October 20 in U.S. military history
1922: Lt. Harold R. Harris (Army Air Service) performs the world’s first emergency parachute jump when the wings of his Loening PW-2A come apart during a simulated dogfight 2,500 feet over McCook Field. Harris bails out of his cockpit and after free-falling 2,000 feet, he lands safely in a garden in Dayton, Ohio.
1926: With a brutal murder of a post office truck driver capping a series of brutal attacks on postal workers, President Calvin Coolidge orders the Marine Corps to protect the mail delivery across the United States. 2,500 Marines of two-time Medal of Honor recipient Brig. Gen. Smedley D. Butler’s 4th Marine Regiment will serve as the “Western Mail Guards,” guarding mail trucks, trains, and post offices. Quickly ending the crime wave, the Marines return to their regular posts in 1927.
1944: Two-and-a-half years after famously vowing to return to the Philippines, Gen. Douglas MacArthur and some 130,000 soldiers of the Sixth Army land at Leyte Island. Over the next 67 days, MacArthur’s forces will completely wipe out the 16th Japanese Army — perpetrators of the Bataan Death March — and capture Leyte, signaling the beginning of the end for the Japanese.
1950: 2,860 soldiers of the 187th Regimental Combat Team jump from Air Force C-119 and C-47 transports on the first airborne operation of the Korean War (featured image). The paratroopers’ mission is to drop north of the North Vietnamese capital of Pyongyang, trapping units attempting to escape the now UN-held capital, but by the time the 187th hits the ground, Communist forces have already slipped through.
1951: A day after having 83 pieces of shrapnel removed from his body, and still badly injured from bullet wounds received during six days of constant fighting, Master Sgt. Woodrow W. Keeble defies medical orders and returns to the front. When his company is pinned down by enemy fire while assaulting Hill 765 near Sangsan-ni, Korea, the badly wounded veteran of the Guadalcanal campaign and now platoon sergeant courageously crawls forward alone and silences three machine gun positions with grenades and automatic rifle fire.
His commanders recommended Keeble for the Medal of Honor, but the paperwork gets lost, and he is instead presented with the Distinguished Service Cross. Keeble will be eventually awarded the Medal of Honor in 2008, 26 years after his passing.