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This Day in U.S. Military History
9 May
1813 – U.S. troops under William Henry Harrison rescued Fort Meigs from
British and Canadian troops.
1846 – US forced Mexico back to Rio Grande in the Battle of Resaca de la
Palma.
1846 – Gen. Mariano Arista crossed the Rio Grande and killed a number of
US soldiers in a surprise attack. Mexico believed that France and Britain
would support it in a war against the US.
1862 – Battle of Ft. Pickens, FL (Pensacola), evacuated by CSA.
1862 – Battle of Farmington, Missouri.
1862 – U.S.S. Constitution Lieutenant G. W. Rodgers, and U.S. steamer
Baltic Lieutenant C.R.P. Rodgers, arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, with
officers and midshipmen from the U.S. Naval Academy. The Naval
Academy remained there for the duration of the war.
1862 – USRC Miami landed President Abraham Lincoln on
Confederate-held soil the day before the fall of Norfolk.
1863 – Captain Case, commanding U.S.S. Iroquois, reported that the
Confederates were mounting guns on the northern faces of Fort Fisher
at Wilmington.
1864 – Union General John Sedgwick was shot and killed by a confederate
sharpshooter during fighting at Spotsylvania, Va. His last words before
getting hit were “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.”
1864 – Union troops secure a crucial pass during the Atlanta campaign.
1864 – Battle of Cloyd’s Mt. and Swift Creek, VA (Drewry’s Bluff, Ft.
Darling).
1916 – President Woodrow Wilson mobilizes the National Guard of
Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to patrol their borders with Mexico as
Brigadier General John J. Pershing led an Army expedition into
northern Mexico to try to capture or kill the bandit leader Pancho Villa
and his group.
1926 – Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett made the first flight
over the North Pole.
1941 – The German submarine U-110 was captured at sea by the Royal
Navy, revealing considerable Enigma material. Enigma was the German
machine used to encrypt messages during World War II.
1942 – USS Icarus, CG, sank the U-352 off Charleston and took 33
prisoners, the first German prisoners taken in combat by any US force in
World War II.
1942 – 64 Spitfires are successfully delivered to Malta by naval forces
including the USS Wasp and the HMS Eagle. This time, the planes are
quickly refueled and rearmed and there is no destruction on the ground as
with the previous delivery. The USS Wasp returns to service in the United
States after this operation.
1944 – Japanese forces skirmish with American forces on the beachheads
around Hollandia.
1944 – Allied air forces begin large scale raids on airbases in France as part
of the preparation for the D-Day invasion.
1945 – U.S. officials announced that the midnight entertainment curfew was
being lifted immediately.
1945 – Herman Goering, commander in chief of the Luftwaffe,
president of the Reichstag, head of the Gestapo, prime minister of
Prussia, and Hitler’s designated successor is taken prisoner by the U.S.
Seventh Army in Bavaria.
1945 – On Luzon, forces of the US 145th Infantry Regiment, an element
of US 11th Corps, captures Mount Binicayan and patrols into the
Guagua area.
1951 – Three hundred and twelve Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy planes
hit Sinuiju Airfield in one of the largest air raids of the war.
1991 – President Bush met at the White House with UN Secretary-General
Javier Perez de Cuellar, who relayed Iraq’s rejection of a US-backed
proposal for a UN civilian force in northern Iraq.
1993 – The White House said President Clinton had directed Secretary of
State Warren M. Christopher to contact U.S. allies to discuss how they could
ensure Serbia’s promise to cut supplies to the Bosnian Serbs.
1997 – Twenty-two years and 10 days after the fall of Saigon, former
Florida Representative Douglas “Pete” Peterson becomes the first
ambassador to Vietnam since Graham Martin was airlifted out of the
country by helicopter in late April 1975.
1999 – China announced that it was breaking off diplomatic contacts
with Washington on human rights and arms control along with contacts
on weapons proliferation and int’l. security due to the bombing of its
embassy in Belgrade.
2001 – China sought U.S. understanding for its refusal to allow a damaged
U.S. Navy spy plane to fly home, saying public sentiment would be outraged
if the aircraft flew again over Chinese territory.
2003 – The US and its allies asked the UN Security Council to legitimize
their occupation of Iraq and sought permission to use revenue from the
world’s second-largest oil reserves to rebuild the war-battered country.
2003 – In northern Iraq 3 U.S. soldiers were killed when their helicopter
crashed into the Tigris River.
2004 – U.S. and British troops clashed with forces of radical Shiite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr for a second day. 4 Iraqis were killed in an explosion in a
Baghdad market. Militants loyal to al-Sadr took over Sadr City.