing line at one point.

1943: An RAF Coastal Command Sunderland flying boat spotted the German blockade runner Rhakotis in the Bay of Biscay on 31 December 1942, attempting to smuggle in war cargo from Japan. The light cruiser HMS Scylla was diverted to intercept, and ran at full speed through a gale for some 20 hours, with the Sunderland guiding her towards the target by dropping flares along the course.

Scylla eventually caught Rhakotis that evening and sank her 140 miles from the French coast.

1945: During an attack on the Dortmund-Ems Canal, a Lancaster bomber of 9 Squadron was badly damaged by two anti-aircraft hits and the fuselage set on fire. The wireless operator, Flight Sergeant Thompson, rescued the gunners from the rear and mid-upper turrets, extinguishing their burning clothing with his bare hands, suffering appalling injuries in the process. The aircraft crash-landed, and although one of the gunners died, the other survived thanks to Thompson's efforts. Flight Sergeant Thompson died of his injuries three weeks later, and was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

On This Day ... in 1595 & Others

Following the death of Sir John Hawkins on 12 November and the failure to take San Juan in Puerto Rico, troops under Sir Thomas Baskerville attempted to storm a Spanish position securing the key mountain pass in the Panamanian Isthmus. The pass lay on the jungle track along which the silver from Spain's Peruvian mines was carried to reach the Atlantic coast for convoying to Europe. Fighting in appalling conditions, Baskerville's men were unable to take the pass and fell back towards Nombre de Dios and Sir Francis Drake's ships. Baskerville's men were evacuated on 2 January, but Drake died 26 days later.

1858: At the River Raptee during the Indian Mutiny, several British soldiers got into difficulty in the water during an over-enthusiastic pursuit. Despite being partially disabled from a wound suffered earlier in the campaign, Major Fraser of the 7th Hussars swam through heavy musket fire to rescue them and help them to the shore. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1823: The Royal Navy facilities at Plymouth were given the name Devonport, until then simply known as Dock.

1942: A Royal Navy destroyer force under Captain Sherbrooke in HMS Onslow were escorting convoy JW.51B in the Barents Sea bound for Russia when the German pocket battleship Lutzow, heavy cruiser Hipper and six destroyers attacked.

Sherbrooke led out five destroyers to drive them off. Despite the massive German superiority in firepower, the destroyers held them off for three hours until the light cruisers Jamaica and Sheffield arrived to help.

Sherbrooke was badly wounded in the face early in the action and partially blinded, with his left eye dislodged, but nevertheless continued to direct the defence. HMS Achates and HMS Bramble were sunk, but the Germans, under orders not to risk their capital ships, eventually turned away and the convoy escaped. Captain Sherbrooke received the Victoria Cross.

On This Day ... in 1460 & Others

During the Wars of the Roses, Richard, Duke of York, was killed in battle at Sandal Castle near Wakefield. However, undeterred, his sons continued the fight by the House of York against the House of Lancaster.

1778: A Royal Navy squadron landed troops to capture the island of St Lucia.

1884: Tojo Heideki was born in Tokyo. The son of a Japanese Army Lieutenant General, Tojo graduated from the Japanese military academy in 1905 and was appointed War Minister in 1940. He later served as the 40th Prime Minister of Japan 18 October 1941 until 22 July 1944. He was hanged for war crimes by the Allies after the Japanese capitulation in August 1945

1897: In Southern Africa, Natal annexed Zululand

1915: The armoured cruiser HMS Natal blew up whilst moored in Cromarty Firth when a fire spread to a magazine and 421 crew were lost with the ship.

1922: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established, comprising a confederation of Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine, and the Transcaucasian Federation (divided in 1936 into the Georgian, Azerbaijan, and Armenian republics).

Also known as the Soviet Union, the new communist state was the successor to the Russian Empire and the first country in the world to be based on Marxist socialism.

Senior appointees included Joseph Stain is the General Secretary of the Central Committee, Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin as the Chairmen of the Council of People's Commissars

1934: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini issued orders for the full conquest of Ethiopia

1939: A breakaway group of Chinese Nationalists in Hanoi, led by the Kuomintang's ex-foreign minister Wang Chingwei, appeared to have finalised an agreement with Japan to set up a rival Nationalist government under Japanese protection.

The Tokyo educated Wang Chingwei, once Chiang Kai-shek's main rival for the Kuomintang leadership, fled to Hanoi in 1938 to start a peace movement in response to Japan's call for a "new order in Asia."
Since the loss of Wuhan he had become convinced that the war against Japan is un-winnable

1941: Winston Churchill arrived in Ottawa after his talks with Franklin D. Roosevelt over strategy to win the war with Germany. In an evening speech to Parliament, Churchill quipped

"When I warned them (the French) that Britain would fight on alone, whatever they did, their Generals told their Prime Minister and his divided cabinet that in three weeks, England would have her neck wrung like a chicken - Some chicken! Some neck!"

1944: Australian troops captured Pearl Ridge, Bougainville.

1947: King Michael of Romania was forced to abdicate by the Soviet-backed Communist government of Romania

1959: The US Navy commissioned its first ballistic missile submarine, USS George Washington

On This Day ... in 1170 & Others

"Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury was killed inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II. He subsequently became a saint and martyr in both the Anglican and the Roman Catholic Church

1669: Mary Rose successfully defended a convoy of merchantmen against seven Algerine pirate ships.

1758: A squadron of Royal Navy ships under Commodore Keppel, with an Army detachment embarked, captured Goree in Senegal from the French.

1778: As the Amercian Revolution continued 3,500 British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell captured Savannah, Georgia without firing a shot.

1812: The USS Constitution under the command of Captain William Bainbridge captured HMS Java off Brazil after a three-hour battle

1813: British soldiers burnt Buffalo, New York during the War of 1812

1837: Royal Navy Commander Andrew Drew and a group of Canadian militiamen crossed the Niagara River to Fort Schlosser and captured the American supply steamer Caroline used by William Lyon Mackenzie and his rebels on Navy Island. They set the ship ablaze, cut her adrift and send her toward Niagara Falls. This incident almost caused war between Britain and US.

1860: Australian forces were deployed for the first time overseas, a detachment of sailors from the steam sloop Victoria taking part in an engagement ashore during the closing stages of the Second New Zealand War.

In Britain, the Royal Navy's first ironclad warship, HMS Warrior, was launched at Blackwall on the Thames. The French had built the first armoured warship, Gloire, the previous year, but had proved unable to build an iron hull, resorting instead to armour plating over a wooden hull. Warrior in contrast boasted an iron hull, wood only being used for shock absorption behind the armour.

1877: During the Ninth Cape Frontier War, a trooper of the Frontier Mounted Police was dismounted during a skirmish with tribesmen from the Ngquika clan of the Xhosa, and unable to escape. Spotting his predicament, Major Hans Moore of the 88th Regiment galloped up to attempt a rescue, charging into the midst of the enemy force. He proved unable to save the trooper's life, and had to fight his way back to safety, being wounded by an assegai in the process. Moore was awarded the Victoria Cross for his gallant effort.

1934: The Japanese Government formally renounced their participation in the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930 and started a massive arms building program. (The 1922 treaty established the maximum tonnage of capital ships that could be built by the five signatories, the British Empire, France, Italy, Japan and the US. The 1930 treaty aimed to regulated submarine warfare and limited military shipbuilding).

1937: The Irish Free State is replaced by a new state called Ireland with the adoption of a new constitution

1940: The City of London suffered heavy damage during a large Luftwaffe raid on the night 29/30 December. The famous picture of St Paul's Dome undamaged in the smoke and fire was taken that night, but eight other churches built by Sir Christopher Wren were burnt out along with many other public buildings.

Some 20,000 regular and auxiliary firemen from all over the London area fought the fires but the raid still killed almost 200 civilians

President Roosevelt drafted a US$17 billion budget for the fiscal year 1942, including US$10 billion for the armament program.

1944: A serious fire broke out in a rocket magazine in Mogadishu. Captain Latutin of the Somerset Light Infantry suffered severe burns whilst successfully rescuing two men and attempting in vain to rescue a boy caught in the blaze. Latutin died of his injuries the following day, and was awarded a posthumous George Cross.

Flight-Lieutenant R.J. Audet, No.411 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, shot down five German fighters during a patrol over the Rhine

1945: Lavrenty Beria was relieved from the duties of the Minister of the Interior and entrusted with work to supervise the implementation of the USSR nuclear weapons programme

The Canadian Department of National Defense released the following World War II casualty statistics:

41,371 killed
43,178 wounded
10,844 prisoners of war
32 missing in action

1956: HMCS Magnificent sailed for Port Said with Canadian troops and equipment to monitor the ceasefire between Franco-British and Egyptian forces. It was Canada's first experience of ‘peacekeeping’.

On This Day ... in 1940 & 1943

The Australian 6th Division took its place in the front line in the Western Desert, relieving 4th Indian Division which was needed for the East African campaign. The 6th Division soon proved as effective as the very experienced Indian formation, leading the successful attack on Bardia, an Italian frontier fortress

1943: Canadian troops liberated the port of Ortona on Italy's Adriatic coast after intense street fighting.

In the Bay of Biscay, the cruisers HMS Enterprise

and HMS Glasgow

caught a force of ten German destroyers, which had sortied in an effort to escort home a German blockade-runner, Alsterufer.

Alsterufer had, however, been sunk the previous day by Coastal Command aircraft. Enterprise and Glasgow sank three of the destroyers (T 25, T 26 and Z 27) and left a further four damaged.
The cruisers then survived retaliatory strikes by the Luftwaffe.

On This Day ... in 1831 & Others

HMS Beagle set sail on her five-year circumnavigation, with Charles Darwin embarked

1917: During an action in Palestine, two stretcher-bearers from the 6th Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers braved heavy enemy fire in an attempt to reach a wounded man lying exposed in the open.

One of the stretcher-bearers himself fell wounded, whereupon his comrade, Private James Duffy, went back to get help. Another soldier returned with him, but was immediately killed. Duffy thereupon continued on alone, and eventually succeeded in rescuing both the wounded men. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his gallantry.

1941: British and Norwegian commandos mounted the first major Combined Operation, raiding the Norwegian island of Vaagso north of Bergen. The raid - Operation Archery - was intended to tie down German troops in Norway and distract them from operations in the north against Murmansk. Specific targets on the island included the harbour, a power station, fish factories and an oil facility. The island was relatively well defended by German troops, particularly on the small island of Malloy which guarded the entrance to the Ulvesund, and South Vaagso town.

The attack commenced at 0848, with a hurricane bombardment of the German positions on Malloy from the cruiser HMS Kenya and four destroyers. Twelve Hampden bombers from 50 Squadron RAF bombed coastal defences and dropped smoke bombs to cover the approach of the landing craft launched from the troopships Prince Charles and Prince Leopold. Some 580 Commandos and Royal Norwegian Army troops were landed. RAF Blenheim bombers mounted diversionary attacks on German shipping elsewhere on the Norwegian coast and suppressed the nearest air base. Six Blenheims and two of the Hampdens were lost.

German resistance was greater than expected - it later emerged that some front-line infantry were on leave in South Vaagso. After five hours of heavy fighting, the British and Norwegian forces withdrew, having killed some 100 Germans, captured a similar number, and destroyed all the valuable facilities together with several ships. Furthermore, many Norwegian men on the island took the opportunity to return to the UK as volunteers for the Free Norwegian Forces.

1943: The Australian 7th Division captured 'The Pimpel" on Shaggy Ridge in New Guinea after four months of heavy fighting.

By Christmas 1943, the Australians were nearing the end of the Markham and Ramu Valleys campaign, having reached Shaggy Ridge. This was one of the most imposing of many ridgelines encountered. Once it was captured, the way was clear to the coast. Lieutenant Robert 'Shaggy' Clampett, 2/27th Battalion, wrote of the ridge that was named after him:

The Australians pushed on, gradually making their way down towards the coast to link up with troops fighting their way around the Huon Peninsula's coastline. The 15th Infantry Brigade took over the campaign, pushing on to link up with troops who advanced inland on the Huon Peninsula. By the start of February 1944, the last objectives in this area were taken. It was then left to troops of the 8th and 15th Brigades to push on along the coast.

On This Day ... in 1643 & Others

At Middlewich, Royalist troops under Lord Byron, formed around Irish regiments from Leinster, defeated Parliamentary forces under Sir William Brereton attempting to relieve their garrison at Nantwich.

1899: An action was fought at Game Tree near Mafeking during the Boer War. Sergeant Martineau of the Protectorate Regiment won the Victoria Cross by his efforts to save a wounded colleague, himself suffering two wounds in the process. Trooper Ramsden was similarly decorated for saving his own brother's life - his brother fell wounded only ten yards in front of the Boer positions. Ramsden picked him up and carried him back some 800 yards, under heavy fire all the time and having to stop regularly to rest. He eventually got his brother to safety.

1943: A force comprising the battleship HMS Duke of York, four cruisers, and eight destroyers, including the Norwegian Stord, intercepted the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst which was attempting to raid a pair of Arctic convoys. The action was fought in appalling weather, with radar proving invaluable to the Royal Navy. The cruisers successfully drove Scharnhorst away from the merchantmen, and Duke of York arrived in a gale to finish the battlecruiser off - only 36 crew survived.

HMS Belfast was one of the RN cruisers engaged in the action, which was the last in which a Royal Navy capital ship fought an enemy capital ship.

On This Day in 1914 & 1941

The Royal Naval Air Service launched an audacious Christmas Day seaplane attack on Zeppelin sheds at Cuxhaven. Three seaplane carriers - HM Ships Empress, Engadine and Riviera - attempted to launch nine aircraft, whilst positioned dangerously close to the German patrol areas. Two of the primitive seaplanes failed to take off, but the other seven duly set off, despite heavy fog which severely hampered navigation.

Unable to find the Zeppelin sheds, pilots attacked various targets of opportunity, including light cruisers, a seaplane base and port facilities. Only two aircraft had enough fuel to return to their carriers, but the crews of the others were rescued by Royal Navy submarines and destroyers. Although the mission failed to cause significant material damage, it provided a major boost to public morale.

1941: The British, Canadian and Indian garrison in Hong Kong surrendered after a siege lasting 18 days; the loss of the island's reservoirs to Japanese control left less than a day's water supply available, making further resistance untenable

On This Day ... in 1777 & Others

Captain James Cook discovered, and appropriately named, Christmas Island.

1811: Royal Navy ships-of-the-line St George & Defense commanded by Vice Admiral Sir James Saumarez, ran aground off Torsminde at the west coast of Jutland and where lost with 1,400 hands

1814: The Treaty of Ghent was signed by British and American diplomats formally ending the War of 1812.

1865: Several U.S. Civil War Confederate veterans formed the Ku Klux Klan

1871: Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida had its world premiere in Cairo,to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal

1914: The "Christmas truce" on the Western Front began

1931: France, the UK and US protested at Japanese military moves in China stating that there is no evidence of any offensive intent on the part of Chinese

1941: Commonwealth troops of the 8th Army captured Benghazi in Libya after exhausting fighting during Operation Crusader, launched on 18 November. Benghazi changed hands five times as the North African campaign ebbed and flowed along the Mediterranean coast.

1950: Under cover of naval gunfire support, Task Force 90 completed a 14-day evacuation of 100,000 troops and equipment and 91,000 refugees from Hungnam, North Korea

1989: Ousted Panamanian ruler Manuel Noriega, who had succeeded in eluding US forces, took refuge at the Vatican's diplomatic mission in Panama City

On This Day ... in 1783 & Others

George Washington resigned as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army at the Maryland State House in Annapolis

1915: Second Lieutenant Smith, East Lancashire Regiment, threw a grenade, it slipped from his hand and landed in his trench. He immediately threw his body on top of it. The explosion killed him outright but his body took the blast and spared his men injury. Smith was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

1916: In the northern Sinai, Chauvel's Mounted Brigade and the Imperial Camel Corps won the Battle of Magdhaba, opening the way for the successful Allied campaign in Palestine.

1937: The ledgendary Vickers Wellington bomber known affectionately as the ‘Wimpy’ by its crews, made its first flight

1939: The first 7,500 Canadian troops of the 1st Division arrive in the UK

1940: Anthony Eden replaced Lord Halifax as Foreign Secretary in the Churchill Cabinet. Halifax was appointed British Ambassador to the US. Captain David Margesson, Chief Whip in the Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain governments, became War Minister

1942: Bomber Command Venturas attacked naval installations at Den Helder, whilst Boston light bombers attacked facilities at St Malo. The Ventura attack proved particularly accurate, badly damaging a torpedo workshop.

1944: Over Cologne, Squadron Leader Palmer led a small daylight precision attack on the railway yards at Gremberg. The weather proved unexpectedly clear, which favoured the defences since the bombers were using the Oboe bombing aid, which, whilst very accurate, required a long straight approach making them vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire. It was therefore decided to abort the Oboe operation, but the decision was taken too late for Palmer's Lancaster, already on its attack run. His aircraft received the full attention of the Cologne flak defences, and was then attacked by fighters. Nevertheless, with two engines on fire, he continued on the run and dropped on target, before the Lancaster fell out of control. Only the rear gunner survived. Palmer was awarded a posthumous VC.

1948: Former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese war leaders were executed in Tokyo

1968: Eighty-two crewmembers of the US intelligence ship Pueblo were released by North Korea, 11 months after they had been captured

1979: Soviet war in Afghanistan: Soviet forces occupied Kabul, marking the opening of their Afghan war

2002: A US MQ-1 Predator was shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25, making it the first time in history that an aircraft and an unmanned drone had engaged in combat

On This Day ... in 1807 & Others

The US Congress passed the Embargo Act, designed to force peace between Britain and France by cutting off all trade with Europe

1809: The US passed the Non-Intercourse Act. It opened trade with all nations except Britain and France; to retaliate against Napoleon's Decrees and Royal Navy’s blockade

1864: Savannah, Georgia fell to General William Tecumseh Sherman, concluding his "March to the Sea"

1894: The Dreyfus affair began, in France when Alfred Dreyfus was wrongly convicted of treason on antisemitic grounds

1915: In France, Private William Young of the 8th Bn, East Lancashire Regiment spotted a wounded man lying in No Man's Land. He left the trench and started to make his way towards him, but was spotted by the Germans and fired upon. One round shattered his jaw, while another inflicted a chest wound. Nevertheless, Young reached the casualty. Another soldier made it safely out to join him and assist in pulling the injured man back to the British lines. Young was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1941: The first US troops arrived in Australia

The Arcadia Conference began in Washington DC, between the British and the US. They confirmed the policy of Germany first. They also established the Combined Chiefs of Staff for the entire Allied military effort. A general strategic program was approved of a US buildup in Britain and continuing the bombing offensive. The concept of further losses in the Pacific was accepted with the understanding that a stiff defense will hold these to a minimum.

1942: Adolf Hitler signed the order to develop the V-2 rocket

1944: A secret OSS report originating in Stockholm stated that U-boats armed with V-1s would shortly sail on a patrol against New York; this was the fourth such report in 8 weeks

As the Battle of the Bulge continued, German troops demand the surrender of US troops encircled at Bastogne, Belgium, prompting the famous one word reply by General Anthony McAuliffe: "Nuts!"

1974: Edward Heath’s house was attacked by members of the Provisional IRA

1978: In China, the pivotal Third Plenum of the 11th National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing at which Deng Xiaoping reversed the Mao-era policies to pursue a program for Chinese economic reform

1989: After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu took over as president of Romania, ending Nicolae Ceauşescu's Communist dictatorship

As the collapse of Communist Eastern Europe continued, Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opened after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.

2001: Richard Reid attempted to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63

Burhanuddin Rabbani, political leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance, handed over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by President Hamid Karzai.

On This Day ... in 1914 & Others

Privates Abraham Acton

and James Smith

of the Border Regiment left the safety of their trench to rescue a wounded man who had been lying in No Man's Land under fire for fifteen hours. They later mounted a second successful rescue. During the two incidents they were reckoned to have been exposed for a total of an hour to heavy fire whilst struggling to move the casualties, and both men were awarded the Victoria Cross.

Acton was killed in action at Festubert, France, on 16 May 1915, but his remains were never found

1916: The Australian Light Horse capture El Arish. Originally intended as an outpost for the defence of the Suez Canal, El Arish became one of the first steps in the Allied advance on Palestine.

1917: An attack in Palestine by troops of the London Regiment managed to capture a stretch of Turkish trenches, but the position was precarious and threatened by vigorous Turkish counter-attacks up the communication trenches.

Lance-Corporal John Christie on his own initiative took a large supply of grenades, advanced into the open and bombed the attackers continuously until the defences behind him had been put into order. Christie received the Victoria Cross. His citation reads:

For most conspicuous bravery, when, after a position had been captured, the enemy immediately made counter- and bombing attacks up communication trenches. L.-Corpl. Christie, realizing the position, took a supply of bombs over the top, proceeding atone about 50 yds. in the open along the communication trench, and bombed the enemy. He continued to do this alone, in spite of very heavy opposition, until a block had been established. Returning towards our lines, he heard voices behind him; he at once turned back and bombed another party moving up the trench, entirely breaking up a further bombing attack. By his prompt and effective action he undoubtedly cleared a difficult position at a most critical time and saved many lives. Throughout he was subjected to heavy machine-gun fire and shell fire. He showed the greatest coolness and a total disregard for his own safety

1941: The first escort carrier, HMS Audacity, was sunk by U-751 while defending convoy HG.76 in the Atlantic.

Although Audacity, converted from the former German liner Hanover, was lost after a very short period of service, she had proved the escort carrier concept during a series of actions the previous week, her aircraft helping significantly in hampering U-boat and Focke-Wulf Condor operations against the convoy.

On This Day ... in 1192 & Others

King Richard I of England (Richard the Lionheart) was captured and imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after signing a treaty with Saladin ending the Third Crusade.

1606 : The Virginia Company loaded three ships with settlers and set sail to establish Jamestown, Virginia; the first permanent British settlement in the Americas

1803: The Louisiana Purchase was completed as the territory was formally transferred from France to the United States during ceremonies in New Orleans

1875: Following the murder of Mr Birch, the British Resident in the Malay Sultanate of Perak, a punitive expedition was sent by the Indian Army under the command of General Colbourn. On 20 December, Captain Channer, 1st Gurkha Rifles, distinguished himself leading a reconnaissance of a stockaded fortification in the jungle - seeing an opportunity, he and his men seized a position that would otherwise have required a difficult and bloody bayonet assault. Channer was awarded the Victoria Cross. The expedition concluded the following spring, with the execution of the murderers and the appointment of a regent in the Sultanate.

1891: During the Hunza-Nagar Expedition on the North-West Frontier, following the capture of the fort at Nilt on 2 December, Lieutenant Smith, 5th Gurkha Rifles, led an assault up a cliff face. He and his men were exposed to enemy fire for four hours before finally reaching the summit, whereupon Smith, the first man to the top, rushed an enemy sangar and killed its occupants. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1901: Alfred Ind, a Shoeing Smith with the Royal Horse Artillery, was the sole survivor of a pom-pom gun crew during a fierce action with Boer forces at Tafelkop. Despite the heavy fire which had killed all his colleagues, he maintained a lone battle against the attacking enemy until the very last moment, then made good his escape. He received the Victoria Cross.

1915: In marked distinction to the heavy casualties which had marked the landings and subsequent operations on the Gallipoli peninsula, a masterpiece of careful planning largely done by Brigadier General C.B.B. White ensured the successful evacuation of Allied troops from Suvla and Anzac Basin on 19-20 December without a single casualty being suffered.

1917: Cheka, the first Soviet secret police force was founded

1939: Hans Langsdorff, the captain of the Graf Spee, committed suicide, following the scuttling of his command

1941: The American Volunteer Group, better known as the "Flying Tigers" saw their first combat in Kunming, China

1942: A Mosquito bomber of 109 Squadron RAF, crewed by Squadron Leader Bufton and Flight Lieutenant Ifould, conducted the first operation using the Oboe blind-bombing system. Two radar stations in the UK, codenamed Cat and Mouse, tracked the Mosquito as it flew a precisely calculated course, speed and height, with Cat providing correction signals, and Mouse instructing bomb release at the correct moment. The system needed specialist training to use, and could only be employed by a small number of aircraft, but was by far the most accurate blind-bombing system of the Second World War, allowing Bomber Command to deliver true precision attacks. On this occasion, the target was a Dutch power station.

Spain and Portugal announced the creation of a neutral Iberian bloc stating that "Our peninsula policy is based on sentiment and the conviction that we are serving the permanent interests of all nations"

1943: Canadian troops begin their attack on the Italian town of Ortona which was successfully completed on 28 December.

1989: The United States launched Operation Just Cause, sending troops into Panama to topple the government of General Manuel Noriega

1995: Under the Dayton Agreement, NATO's Implementation Force (IFOR) took over responsibility for peace support operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina from the United Nations. British forces serving with the UN transferred to the new command and proved particularly effective in rapidly implementing the new security arrangements on the first morning.

On This Day ... in 1387 & Others

The Earl of Oxford, Robert de Vere, attempted to restore Richard II's rule, confronting the Lords Appellant at Radcot Bridge. However, his troops were defeated and the Lords Appellant were left in control of the country.

1854: Private Norman of the 7th Regiment was on sentry duty alone, well in advance of Allied positions in the Crimea, when he spotted a Russian patrol moving through the undergrowth. He managed to surprise them and capture two prisoners. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1903: During the Fourth Somaliland Expedition, a Mounted Infantry patrol was forced to retire in the face of an overwhelming number of Dervishes, outnumbering them thirty to one. A soldier fell badly wounded from his horse, whereupon Lieutenant Carter rode back 400 yards, and at the third attempt lifted him into the saddle and got him to safety. Carter received the Victoria Cross.

1914: Three Victoria Crosses were won on the Western Front.

Lieutenant Bruce of the 59th Scinde Rifles led a determined defence against repeated German attacks, continuing to walk up and down his men's positions directing the defence despite a severe neck wound, until he received a further fatal injury.

Guardsman Mackenzie of the Scots Guards rescued a wounded soldier from No Man's Land, and was killed attempting to rescue another.

Lieutenant Neame of the Royal Engineers mounted single-handed a grenade attack on the Germans, holding them back for three-quarters of an hour to win time for a number of wounded men to be rescued. After the war, Neame won a Gold Medal at the 1924 Olympics, the only man to win the VC and an Olympic Gold.

1941: A daring attack by Italian Navy frogmen badly damaged the battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Valiant in Alexandria harbour. The frogmen's two-man torpedo-based submersibles were copied by the Royal Navy as the Chariot and used in later attacks on Axis ports.

In Hong Kong, the beleaguered garrison was involved in fierce fighting, particularly around Mount Butler. Canadian Sergeant Major Osborn distinguished himself in the action, finally being killed in a supreme act of self-sacrifice, throwing himself on a grenade that landed amongst his men.

On This Day ... in 1779 & Others

A small Royal Navy squadron under Rear Admiral Hyde-Parker destroyed a French convoy off Martinique.

1793: The Royal Navy, led by Vice Admiral Lord Hood in HMS Victory, evacuated British, Spanish and Royalist French troops from Toulon during the siege in which the young artillery officer Napoleon Bonaparte distinguished himself on the Revolutionary side. Although evicted from Toulon, the Allied forces destroyed French seapower in the Mediterranean, sinking or taking with them 33 French warships.

1901: Captain Crean, a surgeon serving with the 1st Imperial Horse, ignored a wound to continue tending to other wounded men in the open, under heavy fire from Boer troops only 150 yards away, during an action at Tygerkloof Spruit. He was finally hit a second time and suffered a very serious wound, which nearly proved fatal. However, he survived to be awarded the Victoria Cross.

1939: 22 RAF Wellington bombers from 9, 37 and 149 Squadrons attempted a daylight raid on German warships in the Wilhelmshaven area. Detected by German radar, they were badly mauled by Bf109 and Bf110 fighters off Heligoland. Twelve Wellingtons were shot down and another three badly damaged; two Bf109s were destroyed. The disaster helped convince Bomber Command that unescorted day bombers were too vulnerable to operate safely except under very favourable circumstances.

1944: 'Arty Hill' a major Japanese position on the Numa Numa Trail leading across Bougainville was captured by the Queensland 9th Battalion.

On This Day ... in 1332 & Others

Five months after his remarkable victory at Dupplin Moor had restored him to the Scottish throne, Edward Balliol was staying at Annan on the Solway Firth, when Archibald Douglas mounted a murderous night assault. Balliol's companions were killed in their beds, but he escaped, half-naked on a horse, eventually reaching safety with the English at Carlisle.

1834: HMS Buzzard, on anti-slavery patrol, captured the slave-ship Formidable off the west African coast.

1939: The pocket-battleship raider Admiral Graf von Spee was scuttled by her crew off Montevideo rather than face internment or risk another battle with the Royal Navy.

1941: The First Battle of Sirte was fought off the Libyan coast. Royal Navy cruisers and destroyers, plus the Dutch Isaac Sweers, conducted an inconclusive engagement with Italian ships.

On This Day ... in 1431 & Others

Henry VI of England was crowned King of France at Notre Dame

1653: Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland

1773: Boston Tea Party took place as American colonists boarded a British merchant ship and dumped more than 300 chests of tea overboard to protest against tea taxes.

1813: British troops captured Fort Niagara from American forces and burnt the village of Lewiston

1838: In South Africa Voortrekkers led by Andries Pretorius fought the Zulu impis, led by Dambuza (Nzobo) and Ndlela kaSompisi at the Battle of Blood River in what is today KwaZulu-Natal

1914: German warships bombarded Hartlepool, Scarborough and Whitby, inflicting considerable civilian casualties

1944: Battle of the Bulge started as the Germans launched their final offensive of the Second World War in the west, through the Ardennes Forest, in Belgium.

1950: US President Harry S. Truman declared a state of emergency, in response to communist China’s intervention in Korean War

1971: Bangladesh War of Independence and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 came to an end with the surrender of the Pakistan army

1998: RAF aircraft took part in the US-UK Operation Desert Fox, a four-day campaign against Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities following his refusal to cooperate with United Nations arms inspectors. Serious damage was inflicted on Iraqi WMD sites and other targets, such as part of the air defence system and Republican Guard bases. 100 targets were attacked, eleven of them by RAF Tornado aircraft:

12 targets associated with WMD industry
18 targets associated with WMD security (ie Special Republican Guard and Special Security Organisation)
20 Command & Control facilities
6 airfields - 3 associated with WMD, 3 used for internal repression
9 Republican Guard facilities
18 air defence command & control sites
16 surface-to-air missile batteries
1 oil refinery involved in sanctions busting.

On This Day ... in 1899 & 1944

Attempting to relieve Ladysmith, General Sir Redvers Henry Buller VC launched a frontal assault on strong Boer positions at Colenso. The Irish Brigade was badly mauled, and two artillery batteries advanced too close to the Boers and were lost.

The British suffered some 1,127 casualties, the Boers perhaps 40. Seven Victoria Crosses were won that day:

Major William Babtie, Royal Army Medical Corps

Captain Walter Congreve, Rifle Brigade

Captain Harry Schofield, Royal Field Artillery

Captain Hamilton Reed, Royal Field Artillery

Lieutenant Frederick Roberts, King's Royal Rifle Corps (posthumous)

Corporal George Nurse, Royal Field Artillery

Private George Ravenhill, Royal Scots Fusiliers. Ravenhill is one of eight men whose VCs were involuntarily forfeited.

Ravenhill's VC was forfeited after he was imprisoned for theft of a quantity of iron and could not afford to pay the 10 shilling fine. His VC-entitled pension was also withdrawn. Ravenhill died in poverty at the age of 49, and three of his children were taken away to be fostered in the USA and Canada. Ravenhill is buried in an unmarked grave at Witton Cemetery, Birmingham.

1944: In Burma, a gun of the Royal Indian Artillery in an advanced position was attacked by repeated waves of Japanese infantry. Havildar Umrao Singh, in charge of the piece, was seen in fierce combat with the enemy, and when reinforcements finally reached him, he was found collapsed from exhaustion, surrounded by the bodies of his enemies. He received the Victoria Cross.

His citation reads:

In the Kaladan Valley, Burma on 15 / 16 December 1944, Havildar Umrao Singh was in charge of one gun in an advanced section of his battery when it was subjected to heavy fire from 75 mm guns and mortars for one and a half hours prior to being attacked by two Companies of Japanese. When the attack came he so inspired his gun detachment by his personal example and encouragement to fight and defend their gun that they were able to beat off the attack with losses to the enemy.

By his personal example and magnificent bravery Havildar Umrao Sing set a supreme example of gallantry and devotion to duty. When recovered, his gun was fit to fire and was in fact in action again and firing later that same day.

On This Day ... in 1879 & Others

On the Asmai Heights in Afghanistan, three Victoria Crosses were won: Captain Hammond held off the enemy whilst British troops retired down the hill;

Captain Vousden led a cavalry charge which repeatedly cut through the enemy's ranks, inflicting heavy casualties; and Lance-Corporal Sellar was badly wounded whilst distinguishing himself in fierce close-quarter combat.

1914: In France, Private Robson, of the Royal Scots, ventured into No Man's Land to rescue a wounded man. He then went out a second time to try to bring another casualty in, but himself fell wounded. He received the Victoria Cross.

1939: A dozen Wellington bombers attempted to attack German shipping in the Schillig Roads off Wilhelmshaven. Bad visibility and weather hampered their efforts, and fierce fighter attacks shot down five of the Wellingtons.

1943: In Italy, Captain Paul Triquet, of the French-Canadian Le Royal 22e Regiment, took command of a company which had suffered very heavy losses in an attack, and managed to break through the enemy positions.

Less than twenty men of the company remained under his command by this time, but under his leadership they held the newly-won ground against German counter-attacks until reinforced the following day. Triquet received the Victoria Cross.

On This Day ... in 1642 & Others

Parliamentarian troops under Sir William Waller took the Royalist outpost at Winchester.

1879: During the Second Afghan War, an attack by British troops at the Sherpur Pass faltered in the face of heavy fire. Lieutenant Dick-Cunyngham of the Gordon Highlanders ran forwards, rallied the men, then charged into the midst of the enemy. The position was successfully taken, and Dick-Cunyngham was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1900: Boers mounted an attack on a picquet at Nooitgedacht. A relief party went to their aid, but itself came under heavy fire and suffered several casualties, including the lieutenant in charge. Sergeant Farmer of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders carried the wounded officer to safety, then returned to the fight, eventually being taken prisoner when the position was overrun. He received the Victoria Cross.

1914: Lieutenant Holbrook took the submarine HMS B-11 up the Dardanelles, probably the most heavily defended waterway in the world at the time. B-11 was, even by the standards of the First World War, a small (300 ton), under-powered (225hp electric motor) and obsolete boat dating back to 1905 and the very early days of submarine development. The compass was actually mounted outside the hull and viewed through a small glass in the conning tower.

Despite the treacherous current in the Straits, Holbrook successfully got through a minefield to torpedo the Turkish battleship Messudiyeh. He then managed to return safely down the Dardanelles, despite coming under fire from shore batteries and enemy torpedo boats. B-11 had been submerged for no less than nine hours - a remarkable achievement in such a primitive craft. Holbrook was awarded the Submarine Service's first Victoria Cross.

1915: The Light Horse was deployed against pro-Turkish Arabs of an Islamic sect known as the Senussi, in Egypt's western desert engaging them at Um Rakham

1939: Force G under Commodore Harwood, comprising the cruisers HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles, found the German pocket-battleship Admiral Graf von Spee off the River Plate. The German raider had enjoyed much success against merchant shipping in the South Atlantic, and was individually far more powerful than the three Commonwealth cruisers. Exeter drew most of the early German fire and was badly damaged, but the cruisers in turn inflicted significant damage on Graf Spee, and she ran for the sanctuary of the neutral harbour of Montevideo.

Faced with the alternatives of the ship being interned, or a sortie to fight the Royal Navy ships heading for the scene, her captain scuttled her on 17 December.

1941: One Dutch and three Royal Navy destroyers sank a pair of Italian cruisers in the Mediterranean off Cape Bon.

On This Day ... in 1781 & Others

A squadron under Rear Admiral Richard Kempenfelt, flying his flag in HMS Victory, captured a French convoy in the Atlantic.

1794: At Honolulu the American merchant sloop Lady Washington fired a 13-gun salute to greet the English schooner Jackal as it arrived in port. The Jackal returned the salute — instantly killing the Washington's captain and several crewmen. One of its cannon loaded with grapeshot had not been properly unloaded.

1940: The George Cross is gazetted for Sub-Lt Peter Victor Danckwerts RNVR, who had only handled mines under instruction when, after just five weeks in the service, he disarmed 16 mines in 48 hours

The destroyer USS Claxton was recommissioned as HMS Salisbury as part of the destroyers-for-bases deal

1942: The four surviving canoeists from the Royal Marines Boom Patrol Detachment - Major Hasler, Marine Sparks, Corporal Laver, Marine Mills - reached their target, the ports at Bordeaux and Bassens, having set out on 7 December. Their limpet mines destroyed or damaged four merchant ships, a tanker and a naval auxiliary. The Marines then attempted to escape on foot to Spain. Only Hasler and Sparks reached safety. The other eight Royal Marines who set out on Frankton either drowned at sea or were captured and executed by the Germans.

On This Day ... in 1282 & Others

The decisive battle during Edward I's invasion of Wales was fought at Orewin Bridge near Builth. Llewellyn of Gwynedd's men took up a strong defensive position at the bridge, but pro-English Welshmen showed the Marcher Lords Giffard and Mortimer a ford which allowed them to outflank the Welsh troops. They retreated to a hill, but English archery inflicted heavy casualties and they broke. Llewellyn had been absent at the beginning of the fight, and rushing to rejoin his men, was killed by a Shropshire soldier, Stephen de Frankton.

1792: As the French Revolution reached its bloody conclusion, King Louis XVI was put on trial for treason by the National Convention

1879: During the Second Afghan War, a number of troopers fell with their horses into a water-filled ditch during fighting at Killa Kazi. Ignoring heavy fire from tribesmen only a few yards away, the Reverend James Adams, a chaplain, rushed into their aid and waded through the waist-deep water to rescue men trapped under their horses, having to let his own horse go to free his hands for the work. He and the men made their way to safety on foot. The Reverend Adams was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1899: Lieutenant-General Lord Methuen, attempting to advance on Kimberley, launched an attack on fortified Boer positions at Magersfontein commanded by Piet Cronje. The attack failed, with heavy British casualties suffered, particularly in the Highland Brigade, which lost its popular commander Major-General Wauchope (who had stood against Gladstone during his famous Midlothian election campaign) and 746 other men. Methuen was forced to withdraw to the River Modder.

Two Victoria Crosses were awarded for gallantry that day: Lieutenant Douglas, a medical officer, repeatedly went out into open ground to tend the wounded under heavy fire, as did Corporal Shaul, a stretcher-bearer of the Highland Light Infantry.

1917: Following his victory the previous day, General Edmund Allenby entered Jerusalem and declared martial law

1927: Communist militia and ‘red guards’ launched an uprising in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, taking over most of the city and announcing the formation of a Guangzhou Soviet.

1931: Parliament enacted the Statute of Westminster, establishing legislative equality between the self-governing dominions of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of Canada, the Irish Free State, Dominion of Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa

1936: Edward VIII's abdication as King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Dominions beyond the Seas, and Emperor of India became effective

1941: German and Italy declared war on the United States. In response, the US Congress declared war on Germany and Italy.

"Therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the state of war between the United States and the Government of Germany which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the government to carry on war against the Government of Germany; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States."

At Wake Island in the Pacific, a Japanese landing force at Wake Island is repulsed by 450 US Marines under Commander Winfield Cunningham. During the fighting 2 Japanese destroyers were sunk.

1942: At Guadalcanal another "Tokyo Express" run with 11 destroyers was lead by Admiral Tanaka to resupply Japanese land forces. US PT Boats sank one destroyer and as a result of US Navy actions, only 300 of the 1200 drums of supplies reached shore

1952: The 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment began Operation Fauna in Korea, its objective is to capture prisoners and destroy enemy defences. Operation Fauna was a major trench raid on Chinese positions near Hill 355 to snatch a prisoner. Although no prisoners were taken, Chinese dispositions were seriously disrupted.

1961: A US aircraft carrier carrying Army helicopters arrived in Saigon - the first direct American military support for South Vietnam's battle against Communist terrorists

1962: During the Brunei Revolt, rebels led by Salleh bin Sambas had murdered a number of Government officials at Bangar and Limbang, and threatened to kill the British resident, Mr Morris, and his wife, as well as several other hostages in Limbang.

L Company of 42 Commando Royal Marines, commanded by Captain Jeremy Moore, was tasked with their rescue. Lacking reliable intelligence on rebel numbers, and with a timely rescue of the hostages paramount, Moore elected to mount a direct assault, using two river lighters operated by Royal Navy crews.

The two vessels came under heavy machine-gun fire as they rounded the river bend at Limbang, but the Royal Marines managed to land and secure the town despite fierce resistance. The hostages were safely rescued. Five Royal Marines were killed, and a number of Marines and Royal Navy lighter crewmen were wounded. Over the next couple of days, the remainder of 42 Commando cleared Bangar and forced the rebels to flee up-river.

1964: Che Guevara spoke at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. As if to mark the event, an unknown terrorist fired a mortar shell at the building during the speech

1975: An Icelandic gunboat has opened fire on unarmed British fishery support vessels in the North Atlantic

1994: Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian troops into Chechnya, starting the First Chechen War

On this day ... in 1906 & Others

US President Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that had been instituted in 1901, for helping mediate an end to the Russo-Japanese War

1936: King Edward VIII signed the Instrument of Abdication

1940: Hitler issued a directive for the seizure of French military resources and the future occupation of Vichy France (Operation Attila), and cancels plans to invade Gibraltar via Spain (Operation Felix)

1944: Canadian troops stormed the Lamone River defences in Italy

1949: As the Chinese Civil War continued, the People's Liberation Army bagins its siege of Chengdu, the last Kuomintang-held city in mainland China, forcing President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-shek and his government to retreat to Taiwan

1978: Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat are jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1981: The United Nations General Assembly approved Pakistan's proposal for establishing nuclear free-zone in South Asia.

1990: The first civilian hostages held in Kuwait and Iraq since August by Saddam Hussein as part of his ‘human shield”, arrived back in Great Britain.

On This Day ... in 1819 & Others

British and East India Company troops destroyed the pirate base at Ras al Khaimah

1856: During the war with Persia over its annexation of Herat, Indian troops under Major-General Stalker launched an assault on Bushire. Captain Wood led the Grenadier company of the 20th Bombay Native Infantry in the attack, and was the first man to reach the fort's parapet. Although he was immediately hit by no less than seven musket balls, he flung himself on the defenders, and was successfully followed up by his men. He survived his wounds and received the Victoria Cross. Bushire fell the following day.

1917: Near Givenchy in France, a heavy German gas attack was followed up by an attempt to rush the forward British positions. Although he was suffering badly from the effects of the gas, Private Mills of the Manchester Regiment fought the attack off single-handed using grenades, holding his position until reinforcements arrived and preventing a German breakthrough. As he was carried to the rear, he died from the gas poisoning he had suffered. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

In Palestine, Field Marshal Edmund Allenby captured Jerusalem

1937 : As the second Sino-Japanese War continued, Japanese troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Asaka Yasuhiko launched an assault on the Chinese city of Nanjing.

1940: At 0300 hrs, the 4th/7th Rajput Regiment commenced a feint attack on the strong eastern defences of the Italian position at Nibeiwa in Egypt, the opening move in Operation Compass. The operation had been devised by Lieutenant-General Sir Richard O'Connor, commanding the Western Desert Force, as a five-day raid on the massively superior Italian forces in North Africa.

After an hour, the Rajputs broke off their action, and the Italians relaxed, unaware that the other battalions of 11th Indian Brigade - the 2nd Battalion Cameron Highlanders and 1st/6th Rajputana Rifles - had moved up during the night into position to the west behind Nibeiwa, accompanied by 7th Royal Tank Regiment and Royal Horse Artillery guns. At dawn, the Matilda tanks of 7 RTR led the attack on the western side of Nibeiwa, their armour proving invulnerable to Italian artillery fire. Together with the infantry, they completely destroyed the Gruppo Maletti based in the camp, a divisional sized formation of light tanks and Libyan infantry, taking 4,000 prisoners despite a desperate defence by the Italians. British and Indian casualties proved very light. 7 RTR then advanced north to assist 5th Indian Brigade in its assault on a large encampment at Tummar West. The advantage of surprise had been lost, and the attack was hampered by a midday sandstorm. The first attack by the Royal Fusiliers was pinned down by enemy fire, but the 3rd/1st Punjabis managed to break through the defences and the camp was taken with a further 2,000 prisoners. Meanwhile, 4th/6th Rajputana Rifles drove off an Italian relief column of tanks and lorried infantry, inflicting 400 casualties without suffering a single injury themselves.

The following morning saw the surrender of the now dispirited and isolated Italian garrisons of Tummar East and Point 90, while 16th Infantry Brigade advanced north through fog towards the coastal town of Sidi Barrani. Unfortunately, the fog lifted just as the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders began their assault, and they suffered relatively heavy casualties from Italian artillery. However, ten Matildas of 7 RTR arrived to support 2nd Battalion The Queen's Regiment in a successful attack on the western end of the defences which culminated in the surrender of the Black Shirt Legion garrison. Meanwhile, 4th Armoured Brigade, which had been stationed out in the desert guarding the flank of 4th Indian Division's attacks, swung some of its Light and Cruiser tanks east to hit the rear of more Italian troops in coastal positions who had been harried by Selby Force, drawn from the British garrison of Mersa Matruh.

Although 11 December saw 4th Indian Division ordered to redeploy to East Africa, O'Connor continued his attacks with 7th Armoured Brigade and the Support Group of 7th Armoured Division, pushing them north from the desert to cut the coastal road and trap yet more Italian forces. A squadron of Light Tanks from3rd Hussars was destroyed when they bogged down in a salt marsh, making them easy targets for the Italian artillery. But other British tanks successfully broke into the defences of 64th Catanzaro Division and routed them.

In just three days, for fewer than 1,000 British and Indian casualties,7th Armoured Division and 4th Indian Division had driven the Italians out of Egypt, taken over 38,000 prisoners and captured 237 artillery pieces, 73 tanks and over 1,000 vehicles, the latter proving invaluable in desert operations where every item of supply, particularly water, had to be delivered by lorry. 7th Armoured Division and 6th Australian Division, arriving to replace the Indians, now prepared to advance into Cyrenaica and attack the 45,000 Italian troops dug in at Bardia.

1941: Force Z, the Royal Navy's main strength in the Far East, under Vice Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, was caught without fighter cover by Imperial Japanese Navy bombers off the east coast of Malaya whilst attempting to interdict Japanese landing forces. The battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse both succumbed to multiple torpedo and bomb hits and sank with the loss of 840 men. Some 2,800 were rescued by escorting destroyers. The sinkings heralded the significance of air power in the Pacific war.

As the Japanese advanced in Malaya, 62 Squadron RAF based at Butterworth was ordered to mount a bombing raid on troops at Singora. Squadron Leader Scarf took off in his Blenheim to lead the operation, but at that moment Japanese aircraft swept in and destroyed the remainder of the squadron on the ground before they could get airborne. Scarf and his crew pressed on alone through fighter attacks to bomb their target, but on the return leg he was badly wounded by another fighter attack. He managed to land his aircraft safely at Alor Star, but died of his wounds shortly afterwards. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

The Republic of China, Cuba, Guatemala, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, and the Philippine Commonwealth, declared war on Germany and Japan

1942: Australian troops of 21st Brigade liberated Gona on the north coast of Papua following the failure of the Japanese offensive down the Kokoda trail. Both sides suffered very heavy casualties both in battle and from the oppressive conditions and tropical disease.

1944: A platoon from the Lincolnshire Regiment under Captain Brunt was dug in near Faenza in Italy around a house. The building was destroyed by mortar fire, and the Germans followed up with a vigorous assault. Brunt withdrew with the survivors of his unit to a nearby position, and mounted a fierce resistance. He himself killed some fourteen enemy with a Bren Gun. Then, running out of ammunition, he took over from casualties first a PIAT anti-tank launcher, then a 2" mortar. Eventually the German attack was beaten off, and Brunt was able to advance, retake his original position, and rescue his wounded men there. He was killed in action the following day, and was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously.

1946: The "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials" began with the "Doctors' Trial", prosecuting Nazi doctors alleged to be involved in human experimentation

1950: Harry Gold was sentenced to thirty years in jail for helping Klaus Fuchs pass information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union. His testimony was later instrumental in the prosecution of the communist spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

1953: The General Electric Company announced that all communist employees will be discharged from the company forthwith

1961: In Jerusalem the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann ended with him being found guilty of 15 criminal charges, including charges of crimes against humanity and crimes against the Jewish people

Tanganyika became independent from Great Britain

On This Day ... in 1776 & Others

During the American Revolution, General George Washington's retreating army crossed the Delaware River from New Jersey to Pennsylvania

December 1776 was a desperate time for George Washington and the American Revolution. The ragtag Continental Army was encamped along the Pennsylvania shore of the Delaware River exhausted, demoralized and uncertain of its future.

Although not apparent at the time, these battles were a decisive turning point in the Revolution. The victories pulled the languishing Revolution out of the depths of despair, galvanized colonial support, shocked the British and convinced potential allies such as France, Holland and Spain, that the Continental Army was a force to be reckoned with

1914: Following the disaster at Coronel on 1 November, a powerful taskforce under Vice Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, including the battlecruisers HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible, was dispatched to hunt down the Graf von Spee's Asiatic Squadron.

Sturdee's ships were re-coaling at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands when von Spee's squadron came into sight, planning a raid on the British facilities there. However, von Spee hesitated, probably upon seeing the distinctive tripod masts of the battlecruisers in the harbour. Furthermore, the elderly battleship HMS Canopus, which had been deliberately run aground by her captain to act as a harbour defence ship, opened fire, scoring a direct hit on Gneisenau with her first salvo. The hit did little damage since the shell was an inert practice round - Canopus had been about to start a gunnery training drill. But the hit may have contributed to von Spee's fatal decision to turn away and run.

Sturdee's ships gave chase, and the advantages in speed and firepower enjoyed by his battlecruisers soon told: this was precisely the type of action for which the much maligned battlecruisers were designed - the destruction of enemy raiders. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were destroyed by Invincible and Inflexible, von Spee going down with his flagship, whilst Sturdee's armoured and light cruisers dispatched the rest of the German squadron, only the light cruiser Dresden escaping. She was eventually tracked down at Juan Fernandez on 14 March 1915, whereupon she scuttled herself.

1917: During the advance on Jerusalem, a company of the London Scottish became pinned down by a pair of Turkish machine-guns. Corporal Train pressed ahead and managed to wipe out one of the machine-gun teams. He then succeeded in killing a soldier attempting to withdraw with the second weapon. He received the Victoria Cross.

1939: The USA protested against the British blockade of Germany, saying it interfered with the right of neutral nations to trade freely

1940: Churchill telegraphed President Roosevelt with his summary of the events of 1940, the current situation and what he believed that Great Britain would need from the United States in order to survive and attain victory.

Churchill requested that the US Navy extended its Neutrality Patrols much further out into the Atlantic and that the US bring pressure to bear on Eire to allow use of the western Irish ports by either US or Allied warships. In return Churchill promised to try to reunite Ireland after the war by asking the people of Ulster to join with the South.

The main problem in 1941, explained Churchill, was the lack of merchant shipping to bring the 43 million tons of supplies that Britain needed annually and lack of escort vessels to protect them from the U-boats and long-range anti-shipping aircraft

1941: The UK declared war on Japan following the invasion of Malaya and Thailand the previous day. Within 3 months this would lead within three months to the loss of Malaya and Singapore. This was the last occasion on which the UK has formally declared war.

For the first time, in Poland gas vans were used as a means of execution by the Nazis at the Chelmno extermination camp near Łódź.

1987: Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in Washington as a result of which, the USSR destroyed 1,752 nuclear missles and the USA 859

On This Day ... in 1842 & Others

Boats from HMS Persian, on anti-slavery patrol, captured the slaver Maria Segunda.

1915: The evacuation of British & Empire forces began at Gallipoli. Although the campaign had been a failure, the evacuation was undertaken skillfully & executed without loss

1917: As the United States declared war on Austria-Hungary, four US battleships arrived at Scapa Flow taking on the role of the Grand Fleet's Sixth Battle Squadron.

1941: Japanese troops landed at Kota Bharu in Malaya, the first attack in their "drive south". Two hours later, they mounted the attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour.

More than 300 planes from six Japanese carriers sank or disabled 19 ships (including six battleships); about 150 aircraft are destroyed on the ground. More than 2,400 military and civilian personnel were killed and another 1,178 were injured.

1949: As the Chinese Civil War continued, the government of Republic of China moved from Nanking to Taipei

1975: Indonesia invaded East Timor

On This Day ... in 1642 & Others

Colonel Ruthven, the energetic Parliamentarian commander of a mercenary Scots garrison in Plymouth, launched a daring pre-emptive raid on Royalist forces gathering at Modbury. He scattered the new recruits and captured the High Sheriff of Devon, before getting away safely back to his base.

Further north in Yorkshire, the Royalist Earl of Newcastle

attacked Lord Ferdinando Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas at Tadcaster. Newcastle conducted a series of probing attacks to try to pin the Parliamentarians in place whilst a detachment under the Earl of Newport sought to take them from the rear, marching via Wetherby. However, Newport was unable to arrive before dark, and during the night, the Fairfaxes pulled their men out of Tadcaster and retreated to Selby.

1648: Colonel Pride of Cromwell's New Model Army purges the Long Parliament of MPs sympathetic to King Charles I, in order for the King's trial to go ahead; came to be known as "Pride's Purge"

1745: Charles Edward Stewart's army begins its retreat during the second Jacobite rising.

1760: British troops under Sir Eyre Coote managed to complete the investment of the principal French base in India, Pondicherry. The siege lasted until 15 January 1761, when the town fell.

1768: The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published

1865: The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, banning slavery

1917: Second Lieutenant Emerson of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, was at the forefront of an attack on the Hindenburg Line, and with his platoon took some 400 yards of German trench. Then, with only eight men, he defended his position against repeated German counter-attacks. Although himself wounded, he refused to be evacuated since all the other officers in his company had already fallen casualty. Eventually, repelling another German attack, he fell mortally wounded. His leadership, however, inspired his men to hold out until reinforcements were finally able to relieve them. Emerson was awarded the Victoria Cross.

Most of Halifax, Canada is destroyed after a French munitions freighter, the Mont Blanc, coming through the Narrows carrying 2,300 tons of picric acid, 200 tons of TNT, 35 tons of high octane gasoline, and 10 tons of gun cotton, collided with the Belgium steamship Imo.

The collision sent the Mont Blanc towards the shore, its picric acid ablaze as the crew abandoned ship.Minutes later the ship brushed a pier, setting that on fire. The Halifax Fire Department responded quickly, and was just positioning their engine up to the nearest hydrant when the Mont Blanc exploded. The blast leveled most of the port and town centre killing 2,000, injuring over 8,000, leaving 10,000 homeless.

The shock wave from the explosion shattered windows at Truro, 60 miles away. A recent theory suggests that this was the greatest man made explosion before the atomic bomb test in 1945.

1921: The Anglo-Irish Treaty is signed in London by British and Irish representatives

1922: One year to the day after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the Irish Free State cames into existence

1941: HMS Perseus, a submarine based in Alexandria, hit an Italian mine off Cephalonia whilst returning from patrol, and sank, coming to rest on the bottom at a depth of 170 feet. Five men survived in an aft compartment. Faced with the daunting prospect of escape, they consumed a bottle of rum. Leading Stoker Capes and another man then attempted to escape, but sadly only Capes made it to the surface, with a broken pelvis. Despite his injuries, he managed to swim seven miles to Cephalonia, where he was found and sheltered by the Greek Resistance. After eighteen months, they succeeded in smuggling him to safety in neutral Turkey.

1942: 2 Group of Bomber Command mounted a large-scale low-level raid on the Philips electronics factories in Eindhoven. The factories were a key supplier of components for the Germans, and thus judged worth the high risks that the bomber crews would face - Eindhoven's distance from the Dutch coast meant that they would have to attack without fighter escort. 47 Ventura, 36 Boston and 10 Mosquito aircraft took part. Most of the bombing proved very accurate, and production was disrupted for six months. Sadly, some bombs did fall astray, causing 148 Dutch fatalities. The price for the attackers also proved high - 15% were shot down (9 Venturas, 4 Bostons and 1 Mosquito) with another three damaged aircraft crashing in the UK on their return.

1965: Pakistan's Islamic Ideology Advisory Committee recommends that Islamic Studies be made a compulsory subject for Muslim students from primary to graduate level

1975: IRA terrorists took a couple hostage in Balcombe Street, London

On This Day ... in 1578 & Others

Francis Drake plundered Valparaiso in Chile during his round-the-world expedition in Golden Hind.

1642: A Royalist force under Lord Wilmot successfully stormed Marlborough.

1848: US President Polk triggered the Gold Rush of '49 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California

1902: Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first readable wireless radio signal across the Atlantic from his station at Glace Bay, Cape Breton to Poldhu in Cornwall

1944: The capabilities of Bomber Command's ever improving electronic navigation and bombing aids were demonstrated when 94 Lancasters of 5 Group conducted a devastating blind attack on Hamm, bombing through thick cloud. All of the Lancasters returned safely. During the night, a further 497 Bomber Command aircraft attacked Soest, successfully targeting the area of the railway yards. Two Halifax aircraft failed to return.

1945: Five US Navy Avenger torpedo bombers took off from Fort Lauderdale on a training flight. No trace of those aircraft, one sent to look for them, or their 27 crewmembers, was ever found. The area where they were lost became known as the Bermuda Triangle

1950: Commonwealth naval forces took the lead in the evacuation of US and South Korean troops from Chinnampo which involved operating in the very shallow waters of the Taedong River estuary at night . The cruiser HMS Ceylon, with three Canadian and two Australian destroyers (HMA Ships Bataan and Warramunga) escorted to safety transports carrying nearly 8,000 troops, with air cover provided by the carrier HMS Theseus.

1983: SAS soldiers involved in an undercover operation in Northern Ireland shot dead two IRA terrorists, Brian Campbell and Colm McGirr in Coalisland, County Tyrone. One was armed with an Armalite rifle and the other a shotgun. The soldiers challenged both men and when they did not respond, the patrol opened fire killing the two men. An injured third man escaped.

On This Day ... in 1941 & Others

The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, announced the call-up of unmarried women aged 20-30 to serve in the women's branches of the Armed Forces, or the police and fire services. Exemptions were made for single mothers, full-time carers, and conscientious objectors.

1942: Wing Commander Hugh Malcolm led the Bristol Bisley aircraft of 18 Squadron RAF in a low-level bombing raid on a fighter base at Chougui, Tunisia. Having been detailed to give close support to the First Army, he received an urgent request to attack an enemy fighter airfield near Chouigui.

Malcolm knew that to attack such an objective without a fighter escort - which could not be arranged in the time available - would be to court almost certain disaster; but believing the attack to be necessary for the success of the Army’s operations, his job was clear.

He took off with his squadron and reached the target unmolested, but when he had successfully attacked it, his squadron was intercepted by an overwhelming force of enemy fighters. Wing Commander Malcolm fought back, controlling his hard-pressed squadron and attempting to maintain formation. One by one his aircraft were shot down until only his own aircraft remained. In the end he, too, was shot down in flames and killed

He was awarded the Victoria Cross

1944: Canadian forces captured the city of Ravenna in north-east Italy.

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.

On This Day ... in 1825 & others

During the First Burmese War, Brigadier-General Sir Archibald Campbell attacked a large concentration of Burmese forces under Maha Nemyo at Pagoda Point near Prome on the Irrawaddy. Maha Nemyo was killed, and some 300 warboats captured. The Burmese retreated to their fortifications at Malun.

1878: British troops, advancing into Afghanistan during the Second Afghan War, encountered stiff resistance at Peiwar Kotal. During the action, Captain Cook, 5th Gurkha Rifles, won the Victoria Cross during fierce hand-to-hand fighting. The Afghan defenders were outflanked, and the pass forced.

1891: During the Hunza-Nagar Expedition on the North-West Frontier, intended to eliminate raids and banditry by the tribesmen, Colonel Durand led Kashmiri troops against the fort at Nilt. Captain Aylmer of the Royal Engineers went forward to blow up the fort's gates, armed only with a revolver. He succeeded in his task, but was severely wounded in the process. Lieutenant Boisragen, serving with the 5th Gurkha Rifles, led the assault, and the fort was duly captured. Both officers were awarded the Victoria Cross.

1942: 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.

1943: Ernest Bevin announced that 10% of conscripts aged under 25 would be diverted to serve not in the Armed Forces, but in the mining industry, following a serious loss in coal production; the so-called "Bevin Boys".

On This Day ... in 1588 & Others

The first attempt to organise welfare provision for Royal Navy seamen was established - the Chatham Chest. Contributions were deducted from sailors' pay and placed in the chest, which had five different locks, the keys being held by five officers in a (not very successful) attempt to avoid corruption, with sums disbursed to seamen in distressed circumstances.

1917: In France, Lance-Dafadar Gobind Singh of the 28th Indian Light Cavalry three times ran the gauntlet of heavy enemy fire for 1.5 miles, carrying messages between headquarters over open ground. Each time, his horse was killed under him, but he successfully completed each trip on foot.

At Gonnelieu, Captain Paton, Grenadier Guards, held the village despite being almost completely surrounded. He ignored enemy fire from only fifty yards away, walking up and down his troops checking their positions, and carrying away several who fell wounded. During each of four German attacks, he deliberately leapt onto the parapet of a trench to encourage his men to hold their ground. He eventually fell, mortally wounded.

In Palestine, Second Lieutenant Boughey of the Royal Scots Fusiliers launched a lone counter-attack with grenades, forcing the surrender of thirty heavily armed Turkish soldiers. As they surrendered, he was hit by fire from another position and killed. Gobind Singh, Paton and Boughey were all awarded the Victoria Cross.

1951: Twelve Meteors of 77 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, successfully engaged 40-50 Chinese MiG-15 fighters in Korea, over Sunchon; a rare air-to-air combat, and the largest, for 77 Squadron, which was normally employed on ground support operations.

On This Day ... in 1335 & Others

In Culblean Forest, by the River Dee, Scots troops under Sir Andrew Murray and Sir William Douglas, loyal to the Bruce's heir, David II, fell upon a raiding party under David of Strathbogie. Strathbogie, one of Balliol's few remaining Scots supporters, had mounted a murderous raid along the eastern coast. He was cut down, fighting alone after most of his men fled. His death robbed the English/Balliol camp of one of its key figures and boosted Scots morale.

1917: Six Victoria Crosses were won on the Western Front:

Liuetenant Colonel Elliot-Cooper organised a counter-attack after German troops broke through the British lines, leading from the front despite being himself unarmed. His attack forced the Germans to retreat some 600 yards, but he then fell wounded. Realising that his force was too weak, he ordered them to retire, leaving him behind. Captured, he died of his wounds three months later.

Captain Gee was among those captured when German troops took a Brigade HQ, but shortly managed to escape. He then organised an ad hoc force which mounted a successful counter-attack that retook the position. The one remaining threat was a German machine-gun position: Gee attacked it armed only with a revolver, and killed its eight-man crew. Although wounded, he refused treatment until he was sure that the position had been made safe.

Lance Corporal Thomas spotted preparations for a German attack, and went forward on his own initiative with another soldier to gather information. His colleague was hit almost immediately, but Thomas managed to get into a position where he was able to see the German dispositions in detail. Over the course of an hour he gathered valuable intelligence, as well as regularly sniping at the enemy. He then returned safely - his reconnaissance allowed a successful defence to be prepared.

Over a 48 hour period, Captain McReady-Diarmid distinguished himself repeatedly leading his company in successful counter-attacks, advancing through heavy barrages to drive the enemy back. He was particularly noted for his personal skill using hand grenades. During his final attack, he was killed.

Sergeant Gourley of the Royal Artillery mounted a valiant defence throughout the day with his pair of howitzers although outflanked, ignoring snipers and machine-guns and firing the guns over open sights at point blank range to hold his position.

Captain Stone commanded an infantry company positioned 1,000 yards in front of the British lines. Seeing the German attack developing, he passed a timely warning to the main positions, then ordered the majority of his men to withdraw, covering their retreat with a handful of men. During the enemy barrage he stood on the parapet of the trench, telephone in hand, passing back details of the attack. Finally, the position was overwhelmed by German infantry, and Captain Stone, massively outnumbered, was seen to fall.

1944: HMS Vanguard, the Royal Navy's last battleship, was launched.

1950: 41 Commando Royal Marines, fighting alongside 1st US Marine Division, distinguished itself at the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir in Korea. It was awarded a US Presidential Unit Citation.

On This Day ... in 1940 & Others

Lieutenant H Newgass, RNVR, was called to defuse a large parachute mine, dropped during a devastating Luftwaffe raid on Liverpool, which had penetrated the roof of a gasometer at Garston Gasworks. If the weapon had exploded, it would have destroyed the entire gasworks and caused immense devastation in the surrounding area.

Newgass was lowered into the gasometer wearing breathing apparatus six times, and despite working under the most difficult and dangerous of circumstances - in the dark, in a couple of feet of water, and surrounded by explosive gas - eventually managed to make the weapon safe. He was awarded the George Cross for his extraordinary heroism.

1942: In Tunisia, British paratroopers took the airfield at Oudna and put it out of action before retiring on Tunis.

1943: Australian forces captured the Japanese supply depot at Bonga in New Guinea.

1945: The Royal Navy conducted its first helicopter air-sea rescue operation, using an early Sikorsky R-5.

1950: The 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, secured the Teadong River ferry crossing, Korea. This was one of only two north-south roads available for the US Eighth Army's retreat in the face of Chinese forces. The RAR secured the crossing and protected it from Chinese and North Korean infiltrators.

On This Day ...in 1857 & Others

Drummer Flinn serving with 64th Regiment of Foot ( later the North Staffordshire Regt), became one of the two youngest winners of the Victoria Cross (the other being Andrew Fitzgibbon). Aged only fifteen, he charged an enemy gun position at Cawnpore during the Indian Mutiny and although wounded engaged in a hand-to-hand encounter with two of the rebel
artillerymen.

1879: Sir Garnet Wolseley led the Transvaal Field Force plus Swazi allies against the town of King Sekhukhune of the Pedi people. The town was successfully captured, and the King's fort at "Fighting Kopje" surrendered a four days later. During the attack, a British officer was badly wounded. Privates Flawn and Fitzpatrick of the 94th Regiment rescued him, one carrying him back whilst the other covered their movements and returned enemy fire. They both received the Victoria Cross.

1914: During the operations against German colonial forces in Tanganyika, Commander Ritchie, of the battleship HMS Goliath, took a pinnace and a pair of other small boats into Dar-es-Salaam harbour to demolish the port installations. The boats came under heavy fire, and Ritchie was wounded eight times in the space of twenty minutes. However, he continued to direct operations until he eventually lost consciousness from loss of blood. The harbour was wrecked and three German ships disabled. Ritchie was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1916: Zeppelin LZ61 was shot down off Lowestoft by Royal Naval Air Service aircraft. However, a German naval pilot succeeded in flying his aircraft to London, just missing Victoria railway station with his bombs.

1917: Trooper Clare of the 5th Royal Irish Lancers distinguished himself by his gallantry as a stretcher bearer, repeatedly ignoring heavy fire to continue tending to the wounded. At one point, learning that every soldier in a detached position in front of the trenches had been killed or wounded, he braved enemy fire to get to their position, dressed their wounds, then defended the position on his own until relief could be sent. He then carried a seriously wounded man through the barrage back to his dressing station. He next alerted neighbouring troops to the use of gas shells. Sadly he was eventually caught by enemy fire and killed. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1942: RAF Bomber Command raided Turin, flying across France and the Alps to reach its target. Flight Sergeant Middleton, RAAF, was the pilot of a Stirling bomber from 149 Squadron which was badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire. One shell burst hit the cockpit. Middleton lost an eye, and the co-pilot and wireless operator were both wounded. Nevertheless, Middleton continued to fly the aircraft to its target, where the bombs were successfully dropped, then managed to nurse the Stirling back over the Alps and return to the UK. Losing fuel, he ordered his crew to bail out over the English coast. He then appeared to turn the aircraft away from land to avoid the risk of the aircraft crashing into habitation: he did not survive. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.

1944: Following the capture of Walcheren and an intensive minesweeping operation, the first British convoy arrived in Antwerp, without loss, opening up a vital supply route.

On This Day ... in 1806 & Others

A squadron under Rear Admiral Sir Edward Pellew destroyed a Dutch squadron and a large number of merchant ships at Batavia in the East Indies.

1916: Having previously completed three reconnaissance missions and two further attacks (dropping 8,500 lbs of bombs) Zeppelin LZ78 was shot down off Hartlepool by BE2c aircraft No. 2738, piloted by Second Lt Ian Pyott. Pyott drove home his attack to such close range that his face was scorched when LZ78 blew up.

1917: At Fontaine Notre Dame, a company of Scots Guards successfully captured their objective, but lost all their officers in so doing. Sergeant John McAulay took charge of the company, and despite incessant bombardment organised a skilful defence of the position against heavy counter-attacks, as well as carrying his wounded company commander to safety, although the officer sadly died later.

McAulay was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1940: Force H, commanded by Vice Admiral Sir James Somervi