This date in history

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Errm.. no.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Please elaborate.

Attack on Ruhr Dams by aircraft of 617 Squadron on the night of 16-17 May 1943

http://www.raf.mod.uk/history/bomber...1march1943.cfm

[Jimbuna]

1944 - General Eisenhower sets D-Day for June 5th.

[Jimbuna]

1917 - First units of the American Expeditionary Force, commanded by General John J. Pershing, are ordered to France.

[Aktungbby]

1953: Jacqueline Cochran become the first woman to break the sound barrier in a F-86 Sabre over Rogers Dry Lake California. In June, 1941 Cochran became the first woman to fly a bomber across the North Atlantic. In July, 1943 Cochran was appointed to the General Staff of the U.S. Army Air Forces to direct all phases of the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) program. In 1945 Jacqueline Cochran received the U.S. Distinguished Service Medal. Calling her line of cosmetics Wings, she flew her own aircraft around the country promoting her products. The 'right stuff' chats with Chuck YeagerWorth a read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Cochran

[Jimbuna]

1568 - English Queen Elizabeth I arrests Scottish Queen Mary.

1941 - Germany occupiers in Holland forbid bicycle taxis.

1989 - Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) last appearance on Dallas.

[lesrae]

On a submarine note, HMS TIRELESS arrived in Gibraltar 15 years ago today for her now famous reactor weld repair: http://www.gibnet.com/library/tire01.htm

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by lesrae

On a submarine note,

^Thanks Lesrae! for that post! On a ROYAL NAVY NAVY note: Henry VIII judicially executes his second wife Anne Boleyn for high treason on this date in 1536. Henry is traditionally cited as one of the founders of the Royal Navy Technologically, Henry invested in large cannon for his warships, Henry was also responsible for the creation of a permanent navy, with the supporting anchorages and dockyards. Tactically, Henry's reign saw the Navy move away from boarding tactics to employ gunnery instead. The Navy was enlarged up to fifty ships and Henry was responsible for the establishment of the "council for marine causes" to specifically oversee all the maintenance and operation of the Navy, becoming the basis for the later Admiralty. ASEA in the bedroom perhaps (five wives?) but astute on the waves it seems...

[Jimbuna]

1873 - Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis patent first blue jeans with copper rivets.

1927 - Saudi Arabia becomes independent of Great Britain (Treaty of Jedda).

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Please elaborate.

Sorry for being late

I just wanted to say that this mission "operation chastise" was not a real success, there were six targets in all, only two were "destroyed", or better damaged.

Nor was it entirely directed against the Ruhr valley. The Moehne dam was damaged, but failed to influence the Ruhr production (several dams downstream saw for that, the Eder dam had no link at all with the Ruhr valley, and the rest of the dams (4) were not damaged.
Drinking water support was already up in june, the dams completely rebuilt in september.

Harris had protested against this mission, however some others saw it as a nice propaganda coup and worth the effort.

The raid proved to be costly in lives (more than half the lives lost belonging to Allied POWs and forced-labourers), but was no more than a minor inconvenience to the Ruhr's industrial output. 53 of the 133 soldiers were killed during the mission, three bailed out and were captured.
From the 20 Lancaster bombers, eight were shot down or crashed, some others did not reach the target or had to return.

The value of the bombing can perhaps best be seen as a boost to British morale.
But then, the other strategic bombing on civilian targets had not much influence on the war production either, and it did not "break the will" as intended.

[ABBAFAN]

19 may 1845. The Franklin expedition sails from Greenhithe in Kent for the northwest passage. Two bomb vessels HMS Erebus and HMS Terror with 134 men.


21 may 1982 the British landings at San Carlos in the Falkands begin the liberation of the islands. HMS Ardent sunk by bombs.

[Jimbuna]

1932 - 1st transatlantic solo flight by a woman (Amelia Earhart) lands in Ireland.

2004 - Stanislav Petrov awarded World Citizen Award for averting a potential nuclear war in 1983 after correctly guessing Russian early warning system at fault.

[Aktungbby]

1941:SS Robin Moor, a Hog Islander steamship that sailed under the American flag is stopped and sunk by U-69, the first type VIIC boat in the Kreigsmarine, 750 miles west of the British-controlled port of Freetown, Sierra Leone. "Although the Robin Moor was flying the flag of a neutral country, her mate was told by the U-boat crew that they had decided to "let us have it." After a brief period for the ship's crew and passengers to board her four lifeboats, the U-boat fired a torpedo at the rudder and then shelled the vacated ship at the bridge. Once the ship was scuttled beneath the waves, the submarine's crew pulled up to Captain W.E. Myers' lifeboat, left him with four tins of ersatz bread and two tins of butter, and explained that the ship had been sunk by her own crew because she was carrying supplies to Germany's enemy." nearly two weeks passed before any of her four lifeboats of survivors were discovered. As President Roosevelt would later state in a message to Congress regarding the sinking, the survivors were "accidentally discovered and rescued by friendly vessels." [wiki] The lifeboat containing the captain and 10 others was rescued on 8 June after 18 days, and taken to Brazil. The occupants of that boat presumed that the remaining crew and passengers were lost, but they later learned that the three lifeboats containing the others had been discovered by chance on 13 June, two days after the sinking, and taken to South Africa. Remarkably, all of the crew and passengers were rescued. The political ramifications edged a resolute but crafty FDR closer to the inevitable: The State Department then required Germany and Italy to close all of their consulates in the United States except for their embassies, prompting Germany to issue the same directive to the United States in return. The US also demanded damages and reparations from Germany, without success....reportedly, 70% of the vessel's cargo met German and British requirement as war contraband. THe U-69 had two emblems; one depicting the flag signal L M A "mich im Arsche lecken" and the other after a French ad: U-69 was first assigned to 7th Flotilla and the crew were instructed to paint Günther Prien's snorting bull insignia on the U-boat's conning tower. No illustration was enclosed, so U-69‍ '​s First Watch Officer, Oblt.z.See Auffermann instructed a shipyard worker to copy the head which appeared on the packaging of a popular French dairy product instead. This 'naturally proved to be a source of great amusement''. U-69's first commander Jost Metzler> published a memoir The Laughing Cow in 1954. Lord knows, I love my U boat emblems...and the stories behind them

[Jimbuna]

1826 - HMS Beagle departs on its first voyage.

1931 - Canned rattlesnake meat first goes on sale in Florida.

1933 - Loch Ness Monster is first reportedly sighted by John Mackay.

[Aktungbby]

1968: USS Scorpion is sunk with 99 crewmen 400 miles SW of the Azores. It was one of four mysterious submarine disappearances in 1968; the others being the Israeli submarine INS Dakar, the French submarine Minerve (S647) and the Soviet submarine K-129. "
The cause of the sub's loss remains hotly disputed. A Navy Court of Inquiry found "the cause of the loss cannot be definitively ascertained."
"The families of those 99 men are still out there, and they want to know what happened," says former U.S. naval officer Paul Boyne, who presented a new mechanical explanation for the loss of the sub at a recent marine forensics symposium outside Washington.
Calls for an expedition to the sub's wreck, saying it might put to rest a multitude of theories about the Scorpion's demise — ranging from a covert Soviet attack to a torpedo self-firing into the ship to a faulty trash disposal, have not been forthcoming.
Evidence for a more mundane explanation comes from the sub's propeller shaft; Undersea photographs show it rests about 20 yards outside the wreck on the seafloor, about 11,220 feet underwater. Rubber bearings holding the propeller shaft failed, putting stress on the coupling connecting it to the engine. The coupling's bolts failed catastrophically during a deep test dive, the theory goes, spilling water into the sub too rapidly to allow ballast maneuvers to raise the ship to the surface." Of some interest ...until we get down there for a 'definitive' look...http://www.historynet.com/the-uss-scorpion-buried-at-sea.htm

[Jimbuna]

1701 - Captain William Kidd is hanged in London after being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore.