A monthly update from the desk of:

Bob Hogan

Director of Burlington, MA’s Office of Veterans Services

October 

The month of October, like every other month of the year, has it’s notable events that occurred in military history. Each month in this column we will discuss the events of that particular month in WW-2, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and any related military history.

Back in October of 1940, the first peacetime draft in U.S. history went into effect when Secretary of War Henry Stimson drew number 158 from the lottery bowl. The drawing took place as a result of the Selective Training and Service Act of 16 September.

In October of 1942 the Battle of Cape Esperance and the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands occurred. On the 11th, Task Force 64 under Rear Adm. Norman Scott prevented the Japanese from bombarding Guadalcanal. With four cruisers and five destroyers, Scott was waiting for the enemy and took him completely by surprise at Cape Esperance.

On the 26th, In another attempt by the Japanese to take Henderson Field in the Santa Cruz Islands, the Japanese under Admiral Yamamoto kept well concealed from the two American Task Forces under Rear Admirals L. C. Kincaid and G. D. Murray. The surprise did not work and in the ensuing battle, the Japanese lost 100 planes and two carriers and a cruiser. The Americans lost the Hornet.

During the next year, on October 9th, 1943, The Battle of Vella Lavella ended the New Georgia Campaign. An amphibious force of 4,600, under Rear Adm. T.S. Wilkinson cleared the Island of Japanese and paved the way for Admiral Halsey’s assault on Bougainville.

On October 29th, 1944, General Douglas MacArthur proclaimed, “I have returned”. MacArthur addressed the Filipino people upon his fulfilling his famous promise to return to the Philippines. A few hours after the initial infantry landing on Leyte, MacArthur waded ashore, preparing for the drive to retake the islands.

Considered by some as the greatest of all naval battles, the Battle of Leyte Gulf began in October of 1944. In an all out effort, the Japanese tried to stop American Forces in the Philippines. The three day battle saw Bull Halsey’s Third Fleet and Kincaid’s Seventh Fleet sink four enemy carriers, three of their battleships, ten cruisers and nine destroyers. After that battle the Japanese Navy ceased to be an effective force in the Pacific.

During the Korean War, on October 19 1950, United Nations forces captured Pyongyang, capital of North Korea. The U.S. Eighth Army and the ROK First Division found the enemy capital abandoned with enough leftover posters of Stalin to fill the Kremlin walls. The following day, X Corps struck again from the sea, this time carrying out an unopposed landing at Wonson on the east coast. Five days later, the first South Korean troops reached the Yalu River at Chosin.

General MacArthur, full of confidence and convinced that the Chinese were bluffing about their threat to enter the fight if the Americans did, ordered a general advance to the Yalu, telling his troops that they would be home for Christmas. Unfortunately he could not have been more wrong. Within a couple of weeks 180,000 Chinese troops launched a massive offensive against U.S. troops.

On day later the U.S. 187th Airborne jumped behind enemy lines in the Sukchon-Sunchon area to seal off escape routes north. The paratroopers succeeded in demoralizing the North Korean troops to the point where they began surrendering en masse. By the end of the month, the United Nations forces had captured over 135,000 North Korean troops.

In Korea on October 6, 1952, the heaviest one day barrage since the war began, occurred. The enemy launched attacks around Hills 281 (Arrowhead) and 395 (White Horse Hill). During the battle that lasted for several weeks following the initial barrage, the Chinese 38th Army was routed and the ROK Army had come of age.

On October 20, 1962, President John Kennedy revealed to the American people that there was a Soviet buildup in Cuba, and that he ordered a naval and air quarantine on shipments of offensive weapons and military equipment to the island. During that tense time, Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev reached an agreement to dismantle the weapons in Cuba.

Various Special Forces groups had served tours of duty in South Vietnam during the war. It was in October of 1964 that the Fifth Special Forces Group was formally deployed there. The Fifth established its headquarters at Nha Trang. It consisted of groups of A, B, and C teams. Each twenty man C team was in charge of three B teams, which controlled four twelve man A teams.

The Battle of the IA Drang Valley began with a North Vietnamese attack on the Special Forces camp at Plei Me in the Central Highlands on October 19,1965. The battle and additional involvement of the 7th Cavalry and B-52 raids lasted well into November, with American losses listed at 300 men, while the North Vietnamese had almost 2,000 men killed.

In speaking about a book titled “We Were Soldiers Once...and Young” General H. Norman Schwarzkopf stated that this is a great book of military history, written the way history should be written. It is the story of the Battle of the IA Drang Valley. It is compelling reading, a powerful and epic story.

Each year the Commandant of the U.S. Marines Corps selects one book that he believes is both relevant and timeless for reading by all Marines. In 1993 the Commandants choice was “We Were Soldiers Once....and Young.”

Operation MacArthur was the codename for combat operations of the 4th Infantry Division in the western highlands of South Vietnam that began in October of 1967. It was the battle for Dak To, driving the North Vietnamese Army back into Laos. The NVA returned in 1968 and Operation MacArthur continued until January of 1969.

In October of 1968 the first American three man space flight occurred when a Saturn rocket launched Apollo 7 from Cape Kennedy. Capt. Wally Schirra, USN, Major Don Eisele, USAF, and R Walter Cunningham splashed down safely after 11 days and 163 orbits of the earth. It was also the first flight using the type of capsule that would one day go to the moon.

Also in October of 1968, the U.S. Air Force claimed its 69th MiG kill of the war while attacking Phuc Yen, North Vietnam’s largest airbase.

The Ninth Infantry Division was created in 1940 and during World War 2 saw combat in North Africa, Italy, France and Germany. After deactivation in 1946, the Ninth was re-activated for Vietnam in 1966. The Ninth fought in Dinh Tuong and Long An provinces. The Ninth stayed in Vietnam until the final Brigade, the 3rd, left the country on October 11, 1970.

In October of 1972, Radio Hanoi announced that the United States and North Vietnam had reached an agreement for settlement of the War in Vietnam. The official government broadcast said that the offer was made to U.S. presidential advisor Henry Kissinger in Paris. Kissinger partially confirmed the broadcast in Washington that same day by saying that “peace is at hand.”

In October of 1990, Colin Powell was traveling to Riyadh to discuss offensive plans against Iraq, and President Bush was deciding on doubling forces in Saudi Arabia.

Bob Hogan is the Burlington & Bedford Director of Veterans Services. He can be contacted by calling 781-270-1959 in Burlington, MA and 781-275-1328 in Bedford, MA.