On this day in military history - 26 October

[Woodmonkey]

1795 - When General Paul Barras resigns his commission as head of France's Army of the Interior to become head of the Directory, his second-in-command becomes the army's commander-Napoleon Bonaparte.

1800 - Count Helmuth Karl Von Moltke, a Prussian Field Marshal, whose reorganization of the Prussian Army lead to military victories which allowed the unification of Germany, is born.

1864 - "Bloody Bill" Anderson killed :* Notorious Confederate guerrilla leader William "Bloody Bill" Anderson is killed in Missouri in an ambush. *Born in Kentucky in 1839, Anderson grew up in Missouri and moved to Kansas in 1857. Arriving to settle on his father's land claim east of Council Grove, he was soon enmeshed in the bitter fight over slavery that gave the area the nickname "Bleeding Kansas." Before the war, he trafficked stolen horses and escorted wagon trains along the Santa Fe Trail. When the war broke out, Anderson joined an antislavery, pro-Union band of guerillas known as "Jayhawkers." He soon switched sides and joined a band of pro-Confederate "Bushwhackers." In the partisan warfare of Kansas and Missouri, these groups were often more interested in robbery, looting, and personal gain than advancement of a political cause. *Anderson's father was killed in a dispute in 1862. Anderson and his brother Jim gunned down the killer and then moved the family back to western Missouri. Anderson became the head of a band ranging from 30 to 40 guerillas, and his activities cast a shadow of suspicion over the rest of his family. The Union commander along the border, General Thomas Ewing, arrested several wives and sisters of a notorious band, led by William Quantrill, that was terrorizing and murdering Union sympathizers. While Anderson commanded his own band, he often collaborated with Quantrill's larger force. As a result, the group Ewing arrested also included three of Anderson's sisters, who were imprisoned in a temporary Union jail in Kansas City. On August 14, the structure collapsed, killing Anderson's 14-year-old sister Josephine and injuring his two other sisters. Quantrill assembled 450 men to exact revenge against the abolitionist community of Lawrence, Kansas. On August 21, the band killed 150 residents and burned much of the town. Anderson was credited with 14 murders that day. *Anderson went to Texas that winter, got married, and returned to Missouri in 1864 with a band of about 50 fighters. Anderson embarked on a summer of violence, leading his group on a campaign that killed hundreds and caused extensive damage. The climax came on September 27 when Anderson's gang joined with several others to pillage the town of Centralia, Missouri. When more than 100 Union soldiers pursued them, the guerillas ambushed and massacred the entire detachment. Just a month later, Anderson's band was caught in a Union ambush outside of Albany, Missouri, and Anderson was killed by two bullets to his head. The body of the "blood-drenched savage," as he became known in the area, was placed on public display. Anderson kept a rope to record his killings, and there were 54 knots in it at the time of his death.

1918 - Germany's supreme commander, General Erich Ludendorff, resigns, protesting the terms to which the German Government has agreed in negotiating the armistice. This sets the stage for his later support for Hitler and the Nazis, who claim that Germany did not lose the war on the battlefield but were "stabbed in the back" by politicians.

1942 - The United States loses the Hornet :* On this day in 1942, the last U.S. carrier manufactured before America's entry into World War II, the Hornet, is damaged so extensively by Japanese war planes in the Battle of Santa Cruz that it must be abandoned. *The battle for Guadalcanal was the first American offensive against the Japanese, an attempt to prevent the Axis power from taking yet another island in the Solomon chain and gaining more ground in its race for Australia. On this day, in the vicinity of the Santa Cruz Islands, two American naval task forces had to stop a superior Japanese fleet, which was on its way to Guadalcanal with reinforcements. As was the case in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942, the engagement at Santa Cruz was fought exclusively by aircraft taking off from carriers of the respective forces; the ships themselves were not in range to fire at one another. *Japanese aerial fire damaged the USS Enterprise, the battleship South Dakota, and finally the Hornet. *In fact, the explosions wrought by the Japanese bombs that rained down on the Hornetwere so great that two of the Japanese bombers were themselves crippled by the blasts, and the pilots chose to dive-bomb their planes into the deck of the American carrier, which was finally abandoned and left to burn. The Hornet, which weighed 20,000 tons, had seen battle during the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo (its commander at the time, Marc Mitscher, was promoted to admiral and would be a significant player in the victory over Japan) and the battle of Midway. *While the United States losses at Santa Cruz were heavy, the cost in aircraft to the Japanese was so extensive--more than 100, including 25 of the 27 bombers that attacked the Hornet--that they were unable finally to reinforce their troops at Guadalcanal, paving the way for an American victory. *Footnote: The Hornet lost at Santa Cruz was the CV-8; another Hornet, the CV-12, launched August 30, 1943, led a virtually charmed life, spending 52 days under Japanese attack in many battles in the Pacific, with nary a scratch to show for it. That is, until June 1945, when it was finally damaged-by a typhoon.

1950 - A reconnaissance platoon for a South Korean division reaches the Yalu River. They are the only elements of the U.N. force to reach the river before the Chinese offensive pushes the whole army down into South Korea.

1966 - Fire breaks out on U.S. aircraft carrier:* A fire breaks out on board the 42,000-ton U.S. aircraft carrier Oriskany in the Gulf of Tonkin. The accident occurred when a locker filled with night illumination magnesium flares burst into flame. The fire spread quickly through most of the ship, resulting in 35 officers and eight enlisted men killed and a further 16 injured. The loss of life would have been much higher except for the valor of crewmen who pushed 300 500-pound, 1,000-pound, and 2,000-pound bombs that lay within reach of the flames on the hangar deck overboard. The fire destroyed four fighter-bombers and two helicopters, but it was brought under control after three hours. The fallen were returned to the United States for burial. *Also on this day: President Lyndon Johnson flies to South Vietnam after attending a meeting in Manila for a surprise two-and-a-half-hour visit with U.S. troops at Cam Ranh.

1968 - Big battle begins in Tay Ninh Province :* The 1st Infantry Division troops are attacked in Binh Long Province (III Corps), 60 miles north of Saigon near the Cambodian border. Communist forces launched a mortar, rocket, and ground attack against Fire Support Base (FSB) Julie, eight miles west of An Loc. Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry, manned the FSB. U.S. B-52s conducted 22 strikes over the area in an effort to disperse a reported massing of North Vietnamese forces. The defenders were successful in fending off the Communist attack but eight soldiers were killed and 33 were wounded.