Veterans...Get the hell in here now!

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
Today in Military History:


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Beginning early on the morning of September 17 in 1862, Confederate and Union troops in the Civil War clash near Maryland's Antietam Creek in the bloodiest one-day battle in American history. The Battle of Antietam marked the culmination of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the Northern states. Guiding his Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River in early September 1862, the great general daringly divided his men, sending half of them under the command of General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson to capture the Union garrison at Harper's Ferry.

President Abraham Lincoln put Major General George B. McClellan in charge of the Union troops responsible for defending Washington, D.C., against Lee's invasion. McClellan's Army of the Potomac clashed first with Lee's men on 14 September, with the Confederates forced to retreat after being blocked at the passes of South Mountain. Though Lee considered turning back toward Virginia, news of Jackson's capture of Harper's Ferry reached him on 15 September.

That victory convinced him to stay and make a stand near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Over the course of 15 and 16 September, the Confederate and Union armies gathered on opposite sides of Antietam Creek. On the Confederate side, Jackson commanded the left flank with General James Longstreet at the head of the centre and right. McClellan's strategy was to attack the enemy left, then the right, and finally, when either of those movements met with success, to move forward down the centre.

When fighting began in the foggy dawn hours of 17 September, this strategy broke down into a series of uncoordinated advances by Union soldiers under the command of Generals Joseph Hooker, Joseph Mansfield and Edwin Sumner.

Cannon fire opened the battle with puffs of white smoke rising from the tree line. As 500 artillery pieces firing over 50,000 rounds of ammunition thundered and raked their shot and shell across the rolling terrain and into the battle lines downing men of both sides, sounds of musketry too would crackle as disciplined soldiers stood in rank and file formations only to vanish as though a large and ominous sickle had just swept them from the field. The numerous ridges made excellent locations for cannon. The infantry of both sides made easy targets as they marched across low-lying, open fields nearby


[The single-shot, muzzle-loading musket dictated that infantry fight in closely formed, standing lines of battle to achieve effective concentration of fire. In spite of the revolution caused by the adoption of the rifle-musket, which increased the effective range of a regiment from seventy-five yards to well over 250 yards, the battles of 1861 and early 1862 were largely fought with the smoothbore muskets of earlier periods, and officers were trained to handle their men accordingly. Volley fire (necessitated by the inherent inaccuracy of the smoothbore musket) demanded strict attention to proper alignment of all segments of a military unit, lest a portion of the unit's fire fall harmlessly short. The combination of new rifles that could be shot with great accuracy from far away and old-fashioned battle lines led to unprecedented deaths in the Battle of Antietam (and in the Civil War in general). As in other Civil War battles, both sides in Antietam arranged their infantry shoulder-to-shoulder in two long parallel lines before marching into battle. This type of linear formation made sense in earlier years, when military weaponry consisted mostly of smoothbore muskets (which were accurate only at short range) and bayonets (which, likewise, could only be used at close range). But by the beginning of the Civil War, rifling—the use of helical grooves in the barrel of a weapon, which stabilize a bullet, leading to greater shooting accuracy—was widespread. Now soldiers could make an aimed shot from 100 yards away and shoot into an enemy line with hope of hitting someone from 400 yards away. Armed with rifled muskets, a defensive line could do serious damage when attackers attempted to charge.]

Posted on the ridgelines, the cannoneers devastated the soldiers in the swales below them. The landscape and the heavy reliance on artillery by both sides made Antietam one of the most significant artillery battles in the Civil War. Cannonading during the battle had never been seen afore on the continent.

As savage and bloody combat continued for eight hours across the region, the Confederates were pushed back but not beaten, despite sustaining some 15,000 casualties. At the same time, Union General Ambrose Burnside opened an attack on the Confederate right, capturing the bridge that now bears his name around 1 p.m.

In a square of ground, centered on the cornfield, measuring about 1,000 yards on a side, nearly 12,000 men from both sides lay dead or wounded. The slaughter had taken four hours at most before it came to a sullen, exhausted halt. In all directions lay hundreds of dead horses, some of which had been partly burned, but the task of thus destroying them was evidently too great for the force detailed for that purpose and they had been left to the elements and the buzzards. Every house, barn and church was turned into a hospital. Dead men and horses lay unburied for days in the brutal September heat. Flies and maggots covered the living and dead in undulating masses, adding to the unsanitary conditions. The stench was unimaginable.

As night fell, thousands of bodies littered the sprawling Antietam battlefield and both sides regrouped and claimed their dead and wounded. Just twelve hours of intense and often close-range fighting with muskets and cannons had resulted in around 23,000 casualties, including an estimated 3,650 dead.

Civil War soldiers had a 7 to 1 chance of surviving a battle wound. Two-thirds of all the 364,000 soldiers in the Union army died of disease. Only one-third died from actual wounds sustained during the war. About 80 percent of the wounds soldiers received during the Civil War were in the soldier’s arms, hands, legs and feet. Amputations had an approximately twenty-seven percent fatality rate.

Burnside's break to reorganise his men allowed Confederate reinforcements to arrive, turning back the Union advance there as well. By the time the sun went down, both armies still held their ground, despite staggering combined casualties. McClellan's centre never moved forward, leaving a large number of Union troops that did not participate in the battle.

On the morning of 18 September, both sides gathered their wounded and buried their dead. That night, Lee turned his forces back to Virginia. The battle also gave President Abraham Lincoln the opportunity to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which, on January 1, 1863, declared all slaves in the Confederate states free.

Twenty Union soldiers received Medals Of Honor for their gallantry on the Battle of Antietam. Eight of the twenty men were awarded the Medal for either capturing or saving flags.


(The criteria for issuance of the MOH during the Civil War were different than later years and Congress set down guidelines in 1918 to clear away any inconsistencies of the legislation which had grown around the Medal and to finalize rules for its award. 911 MOH’s were invalidated of the 2,625 that were issued during the US Civil War. Many of the Medal’s issuance’s were for picking up the fallen colors (Flag) and advancing. None of these Medals were invalidated as the Flag was an important and reverent rallying symbol for open field charging troops. Sharpshooters on both sides targeted Standard Bearers before officers. see below, bb)​

During the American Civil War, as in earlier conflicts, the flags of a combat unit (its "colors") held a special significance. They had a spiritual value; they embodied the very "soul" of the unit. Protecting a unit's flag from capture was paramount; losing one to the enemy was considered disgraceful . There were practical reasons for the flags as well, as the regimental flags marked the position of the unit during battle. The smoke and confusion of battle often scattered participants across the field. The flag served as a visual rallying point for soldiers and also marked the area where to attack the enemy. Carrying the colors for the regiment was the greatest honor for a soldier. Generally the flag bearers were selected or elected to their position by the men and officers of the unit. As one Union Colonel told his men, “the colors bear the same relation to the soldier as honesty and integrity do to manhood. It is the guiding star to victory. When in the smoke and din of battle the voice of the officer is drown by the roar of artillery, the true soldier turns his eye to the colors that he may not stray too far from it, and while it floats is conscious of his right and strength. Take it… guard it as you would the honor of the mother, wife or friend you left behind.”

 
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BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
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"National POW/MIA Recognition Day — which this year falls on Sept. 17 — was established in 1979 through a proclamation signed by President Jimmy Carter.

According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, there are about 81,600 Americans missing — from the battlefields of World War II to recent conflicts. About 75% of those are in the Indo-Pacific region. About 41,000 of the 81,600 missing are presumed lost at sea.

As for POWs, the Congressional Research Service reports:
There are 130,201 World War II POWs; of those, 14,072 died.
There are —7,140 Korean War POWs; of those, 2,701 died.
There are —725 Vietnam War POWs; of those, 64 died.
There have been 37 POWs since the Vietnam War; no one is still in captivity.

The POW/MIA flag was created for the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia. That's why the flag has the alternate longer name, as well. That nonprofit organization, which has been recognized by Congress, was created to account for those who are still prisoners or missing in Southeast Asia.

The flag itself was created by Newton F. Heisley in 1972. Heisley served in the Army Air Corps as a pilot during World War II; after the war, he became a graphic artist. The silhouette of a man, head bowed, with a guard tower in the background is actually Heisley's son Jeffrey, a 24-year-old Marine. The artist died in 2009 at age 88."
 

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
Today in Military History:

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"On September 17, 1944, the Allies launched Operation Market Garden, a bold and dangerous operation they had hoped would catapult their armies across the Rhine, into the heart of Germany, and end World War II in the European theater before Christmas. It would fail.

Operation Market Garden was a flawed plan from the very beginning. Allied planners ignored crucial intelligence indicating that the Germans were much stronger than previously believed and that German SS armored units had been placed in key locations. They also were relying on a single two-lane highway, aptly nicknamed “Hell’s Highway” to advance to the Rhine while resupplying their troops. This would allow German forces to cut the road in numerous places.

One could easily make the argument that Operation Market Garden was the Western Allies’ biggest blunder of the war. Although the Allied supply chain was stretched to its breaking point from the Normandy beaches, the broad front strategy had the German army reeling. It is possible that the German army would have collapsed had the Allies kept up the pressure much longer.

However, even though the attack failed, the Allies had made bridgeheads across the Waal and the Maas Rivers. Although their advance into Germany would be delayed for several months, they were now poised for the inevitable attack into the industrial heartland of the Reich. But this attack wouldn’t come in the fall of 1944 but in the spring of 1945.

While it only prolonged the inevitable, the failure of Market Garden bought the Germans valuable time to strengthen their defenses and thus exact a heavier toll in the engagements in Germany proper."

Airborne forces losses:

  1. British 1st Airborne: 1,446 Dead (including 229 glider pilots), 6,414 Wounded or POWs
  2. Polish Independent Brigade: 97 Dead, 111 Wounded or POWs
  3. U.S. 82nd Airborne: 215 Dead, 790 Wounded, and 427 Missing
  4. U.S. 101st Airborne: 315 Dead (including 12 glider pilots), 1,248 Wounded, and 547 Missing (of which 122 U.S. glider pilots)
 

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
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On Thursday, September 20, 1945, Wernher von Braun arrived at Fort Strong. The small military site on the northern tip of Boston Harbour’s Long Island was the processing point for Project Paperclip, the government programme under which hundreds of German scientists were brought into America.

Von Braun filled out his paperwork that day as the inventor of the Nazi V-2 rocket, a member of the Nazi party, and a member of the SS who could be linked to the deaths of thousands of concentration camp prisoners.

Two and a half decades later on Wednesday, July 16, 1969, von Braun stood in the firing room at Kennedy Spaceflight Centre and watched another of his rockets, the Saturn V, take the Apollo 11 crew to the Moon.

 

GreatwhiteNorth

Global Moderator
Staff member
Good luck trying to jump through the VA hoops after 20-30 years.
This is window dressing, very few will be able to get the VA to recognize disability - hell, it's hard enough with a reasonably recent discharge and your med record in hand.
 

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
Today in Military History:

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During the American Revolution, the U.S. ship Bonhomme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones, wins a hard-fought engagement against the British ships of war Serapis and Countess of Scarborough, off the eastern coast of England.

Scottish-born John Paul Jones first sailed to America as a cabin boy and lived for a time in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where his brother had a business. He later served on slave and merchant ships and proved an able seaman. After he killed a fellow sailor while suppressing a mutiny, he returned to the American colonies to escape possible British prosecution. With the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, he traveled to Philadelphia and was commissioned a senior lieutenant in the new Continental Navy. He soon distinguished himself in actions against British ships in the Bahamas, the Atlantic Ocean and the English Channel.

In August 1779, Jones took command of the Bonhomme Richard and sailed around the British Isles. On September 23, 1779, the Bonhomme Richard engaged the Serapis and the smaller Countess of Scarborough, which were escorting the Baltic merchant fleet. After inflicting considerable damage to the Bonhomme Richard, Richard Pearson, the captain of the Serapis, asked Jones if he had struck his colors, the naval signal indicating surrender. From his disabled ship, Jones replied, “Sir, I have not yet begun to fight,” and after three more hours of furious fighting it was the Serapis and Countess of Scarborough that surrendered. After the victory, the Americans transferred to the Serapis from the Bonhomme Richard, which sank the following day.

Though Bonhomme Richard sank after the battle, the battle's outcome was one of the factors that convinced the French crown to back the colonies in their fight to become independent of British authority. Bonhomme Richard's final resting location was the subject of much speculation. A number of unsuccessful efforts had been conducted to locate the wreck. The location was presumed to be in approximately 180 feet (55 m) of water off Flamborough Head, Yorkshire, a headland near where her final battle took place. The quantity of other wrecks in the area and a century of fishing trawler operations had complicated all searches. In 2018 remains, possibly those of the Bonhomme Richard, were found in shallow water very close to the coast of Filey, North Yorkshire, England, by the Land and Sea search team Merlin Burrows. However, the location of this wreck does not corroborate with multiple eyewitness accounts from observers on land, who noted that on the morning of September 25, 1779, the Bonhomme Richard disappeared out of sight over the horizon.

Jones was hailed as a great hero in France, but recognition in the United States was somewhat belated. He continued to serve the United States until 1787 and then served briefly in the Russian navy before moving to France, where he died in 1792 amidst the chaos of the French Revolution. He was buried in an unmarked grave. In 1905, his remains were located under the direction of the U.S. ambassador to France and then escorted back to the United States by U.S. warships. His body was later enshrined in a crypt at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.


 

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
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The Congress, by Senate Joint Resolution 115 of June 23, 1936 (49 Stat. 1895 as amended), has designated the last Sunday in September as “Gold Star Mother’s Day.”

 

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
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Horse Cavalry Detachment of the 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas
 

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
I'm curious to see if they stay with 8 engines.
The contract specs are for 608 engines for the 76 airframes in inv. plus spares; 608/76=8.

"The Air Force has also considered replacing the B-52’s eight engines with four large turbofans, as is typical on commercial airliners. Engineering challenges made that approach nonviable. Potential interference with flaps and control surfaces, ground clearance issues, yaw effects, the need for extensive new flight testing and weapon separation evaluations, the need to replace large sections of the cockpit and throttles, and to redesign the rudder ruled out such a change. USAF has opted to stick with eight engines of the class that typically powers large business jets."
Air Force Magazine; Re-Engining the B-52 By John A. Tirpak Jan. 21, 2019
 
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