October 17: ON THIS DAY in 1945, fleet vanguard week

October 17, 2019 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1859, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “Baltimore — A dispatch just received here from Frederick, dated this morning, states that an insurrection has broken out at Harper’s Ferry, where an armed band of Abolitionists have full possession of the Government Arsenal. The express train going East was twice fired into, and one of the railroad hands and a negro [were] killed while endeavoring to get the train through the town. The insurrectionists stopped and arrested two men who had come to town with a load of wheat, and using their wagon, loaded it with rifles and sent them into Maryland. They number about 250 whites, aided by a gang of negroes. At the last accounts from there fighting was going on.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1910, the Eagle reported, “Middletown, R.I. — Mrs. Julia Ward Howe died at her summer home here today … She was 91 years of age. Her last public appearance was at Smith College, about ten days ago, when she received a degree from that institution … Mrs. Howe’s first distinct essay in literature was the volume of poems called ‘Passion Flowers,’ published in 1853 … It was while visiting the camps of the army, near Washington, that there came to her that vision which found expression in the poem, one of the great poems produced during the war, to which she gave the name ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ … It was about 1870 that Mrs. Howe became convinced of the importance of the political enfranchisement of women. For years before, Mrs. Lucy Stone had led this hope, so forlorn. To her and Mrs. Howe is owed chiefly whatever recognition it has attained.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1945, the Eagle reported, “A spearhead of the mighty United States fleet which blasted the fighting forces of Japan out of the Pacific streamed into New York Harbor today for the most triumphal welcome since Admiral Dewey returned from Manila after the Spanish-American War. Paced by the mighty 20,000-ton carrier Enterprise, 10 ships arrived for the celebration of Navy Day, Oct. 27. They were the vanguard of the 50 fighting ships which President [Harry] Truman will review in the Hudson River after commissioning the super-carrier Midway at the Brooklyn Navy Yard … Their coming yesterday was heralded yesterday afternoon by a spectacular flight of 101 fighter planes and torpedo bombers from the decks of the carriers. Taking off far out at sea, the planes came roaring over lower Manhattan and Brooklyn to land at Floyd Bennett Field.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1953, the Eagle reported, “Panmunjom (U.P.) — Kicking, fist-swinging Chinese prisoners of the Allies assaulted Red brainwashers today in a frenzied repudiation of Communism. Ninety-eight percent of the 450 anti-Communist Chinese who faced Red propagandists in the interviewing tents rejected repatriation, some of them violently. The nine men who changed their minds, a pitifully small number, which brought the total of ‘converts’ to 19 out of 950 Chinese interviewed, walked out the back door and vanished behind the bamboo curtain. The Chinese added injury to insult in handing the Communists their third political defeat in as many days. One angry prisoner kicked a Communist officer in the stomach and another tried to attack an interviewer with a chair in the interviewing tent. ‘You killed my mother,’ a Chinese screamed, and other prisoners filled the tent with profanities. Milder epithets expressed were ‘son of a turtle’ and ‘down with the Soviet Union.’”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1962, the Eagle reported, “With $125,000 riding on every pitch, the whiplash right arm of handsome Ralph Terry fired a pulsating 1-0 four-hitter for the deciding victory which gave the New York Yankees their 20th World Series Championship. Beaten four times in series play before he finally snapped his hoodoo by winning the fifth game, the 26-year-old Terry earned the plaudits of 43,948 fans in wind-swept Candlestick Park with a classic clutch performance. For those mighty Yankees gave him only one run to work with, and with $4,000 a man in series gold as well as the glory which goes with it hanging on every fastball and each curling curve, Terry tossed them to victory.”