Scuttlebutt & Small Chow USMC History List
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On this date, May 6, in the year...
1813: The "Patriots' War" ended when the last of American troops
were
withdrawn from Florida.
1893: Sixty Marines, commanded by Captains Benjamin R. Russell
and
Paul StC. Murphy, guarded exhibits loaned by the Department of
State
and various foreign governments at the world's Columbian
Exposition in
Chicago.
1914: The 44th Company from Port Royal, South Carolina, arrived
in the
USS Washington off Puerta Platz, Dominican Republic, prepared to
land
in case American lives or property were threatened by
revolutionists.
1926: A detachment of Marines from the USS Cleveland landed at
Bluefields, Nicaragua, after revolution erupted in that country.
1937 (6-8 May): Marines commanded by Lieutenant Colonel W.T.H.
Galliford carried out rescue and riot control duties at
Lakehurst, New
Jersey, after the flaming crash of the German airship
Hindenburg.
1942: The 4th Marines' reserve companies and the 4th Battalion
(reserve) were committed in an unsuccessful counterattack on the
Japanese position in the East Sector. Major General J.M.
Wainwright,
USA, surrendered all forces in the Philippines; Colonel S.L.
Howard,
senior Marine Officer, ordered the regimental and national
colors of
the 4th Marines burned to prevent their capture.
1943: In the Southwest Pacific, the New Britain Force received a
warning order from General Headquarters for the occupation of
western
New Britain by combined airborne and amphibious operations.
1946: Commandant General Alexander A. Vandegrift appeared before
the
Senate Naval Affairs Committee to speak against S. 2044, a bill
to
reduce the size of the Marine Corps.
1952: Major R.R. Reid, Commanding Officer of VMJ-1, flew the
squadron's first mission in Korea with an Air Force F86 escort.
1961: It was reported in recent Congressional testimony that the
Marine Corps had approximately 60 officers and 400 enlisted
qualified
parachutists, but only 34 officer and 313 parachutist billets.
1962 (6-27 May): Communist hordes in Laos gained control of
large
territories after driving all government forces from northern
Laos;
about 2,000 Laotian Royal Army troops with their commander fled
into
Thailand, crossing the Mekong River.
1965: In the Dominican Republic, four Marines were killed and
one
other was wounded by rebel machine gun fire in the ambush of a
medical
convoy in downtown Santo Domingo. Two other Marines were
capture, but
were later released by the rebels.
1969: In Vietnam, the III Marine Amphibious Force began its
fifth year
in Vietnam. It now was comprised of the 1st and 3rd Marine
Divisions,
the Army's XXIV Corps, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, Force Logisitic
Command, the Army's Americal Division, 101st Airborne Division,
and
the 1st Brigade of the 5th Infantry Division.
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