May 2012

Attack of the USS Stark. May 17, 2012

USS Stark, a Perry class guided missile frigate, was under the command of Captain Glenn R. Brindel and was part of the Middle East Task Force.  She was sailing off the Saudi Arabian coast near the Iran–Iraq War exclusion boundary, the area of sea off Iran and Iraq. The Iraqis attacked with a French built Dassault Mirage F1 armed with 1,500 pound Exocet missiles.  It took off from the airbase of Shaibah at 20:00 and headed south into the Persian Gulf also along the coast.

The Battle of Hamburger Hill May 10-20, 1969

The Battle of Hamburger Hill was a battle of the Vietnam War that was fought by the United States and South Vietnam against North Vietnamese forces from May 10–20, 1969. Although the heavily fortified Hill 937 was of little strategic value, U.S. command ordered its capture by a frontal assault, only to abandon it soon thereafter. The debacle caused an outrage both in the American military and public. The battle was primarily an infantry engagement, with the U.S. Airborne troops moving up the highly sloped hill against well entrenched troops.

Victory in Europe Day

Victory in Europe Day — known as V-E Day or VE Day — commemorates 8 May 1945 (in Commonwealth countries; 7 May 1945), the date when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. The formal surrender of the occupying German forces in the Channel Islands was not until 9 May 1945. On 30 April Hitler committed suicide during the Battle of Berlin, and so the surrender of Germany was authorized by his replacement, President of Germany Karl Dönitz.