Special Forces Workhorse: SOCOM Is Getting New MH-47G Block II Chinook Helicopters
March 27, 1835, during the Texas Revolution, only a few short weeks after the famous Battle of the Alamo, Mexican troops committed another horrific massacre of Texan soldiers. As the Alamo was being besieged in San Antonio, Mexican Commander Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna sent out another column of 1,400 soldiers under the command of General Jose Urrea to take the key Texan post at Goliad. Goliad was a critical outpost for the Republic of Texas as it protected the supply routes to the Gulf of Mexico. However, it was only defended by a few hundred inexperienced Texans under the command of James Fannin.
These men had been wavering over whether they should go to the assistance of their fellow Texans at the Alamo, but the arrival of General Urrea at their doorstep quickly made that impossible. Fannin wavered now once again, debating whether or not to defend Goliad at the risk of being surrounded or retreat and leave the key city to the Mexicans. Eventually he decided to retreat and join up with General Sam Houston, but this decision was much too late. As Fanin started out, Urrea and his men caught up with the few hundred Texans and surrounded them on a stretch of open prairie.
The Texans repelled an initial assault by the Mexican troops and likely could have lasted a bit longer, but in their frantic retreat from Goliad they left behind the supplies necessary to survive a siege. Fannin had no other recourse but to surrender, and on March 20 he did just that, but on the promise from Urrea that his men would not be harmed. The Mexicans marched their new captives back to Goliad, holding the Texans at the very fort they had resided in. A few days later, General Urrea received a message from his commander Santa Anna that horrified him. It stated that he should not have taken the Texans prisoner in the first place and that he now must execute them. Santa Anna considered them traitors who deserved no quarter.
Not wanting to disobey a direct order from Santa Anna, an act which could make him next in line for execution, Urrea had the Texans marched out of town to be killed. Thinking that they were being released, the Texan troops were blissfully ignorant of their coming fate. The Mexicans then separated the Texans into small groups, formed them into lines, and began firing volleys at the unsuspecting men. Within minutes nearly 350 Texans lay dead, almost double the number killed at the Alamo. After witnessing the slaughter of his men, James Fannin was next in line to be executed. He asked his Mexican captors three things: first that his possessions be sent to his family, second that he not be shot in the face, and third that he be given a Christian burial. Not only did the Mexican troops shoot him in the face, but they took his possessions, and they burned his body along with all the other Texan troops. This massacre, along with that of the Alamo, served not to crush the rebellion as Santa Anna had hoped, but to galvanize it, and within a month the Texans under Sam Houston decisively defeated Santa Anna’s army.
This well known pic has been wrongly captioned in the past, the aircraft carrier was in fact the USS Santee CVE-29 (not the USS Bataan CVL-29), the crew were; Ensign Earl D Peterson (Pilot), John Paul Armstrong (Gunner) and Charles George Mikoloski (Radioman). According to the ship's diary, at 11.50am on the 29 March 1944, TBF-1C Avenger #92 had crashed into the sea upon an attempted catapult launch.
"From the condition of the prop, no curling, it looks like the engine was not producing power and probably stopped right after launch. The pilot is out on the wing deploying a life raft, the turret gunner is extracting himself from the plane and the radio-operator/belly gunner is already out in the water."