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Posted on 07/22/2004 12:00:11 AM PDT by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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July through August 1779; Penobscot Bay, Maine In June 1779, Royal Navy transports escorted by three sloops of war landed 700-800 soldiers and marines at Majabagaduce, a peninsula near the mouth of the Penobscot River. From this location, which was then in Massachusetts territory, the British intended to protect their possessions in eastern Canada from American incursions, raid the colonists' coastal shipping, and launch forays against New England cities and towns farther south. In addition, British commanders hoped to establish a colony of American loyalists.  Map of Penobscot Bay showing location of Fort George and the initial position of three supporting Royal Navy frigates. Source: Allen, A Naval History of the American Revolution. Upon learning of the British incursion, the Massachusetts General Court, then in session in Boston, authorized an expedition to destroy the Penobscot base. The General Court also petitioned the Continental Congress for assistance from three Continental Navy warships anchored in Boston harbor. Congress agreed, and Commodore Dudley Saltonstall, commander of the squadron, was picked to lead the naval portion of the expedition. Armed vessels from the Massachusetts and New Hampshire state navies joined Saltonstall's force, as did 12 privateers cajoled into state service for the expedition. Overall, the amphibious task force boasted 19 armed ships mounting 344 guns and 24 transports. The latter vessels carried a landing force of approximately 1,200 men under Brigadier General Solomon Lovell. The bulk of these troops were Massachusetts militia, joined by 300 Continental Marines. Ultimately, the Penobscot expedition turned into the largest American naval expedition of the Revolutionary War. Saltonstall's orders directed him to completely eliminate the British presence in the Penobscot. To do so, his superiors emphasized, he would have to "preserve the greatest harmony with the commander of the land forces, that the navy and army may cooperate and assist each other." It was guidance that the commodore would discount, to the detriment of the entire mission.  After delays in loading the transports - caused in part by reluctance among the privateer captains to partake in such an unremunerative operation - the task force sailed from Boston on 19 July. It first proceeded to the area of modern Boothbay to pick up reinforcements that never materialized. Underway once again, the American warships entered Penobscot Bay on 25 July. By this time, British naval commanders had good intelligence of the American force's composition and destination, and were preparing to find and destroy it. When the Saltonstall's expedition first arrived in Penobscot Bay, British forces had only partially completed a dirt fortification, named Fort George, on the heights of the Majabagaduce peninsula. However, the three Royal Navy sloops, each mounting 18 guns, remained anchored in the bay nearby. A small party of British troops also had established a minor fortification on Nautilus Island just to the south of Majabagaduce peninsula. Hence, British gunners on land and on board the warships were able to engage in a desultory two-hour duel with the American expeditionary task force as it entered the bay, which inflicted little or no damage on either side. Initially, things went well for the revolutionary forces. On the 26th, Marines and militiamen, under covering fire from the American warships, took Nautilus Island and captured several British cannon. Two days later, a U.S. landing force stormed ashore on the southwest end of the Majabagaduce peninsula after two privateers had shelled the heavily wooded area above the landing beach. The initial echelon landed in three divisions, with approximately 200 militiamen on the left and in the center and 200 Continental Marines on the right. The Marines faced stiff resistance from several companies of British troops atop a steep bluff overlooking their landing point. Nevertheless, they cleared the bluff in less than 20 minutes, suffering 30-35 dead and wounded in the assault. Ensconced ashore, the American troops moved their artillery to a position only 600 feet from Fort George.  At this point, the American force began to move more cautiously, taking time to first build its own fortifications. Militia and marines next launched a night attack, conceived by Saltonstall, to seize a part of the British breastworks closest to the bay where the Royal Navy frigates had taken shelter. This would, the commodore believed, cut Fort George's garrison off from communication with their naval support, allowing the Americans to finish off each force individually. The assault on the breastworks succeeded initially, but the British men-of-war eventually opened fire on the position, causing the American forces to retreat to their own fortifications. The results of the night-time action reinforced Brigadier General Lovell's reluctance to commit his mostly green troops to an attack on Fort George while they remained exposed to potentially heavy land- and sea-based cannon fire. He urged Commodore Saltonstall to attack the sloops, which his fleet outgunned, and thus remove that threat. Once this had been accomplished, the fleets guns could be used to suppress artillery fire from the fort during a subsequent American ground attack. Saltonstall, however, insisted that this course of action was too risky, continuing the pattern of ultra-cautious behavior that he had exhibited since the start of the operation. In the ensuing days, Lovell and his militia commanders - and even some of Saltonstall's subordinates - pleaded with the commodore to attack the British sloops, but to no avail. Reports that a Royal Navy force had sailed from New York to relieve the Pensobscot defenders, and that Fort George was becoming stronger by the day, still could not persuade the timid commodore. The continuing impasse poisoned interservice relations between the land and sea forces, all the way down to the unit level.  Continental Marines storm the heights at Dice Head, Castine, Maine in August 1779. Courtesy US Naval Historical Museum. Meanwhile Lovell and his men had been sending messages back to Boston on board fast ships - something the Commodore Saltonstall saw no need to do. The latter's superiors on the Navy Board of the Eastern District eventually supported Lovell's position and ordered Saltonstall to attack the British sloops and complete the operation before the Royal Navy relief force could arrive in his area. Reluctantly, Saltonstall made plans to take some sort of action on 13 August. But by then it was too late. On the 13th, two American warships acting as pickets spotted a task force under the command of Sir George Collier approaching the bay. Collier's force consisted of six warships, including a 64-gun ship of the line and four frigates. Saltonstall's warships still outnumbered the British and carried more guns, but the armament on board the Royal Navy ships outranged that of the Americans and their gun crews were far superior to their American counterparts. Nevertheless, Saltonstall still had the opportunity to engage the British, damage some of their ships, and perhaps allow part of his own force to escape. At first, that appeared to be what he might try to do, as the American forces formed a defensive crescent across the bay. However, as the British moved closer, Saltonstall and his captains concluded that they could not overcome the enemy force. The entire American fleet turned tail and fled up the Penobscot River. Most crews ran their ships aground and set them afire.  One part of Tory doctor John Calef's two part map of the retreat. Castine is in the lower left hand corner and the map is oriented with north pointing to the right. The American fleet's difficulty getting up river is clearly depicted. From the Journal of Dr. John Calef, in Eyewitness Accounts of the American Revolution, 1779 Reprint (New York:The New York Times and Arno press, 1971). Lovell's men fared little better. At word of Collier's approach, they evacuated their positions and reembarked their transports. These vessels ultimately joined their warship counterparts on the banks of the Penobscot. What was left of the American expedition - soldiers and sailors - had to travel overland through the dense wilderness to make their way back to Boston. In all, the Americans lost 43 ships and approximately 500 men. Massachusetts, which incurred a heavy debt outfitting the expedition, also suffered a major financial blow. The committee of inquiry looking into the Penobscot fiasco placed most of the blame on the "want of proper spirit and energy on the part of the commodore," and Saltonstall was subsequently discharged from the naval service. Fundamentally, the expedition's failure highlighted problems with ambiguous command arrangements during amphibious operations. It also underscored the difficulty of mounting a large, complex expeditionary operation with a cobbled-together, untrained, and mostly nonprofessional force. In addition, the palpable mistrust and lack of communications between the naval and ground commanders - and their respective subordinates - demonstrated the importance of building a sufficient level of confidence and mutual understanding between land and sea warriors before an amphibious operation commenced.
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Me neither. Hiya Sam.
My pleasure miss Feather.
ROFLOL I do beleive you hit the nail on the head!
Glad to see you put that in caps. :-)
The Army CMH project has loads of good stuff waiting for discovery. It'd be an awesome resource for research papers.
LOL!
Run Away! Run Away!
You have that end of month problem too?
Good like them better.
Right about Anzio and Gallipoli, The Allies threw away a good opportunity at Anzio. Gallopli had a very small window for success, it looked better on paper but realistically would have depended on speed which the Brits weren't really known for.
Yeah usually starting around the 3rd of the month. :-)
And the Foxhole is pround to call one of their historians a FRiend, our very own Hurtgen. ;-)
Three cheers for our friends the Poles and "new Europe"!
ROFL
Afternoon CT.
free dixie,sw
LOL! If they only knew, huh?
free dixie,sw
imVho, based on what i know about the Poles, as a result of that relationship,osama & company have MESSED UP big time!
Poles, as a group, are vigiliant, brave, UNforgiving & NASTY in a fight.
if you don't don't believe me, just ask the surviving German soldiers of WW2 how they feel about Poles & the Polish partisans willingness to do ANYTHING to win.
free dixie,sw
he said they killed HUNDREDS of "kraut tank riders" with SPEARS & SWORDS, before they were themselves destroyed as a cohesive unit!
that took GUTS! like i said, Poles are TOUGH!
fyi, Julius spent the rest of WW2 fighting with the Ukranian partisans. he was later the President of Poland in Exile.
free dixie,sw
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