US Military History Throughout The Years

Short bits of history you know and some you may not!

• Pennsylvanian Line Mutiny: Monday, January 1, 1781 – After multiple years of hard service, little pay and miserable winter conditions Continental Soldiers of the Pennsylvanian Line mutiny. Most of the men had served for three years and received only an initial $20 in bounty money for joining the Continental Army, Soldiers joining at this point were receiving upwards of $1000 bounties. After celebrating the start of the new year, the mutineers would leave their camp with General Wayne attempting to stop them from doing so. After setting up camp elsewhere the mutineers would begin negotiations with the Continental Congress and the Pennsylvanian government, promising not to defect to the British. Negotiations would lead to the Soldiers being given the opportunity to reenlist for more pay or leave the Army. 1,300 men of the Continental Army would be discharged under these terms with many reenlisting under more favorable terms and going back to fight with the Army. During this time the Pennsylvanian troops would be approached by the British in an attempt to bring them over to the British Army, they would refuse and later turn over the British agent. Soon after this mutiny would occur, troops from New Jersey would mutiny. They were met differently, after they demanded such treatment they were surrounded by Continental troops with two ring leaders being executed on the spot. Ending their attempt.
• Holdout: Tuesday, January 1, 1946 – Months after the formal surrender of Japan during WW2 and US occupation 20 Japanese soldiers would finally surrender. The Japanese soldiers had been hiding in tunnels on the island of Corregidor, an island that had been captured by the Allies nearly a year before in February 1945. They would find out about the surrender of Japan when collecting water and reading a newspaper that covered the wars end. After finding out the war was over they would surrender, to a lone US serviceman. As recently as the 1990’s reports and sightings of Japanese holdouts, but it is almost certain that none continued up to that point and they were merely just to attract attention to the area.
• UFO’s: Wednesday, January 7, 1948 – While flying a P-51 Mustang fighter, Captain Thomas F. Mantell would crash while in pursuit of a supposed UFO. The UFO was spotted in southern Kentucky and CPT Mantell along with several other pilots were tasked with investigating it. Descriptions of the object vary, but all report that is was a large object that hovered high in the air. As the pilots approached the UFO three of them would pull away, either for low fuel or for being called off. Mantell would continue to fly to the object, climbing high into the air without the appropriate equipment, mainly an oxygen mask. After Mantell broke 25,000 ft in altitude he passed out from lack of air and his plane quickly lost control, crashing in the ground near the Kentucky-Tennessee border. His death while investigating the UFO would change how the public treated UFOs. Before they were treated as something silly or just glib, his actions and death would lead to the public taking them more seriously as they were now seen as real and potentially hostile.

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