On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union officially declared war on
Japan, pouring more than 1 million Soviet soldiers the following
day into Japanese-occupied Manchuria, northeastern China, to
take on the 700,000-strong Japanese army.

On August 7, 1942, U.S. forces, primarily the 1st Marine
Division, launched Operation Watchtower, the first major
Allied offensive in the Pacific during World War II, by
landing on Guadalcanal.

This airfield, later named Henderson Field, became a
crucial strategic point in the Pacific campaign. The
invasion marked the beginning of the lengthy and
brutal Guadalcanal Campaign, a six-month struggle
for control of the island.

In a ceremony held at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, General
Dwight D. Eisenhower (above) appointed Florence Blanchfield to
be a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, making her the first
woman in U.S. history to hold permanent military rank.

A member of the Army Nurse Corps since 1917, Blanchfield secured
her commission following the passage of the Army-Navy Nurse Act
of 1947 by Congress.

Blanchfield had served as superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps during World War II and was instrumental in securing passage of
the Army-Navy Nurse Act.

In 1951, Blanchfield received the Florence Nightingale Award from
the International Red Cross. In 1978, a U.S. Army hospital in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was named in her honor.

Florence Aby Blanchfield (April 1, 1884 in Shepherdstown,
West Virginia – May 12, 1971)

A battalion of the U.S. 9th Infantry Division left Saigon in the
initial withdrawal of U.S. troops. The 814 soldiers were the
first of 25,000 troops that were withdrawn in the first stage
of the U.S. disengagement from the Vietnam War.

There would be 14 more increments in the withdrawal, but
the last U.S. troops did not leave until after the Paris Peace
Accords were signed in January 1973.

Maj. Dale R. Buis and Master Sgt. Chester M. Ovnand became
the first Americans killed in the American phase of the Vietnam 
War when guerrillas strike a Military Assistance Advisory Group
(MAAG) compound in Bien Hoa, 20 miles northeast of Saigon.

The group had arrived in South Vietnam on November 1, 1955,
to provide military assistance. The organization consisted of
U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps personnel  
who provided advice and assistance to the Ministry of
Defense, Joint General Staff, corps and  the division
commanders, training centers, and province and district
headquarters.