This Week in American History: 1980 – USS Nautilus is Decommissioned

By ANDY KOBER
Here is what happened this week in American History.
• Feb. 26. On this day in 1986, Hannah Kearney is born in Hanover, New Hampshire, and raised in Norwich, Vermont. She displays a talent for snow skiing and joins the Waterville Valley BBTS Ski Educational Foundation while still in high school. She wins the national junior moguls championship in 2002 and competes in the World Cup in 2003. After competing in the 2006 Winter Olympics, but not earning a medal, Kearney bounces back to win a Gold Medal in the 2010 Winter Oympics adding a bronze medal in the 2014 Winter Olympics. She would win a host of gold, silver and bronze medals in World Championship competitions. Now 39, she has now retired from such rigorous competition.
• Feb. 27. In 1776, the sounds of gunfire and the screams of the wounded and dying pierce the air at Moore’s Creek Bridge near Wilmington, North Carolina. British and Loyalist forces, that includes Scottish Highlanders, approach the bridge shortly before dawn. Prior to the battle, British forces numbered 1,400 to 1,500 men but the numbers had shrunk to about a 1,000 when the actual battle began. Meanwhile the 1st North Carolina Regiment combined with Patriot militia from Wilmington fielded a force of slightly over 1,000 men. The British forces approached the bridge and found it unoccupied. On the other side of Moore’s Creek a patriot sentry saw them and fired a round to rouse his compatriots. The British immediately attacked but about 30 paces from the bridge, American forces cut loose with devastating musket and rifle fire causing mass casualties and chaos among the British, Loyalists and Highlanders. Their attack dissolved and many fled from the carnage with the Revolutionary forces in pursuit. The Americans suffered one killed and one wounded. The British forces suffered 50 killed or wounded with over 800 captured. The Patriots pushed on to capture the Loyalist camp at Cross Creek with a result that during the action they captured 1,500 muskets, 300 rifles, and a considerable amount of Spanish gold. The Battle of Moore’s Bridge would prove to be a turning point in the Revolutionary War. Today the Moores Creek National Battlefield is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places and the earthworks have been reconstructed. The battle is commemorated each year.
• Feb. 28. Today in 1950, Operation Killer continues in the Korean War as UN, US, and South Korean forces push the Chinese Peoples Volunteer Army and units of the North Korean Peoples Army back north and recapture areas previously lost. Units of the US IX and X Corps occupy areas five miles north of Chipyong-ni to the high ground overlooking Hoengsong, Route 20 and four miles north of the Routes 20-60 junction. In four days South Korean ROK forces run into an ambush during an ill-advised advance and suffer a large number of casualties. Meanwhile, the US 1st Marine Division occupies and clears Hoengsong.
• Mar. 1. On this day in 1893, a Serbian who immigrated to the US and became a naturalized citizen, Nikola Tesla gives the first public demonstration of radio with this auspicious event taking place in St. Louis, Missouri.
• Mar. 2. In 1949, a new aviation record is set that has repercussions around the world. At 10:31 am, the Lucky Lady II lands at Carswell Air Force Base, near Fort Worth, Texas. The B-50 Superfortress, part of the 43rd Bombardment Group and a revision of the B-29 Superfortress, had taken off from Carswell AFB on Feb. 26, on a mission to set a record time flying around the world. The mission took two flight crews, 94 hours and one minute, and included four mid-air refuelings. General Curtis LeMay would say the mission showed the world the USAF could send bombers “to any place in the world that required the atomic bomb.” The fuselage of Lucky Lady II is on display at Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California.
• Mar. 3. Today in 1980, the submarine USS Nautilus is decommissioned. Launched in 1954, Nautilus enjoyed a storied career as the world’s first nuclear-powered boat, first nuclear-powered submarine, and the first submarine to complete a submerged transit of the North Pole, serving for 26 years. Named for Captain Nemo’s fictious submarine in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea today the Nautilus is a museum ship at the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton, Connecticut. She has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and visited by an average of about 250,000 people per year.
• Mar. 4. On this day in 1918, at the US Army Camp Funston near Manhattan, Kansas, a soldier fell ill with the flu. In fact, it would be the first recorded case of the Great Influenza Epidemic otherwise known as Spanish flu in the US. Within days, over 550 soldiers had contracted that strain of influenza. There were also cases in France, Germany, and the UK, and within two years an estimated 500 million people around the world had contracted the strain. It is thought that as many as 100 million people died from the Spanish flu epidemic.