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On 7 February 1943 Operation Ke saw the last remaining Japanese forces evacuated from Guadalcanal...Continue Reading

On 4 November 1791 a US force led by Arthur St Clair clashed with Native Americans at the battle of the Wabash...Continue Reading

On 21 October 1944 the first official Kamikaze strike took place, with the HMAS Australia hit and damaged by a Kamikaze attack. These suicide attacks were the scourge of the US fleet at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, with the Japanese armed forces building upon their initial success with weapons specially developed for Kamikaze attacks...Continue Reading

On 20 October 1944 the Philippines Campaign began with American troops landing on the eastern Phillipine Island of Leyte. They rapidly took control of the beachheads, allowing General Douglas MacArthur to make a dramatic return to the Phillipines following his escape in 1942...Continue Reading

On the night of 11 October 1942 the Japanese had planned an operation to bombard Henderson Field, an important Allied airfield on Guadalcanal...Continue Reading

On 27 September 1941 SS Patrick Henry was launched by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was the first of the Liberty Ships, described by Roosevelt as ‘a dreadful looking object’ and dubbed an ‘Ugly Duckling’ by Time magazine...Continue Reading

On 26 September 1918 the Meuse-Argonne Offensive was launched. It would be the greatest American battle of the First World War, and after the armistice had been signed Field Marshal von Hindenburg wrote that 'the American infantry on the Argonne won the war'...Continue Reading

In the history of aviation 21 September truly is a day of firsts, with three US aircraft taking to the skies for the first time on this day in history...Continue Reading

The Battle of the Bloody Ridge was fought from 12-14 September, 1942. It saw the Allies, mainly consisting of men from the United States Marine Corps, successfully beat back the attacking Japanese. Behind them was Henderson Field, an important airfield that the Allies had captured earlier in the Guadalcanal campaign...Continue Reading

Early in the morning of 2 August, 1943 Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 was struck by the Amagiri, a Japanese destroyer.  It was cut in two, leaving Seamen Andrew Jackson Kirksey and Harold W. Marney dead and two others badly injured. The eleven survivors clung to the burning wreckage, amongst them future US President John F. Kennedy, who was commanding the PT-109 at the time...Continue Reading