MILITARY HISTORY FOR THE MONTH

Who are the three presidents who served in 1841?
Forty years later, this same phenomenon occurred again in 1881. Name the three presidents who served that year.
Name the three presidents who died on July 4th.
Who were the four presidents who were assassinated while in office?

Answers

Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler
Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, and Chester A. Arthur.
John Adams, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson.
Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, John F. Kennedy

Feb 3

During World War II, four chaplains who had attended Chaplain School together at Harvard boarded the Dorchester en route to the Army Command Base in southern Greenland. Aboard the ship were 904 service members. The four chaplains were Reverend George L. Fox, a Methodist minister, Reverend Clark V. Poling of the Reformed Church of America, Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, and Father John P. Washington of the Roman Catholic Church. Their voyage began on January 23, 1943. At the time, German U-Boats were patrolling the area, and the convoy was on high alert. When a German submarine torpedoed the Dorchester on February 3, 1943, in the frigid waters off the coast of Newfoundland, chaos ensued. Eyewitnesses recounted the chaplains' heroism, including giving their life jackets and gloves to other service members. They prayed with service members, assisting them into lifeboats. The four chaplains remained on the sinking Dorchester. Only 230 men were rescued from the waters. Congress awarded the four chaplains the Four Chaplains Medal in 1960.

Feb. 8

1910: William D. Boyce incorporates the Boy Scouts of America. Countless boys will cut their teeth as young adventurers in Boyce's scouting program before joining the military. When sub commander Eugene Fluckey - one of nine Medal of Honor recipients to earn the Boy Scouts' top distinction of Eagle Scout - assembled a landing party to go ashore and destroy a Japanese train, he wanted former Boy Scouts to do the job, since they would be able to find their way back. 11 of the 12 humans to walk on the moon were Boy Scout alumni; and Neil Armstrong, the first was an Eagle Scout.

Feb. 12

1935: As the Navy's helium-filled rigid airship USS Macon (ZRS-5) flies through a storm, its tail fin and interior structural members are destroyed, puncturing the massive vessel's helium cells. The "flying aircraft carrier,"

which houses five Curtiss F9C-2 "Sparrowhawk" reconnaissance planes, crash-lands in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Point Sur, Calif, and all but two of the airship's 76-man crew are saved.

The 785-ft. Macon and her sister ship Akron (which crashed in 1933) are the largest aircraft ever produced by the United States - just 20 feet shorter than the ill-fated Hindenburg, which will famously be lost in 1937. Incidentally, Macon's commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. Herbert Wiley, was Akron's executive officer and one of only three men to survive that crash.

Feb. 16

1804: U.S. Navy Lt. (future commodore) Stephen Decatur sails a captured Tripolitan ketch he renames USS Intrepid into the harbor at Tripoli. There, Decatur and a volunteer force of sailors and Marines board the frigate USS Philadelphia (the second of six so-named American warships), which had been previously captured by Tripolitan pirates. After a brief but violent close quarters struggle in which several pirates but no Americans are killed Decatur orders the Philadelphia burned.

1945: 2,000 American paratroopers jump over the Philippines' "fortress Corregidor" in one of the most difficult airborne operations of the war. For the next 11 days, the Americans will root out the enemy from a labyrinth of caves and tunnels and beat back multiple banzai attacks before wiping out almost all of the 6,500-man enemy garrison.

1953: Marine aviator - and future baseball Hall of Famer - Capt. Ted Williams crash-lands his crippled Marine Corps F9F "Panther" fighter at Suwon's K-13 airstrip. During a massive 200-plane raid on a troop encampment, Williams was hit by enemy ground fire which knocked out his instrument panel, landing gear, and hydraulic system; damaged his control surfaces; and set the plane on fire. Rather than eject, Williams brings the plane down on its belly and skids down the runway for over a mile before the mortally wounded plane comes to

a stop. Williams, often flying as the wingman for future Mercury astronaut John Glenn, walks away with just a sprained ankle and goes on to fly 38 more missions over Korea before returning to baseball for good (he also flew in the Pacific Theater during World War II).

Feb. 17

1864: The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley sinks the Federal sloop-of-war USS Housatonic in Charleston (S.C.) harbor, becoming the first submarine in history to sink an enemy warship in action. It is a pyrrhic victory however: the submarine also sinking either with its victim or soon after the attack with the loss of all hands.

Feb. 22

1974: Lt. J.G. Barbara Ann Allen Rainey pins on her wings, becoming the first female Naval aviator. Rainey is assigned to a transport squadron, flying C-1 "Trader" planes .In 1982, she will be killed in a crash while training a student pilot.

Feb. 23

1778: Baron Friedrich von Steuben, a Prussian Army officer — arguably the father of American drill instructors arrives at Valley Forge with the task of whipping the Continental Army into shape.

Feb. 27

1942: A flotilla of 14 Dutch, British, Australian, and American ships suffers a disastrous defeat at the hands of a much-larger Japanese invasion force in the Battle of the Java Sea. 11 vessels are sunk and over 3,000 sailors are killed in the engagement. Meanwhile, the seaplane tender USS Langley (AV-3) - America's first aircraft carrier - is sunk by Japanese land-based aircraft while ferrying P-40 "Warhawk" attack planes to Java.

USS Jupiter (AC-3) served as a collier from 1913 to 1920 and was converted into the U.S. Navy's first aircraft carrier, being renamed USS Langley on 21 April 1920 and being recommissioned as an aircraft carrier in 1922.

Past Month's Military History