Volume 12 , Issue 43

This Day In History - 25 October 1916 & 1944

WWII -- On this day in 1944, the first kamikaze attack of the war begins with the Battle of the Leyte Gulf, where the Japanese deploy kamikaze suicide bombers against American warships for the first time. It was costly to both sides. Leyte was an island of the Philippines where the American fleet was based.

The first kamikaze force was composed of 24 volunteer pilots from Japan's 201st Navy Air Group. It's targets were U.S. escort carriers; one, the St. Lo, was struck by a A6M Zero fighter and sunk in less than an hour, killing 100 Americans. They reported more than 5,000 kamikaze pilots died in the gulf battle while taking down 34 ships.

WWI -- On this day in 1916, French troops rejoice after recapturing Fort Douaumont, which was the fortress quarrying the city of Verdun, under siege by the German army since the previous February 25.

Fort Douaumont was a massive structure, protected by two layers of concrete over a meter thick, and surrounded by a seven-meter-deep moat and 30 meters of barbed wire. Its fall to the Germans on February 25 became an early turning point in the struggle at Verdun. From then on, Verdun became a symbolic cause the French command could not abandon: public sentiment demanded the recapture of the fortress.

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