On this day in military history - 25 October

[Woodmonkey]

1415 - Battle of Agincourt:* During the Hundred Years' War between England and France, Henry V, the young king of England, leads his forces to victory at the Battle of Agincourt in northern France.* Two months before, Henry had crossed the English Channel with 11,000 men and laid siege to Harfleur in Normandy. After five weeks the town surrendered, but Henry lost half his men to disease and battle casualties. He decided to march his army northeast to Calais, where he would meet the English fleet and return to England. At Agincourt, however, a vast French army of 20,000 men stood in his path, greatly outnumbering the exhausted English archers, knights, and men-at-arms.* The battlefield lay on 1,000 yards of open ground between two woods, which prevented large-scale maneuvers and thus worked to Henry's advantage. At 11 a.m. on October 25, the battle commenced. The English stood their ground as French knights, weighed down by their heavy armor, began a slow advance across the muddy battlefield. The French were met by a furious bombardment of artillery from the English archers, who wielded innovative longbows with a range of 250 yards. French cavalrymen tried and failed to overwhelm the English positions, but the archers were protected by a line of pointed stakes. As more and more French knights made their way onto the crowded battlefield, their mobility decreased further, and some lacked even the room to raise their arms and strike a blow. At this point, Henry ordered his lightly equipped archers to rush forward with swords and axes, and the unencumbered Englishmen massacred the French.* Almost 6,000 Frenchmen lost their lives during the Battle of Agincourt, while English deaths amounted to just over 400. With odds greater than three to one, Henry had won one of the great victories of military history. After further conquests in France, Henry V was recognized in 1420 as heir to the French throne and the regent of France. He was at the height of his powers but died just two years later of camp fever near Paris.

1853 - Indians attack transcontinental railroad survey crew in Utah :* On this day in 1853, Paiute Indians attack U.S. Army Captain John W. Gunnison and his party of 37 soldiers and railroad surveyors near Sevier Lake, Utah. Gunnison and seven other men were killed, but the survey party continued with its work and eventually reported its findings to the United States Congress. *Gunnison was a West Point graduate who had led several previous topographical surveys before being assigned to conduct this survey of potential railroad routes across central Colorado and Utah. Gunnison's mission was only one of four surveys dispatched by the U.S. Congress in an attempt to break a sectional deadlock over which route the proposed transcontinental railroad should follow. The whole idea of a transcontinental railroad was jeopardized by a bitter dispute between northern and southern politicians, with both factions stubbornly insisting that the line should have its terminus in their respective regions. Congress hoped that by turning the question over to the impartial and scientific surveyors of the topographical corps, a clearly superior route would emerge and break the deadlock. *Following Gunnison's death at the hands of the Paiute, his lieutenant, E.G. Beckwith, assumed command. Beckwith eventually found a potential railroad route through Weber Canyon in the Unita Mountains and discovered two feasible passes over the northern Sierra Nevada. The survey also provided valuable information on the geology, flora, and fauna of the West and set a high standard for subsequent explorers to follow. However, the results of neither the Gunnison/Beckwith survey nor any of the others succeeded in breaking the deadlock in Congress. Since no clearly superior route emerged from the volumes of maps and data gathered, the decision remained a political rather than scientific one. The issue would only be settled after the southern states seceded from the Union, leaving the matter in the hands of northern politicians.

1854 - During the Crimean War, a brigade of British light infantry is destroyed by Russian artillery as they charge down a narrow corridor in full view of the Russians.

1861 - Keel of the Monitor laid :* Signaling an important shift in the history of naval warfare, the keel of the Union ironclad Monitor is laid at Greenpoint, Long Island. *Union Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles appointed an Ironclad Board when he heard rumors that the Confederates were trying to build an iron-hulled ship-an ironclad ship could wreck havoc on the Union's wooden armada. In September 1861, the board granted approval for engineer John Ericsson, a native of Sweden, to begin constructing the U.S. Navy's first ironclad. *The wooden keel was laid at the Continental Iron Works on Long Island. Carpenters worked around the clock on the frame while the iron sheathing was prepared for the hull. The vessel was not large--172 feet long and 41 feet wide--but its design was unique. The craft had an unusually low profile, rising from the water only 18 inches. A 20-foot cylindrical turret in the middle of the ship housed two 11-inch Dahlgren guns that topped the flat, iron deck. The ship had a draft of less than 11 feet so it could operate in the shallow harbors and rivers of the South. *Ericsson pushed the production to be as speedy as possible, but he could not deliver the ship by the January 12, 1862, delivery date. It was finally launched into New York's East River on January 30. Many small engine problems also needed to be solved before the craft was commissioned on February 25. It sailed for Virginia soon after, arriving at Chesapeake Bay on March 6. On March 8, 1862, it engaged in one of the most famous naval duels in history when it clashed with the Confederate ironclad the Virginia (which had been constructed from the captured Union ship Merrimack). A day of heavy pounding produced a draw; each ship was immune from the other's shots. A new naval era had dawned.

1862 - Lincoln wires McClellan :* A sarcastic President Lincoln wires General George McClellan: "I have just read your dispatch about sore tongued and fatiegued [sic] horses. Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigue anything?" Lincoln was nearly out of patience with McClellan. The president had ordered him to pursue Confederate General Robert E. Lee into Virginia after Antietam on September 17, but McClellan dallied for more than a month. A little over a week after sending this message, Lincoln replaced McClellan with Ambrose Burnside.

1916 - German pilot Rudolf von Eschwege shoots down his first enemy plane, a Nieuport 12 of the Royal Naval Air Service over Bulgaria.

1940 - German troops capture Kharkov and launch a new drive toward Moscow.

1944 - First kamikaze attack of the war begins :* On this day in 1944, during the Battle of the Leyte Gulf, the Japanese deploy kamikaze ("divine wind") suicide bombers against American warships for the first time. It will prove costly-to both sides. *This decision to employ suicide bombers against the American fleet at Leyte, an island of the Philippines, was based on the failure of conventional naval and aerial engagements to stop the American offensive. Declared Japanese naval Capt. Motoharu Okamura: "I firmly believe that the only way to swing the war in our favor is to resort to crash-dive attacks with our planes.... There will be more than enough volunteers for this chance to save our country." *The first kamikaze force was in fact composed of 24 volunteer pilots from Japan's 201st Navy Air Group. The targets were U.S. escort carriers; one, the St. Lo, was struck by a A6M Zero fighter and sunk in less than an hour, killing 100 Americans. More than 5,000 kamikaze pilots died in the gulf battle-taking down 34 ships. *For their kamikaze raids, the Japanese employed both conventional aircraft and specially designed planes, called Ohka ("cherry blossom") by the Japanese, but Baka ("fool") by the Americans, who saw them as acts of desperation. The Baka was a rocket-powered plane that was carried toward its target attached to the belly of a bomber. *All told, more than 1,321 Japanese aircraft crash-dived their planes into Allied warships during the war, desperate efforts to reverse the growing Allied advantage in the Pacific. While approximately 3,000 Americans and Brits died because of these attacks, the damage done did not prevent the Allied capture of the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

1950 - Chinese Communist Forces launch their first-phase offensive across the Yalu River into North Korea.

1958 - The last U.S. troops leave Beirut.

1972 - Nixon suspends bombing of North Vietnam :* The White House orders a suspension of bombing above the 20th parallel as a signal of U.S. approval of recent North Vietnamese concessions at the secret peace talks in Paris. *According to Nixon administration officials, the principal obstacle to a cease-fire was in Saigon. South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu broadcast a denunciation of the cease-fire treaty, calling all peace proposals discussed by Kissinger and Hanoi in Paris unacceptable, and urged his troops to wipe out Communist presence in the South "quickly and mercilessly." *Thieu feared the peace treaty because it did not address the 160,000 North Vietnamese troops that were currently in South Vietnam. Ultimately, he would sign the accords, but only after repeated promises by President Nixon that he would come to the aid of South Vietnam if the North Vietnamese violated the terms of the agreement. However, the Watergate scandal erupted and Nixon was forced to resign. His successor could not make good Nixon's promises and the South Vietnamese government fell in 1975.

1973 - Nixon vetoes War Powers Resolution :* President Nixon vetoes the War Powers Resolution, which would limit presidential power to commit armed forces abroad without Congressional approval. *The bill, introduced by Senator Jacob K. Javits of New York, required the president to report to Congress within 48 hours after commitment of armed forces to foreign combat and limited to 60 days the time they could stay there without Congressional approval. The legislation was an attempt by Congress to regain control of the power to make war. Nixon claimed that the bill imposed "unconstitutional and dangerous restrictions" on presidential authority. Nevertheless, Congress passed the law over Nixon's veto on November 7, 1973. *Also on this day: U.S. intelligence officials report that since the cease-fire, North Vietnamese military presence in South Vietnam had been built up by 70,000 troops, 400 tanks, at least 200 artillery pieces, 15 anti-aircraft artillery, and 12 airfields. Intelligence reports also indicated that an all-weather road from North Vietnam to Tay Ninh province to the north of Saigon had been almost completed. The cease-fire had gone into effect on January 27 at midnight as part of the Paris Peace Accords. The provisions of the cease-fire left over 100,000 Communist troops in South Vietnam. The build-up of these forces did not bode well for the South Vietnamese because the fighting had continued after only a momentary lull when the cease-fire was instituted. Congress was cutting U.S. military aid to South Vietnam while the North Vietnamese forces in the south grew stronger.

1983 - 1,800 U.S. troops and 300 Caribbean troops land on Grenada. U.S. forces soon turn up evidence of a strong Cuban and Soviet presence--large stores of arms and documents suggesting close links to Cuba.