Pendragon_6
12-22-2006, 07:25 AM
By W. Thomas Smith, Jr
Friday, December 22, 2006
Continental Army General George Washington’s celebrated “Crossing of the Delaware” has been dubbed in some military circles, “America’s first special operation.”
Though there were certainly many small-unit actions, raids, and Ranger operations during the Colonial Wars – and there was a special Marine landing in Nassau in the early months of the American Revolution – no special mission by America’s first army has been more heralded than that which took place on Christmas night exactly 230 years ago.
Certainly the mission had all the components of a modern special operation (though without all the modern battlefield technologies we take for granted in the 21st century): “A secret expedition” is how John Greenwood, a soldier with the 15th Massachusetts, described it, as quoted in Bruce Chadwick’s The First American Army.
If nothing else, all the elements for potential disaster were with Washington and his men as they crossed the Delaware River from the icy Pennsylvania shoreline to the equally frozen banks of New Jersey, followed by an eight-mile march to the objective – the town of Trenton.
In Full
Townhall (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WThomasSmithJr/2006/12/22/the_great_christmas_night_raid)
Friday, December 22, 2006
Continental Army General George Washington’s celebrated “Crossing of the Delaware” has been dubbed in some military circles, “America’s first special operation.”
Though there were certainly many small-unit actions, raids, and Ranger operations during the Colonial Wars – and there was a special Marine landing in Nassau in the early months of the American Revolution – no special mission by America’s first army has been more heralded than that which took place on Christmas night exactly 230 years ago.
Certainly the mission had all the components of a modern special operation (though without all the modern battlefield technologies we take for granted in the 21st century): “A secret expedition” is how John Greenwood, a soldier with the 15th Massachusetts, described it, as quoted in Bruce Chadwick’s The First American Army.
If nothing else, all the elements for potential disaster were with Washington and his men as they crossed the Delaware River from the icy Pennsylvania shoreline to the equally frozen banks of New Jersey, followed by an eight-mile march to the objective – the town of Trenton.
In Full
Townhall (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WThomasSmithJr/2006/12/22/the_great_christmas_night_raid)