Worst Moment in Your Country's Millitary History

I would have to say the Boer war, the British Empire at its height was humbled by Afrikaaner farmers and resorted to some desperate mesures e.g. concentration camps.
 
Bloody Sunday. Not so much for what the paras did, i have an open mind as to the rights and wrongs of that, but because it was the best recruitment advert that the IRA ever had. It turned them from a bunch of petty thugs to the best terrorist group in the world for 30 years.
 
i think the attack on pearl harbor was one of the worst times in americas military history. almost all of the pacific fleet was lost. it also led to the most destructive decisions ever in nuking hiroshima and nagasaki.
 
australia: shameful waste of men in gallipoli

israel: politicians screwing things up in yom kippur war
 
Hmm well after much thought I will go with Monte Casino, repeated attacks on a well defended target with little if any strategic goal. It was a battle that showed Freybergs weaknesses as a commander something that I think should have become apparent after the Crete debarcle.

Essentially Galipoli while a defeat gave us a national identity, Crete wasnt pretty but in the scheme of things wasnt unexpected but all Casino gave us was a war grave.
 
For the Greeks as a battle it must be the siege of Konstantinople (Istanbul as later named by the Turks) by the Turks, in 1453. This was a landmark battle as it carved the gravestone of the Byzantine empire and ensued about 400 years of turkish occupation on the greek soil.

As a war, it was the Greek invasion in Asia Minor (todays Turkey). This move done after the successful (for the Greeks) Balkan wars and was realized on arrogance (The plan even had a name: Megali Idea---> big idea) and the ill-conception that the western powers would support Greece all along. Arrogance is always paid for and Kemal Ataturk threw us (rightfully) back into the Aegean. An exchange of populations followed, which put a major social and economical strain on Greece (apart from the misery it caused to millions of refugees) The consequences of that war are still felt today, about 80 years later...

I really hope this historical enmity with the Turks someday ends but given the outrageous political demands and the constant violations of greek airspace by Turkish fighters, this day is still long to come...
 
I think that the worst moment of Finland military history was civil war in 1918. Even with communists and worker-class defeated it made terrible rift between workers (red side of war) and nationalists-capitalists (white side of war). That rift however healed in time and when second very dark moment came our nation stood united against Soviet Unions numerous forces. Maybe many old people thinks that worst day of their life was either March 13 in year 1940 when Finland had to sign shaming treaty with Stalin, even we remained independence and non-aligned. Old people also sometimes how desperate they felt when another treaty were signed in September 4 1944 (confirmed in Paris 1947) when very harsh terms had to be signed. Still, after all everyone in here is happy that we survived without annexation by Soviets. :)
 
Dieppe raid. Fire support was hopelessly inadequate, and planners had not assesed the effect of shingle on tank tracks.
 
Uh, the Bay of Pigs didn't involve the US military - that's why it failed. They were Cubans against Castro and they were their own unit. The CIA fostered them originally under Eisenhower and then the operation was inherited by Kennedy but at no time did the US military involve itself in the Bay of Pigs. So it wasn't a worst event in US military history.
 
Well it technically isn't the Australian Military, but it was the Defence Force of the time. In 1824 New South Wales' Govenor Brisbane declared Martial Law in Bathurst (Big city, in the middle of nowhere, V8's race there occasionally).
It was a war of extermination of the Wiradjuri People, the local Aboriginals. Women and childeren killed because they were black, in war started over a cultural misunderstanding.


http://www.cat.org.au/forgottenwar/bathurst2.html


http://www.nma.gov.au/schools/schoo.../bells_falls_gorge_interactive/cabinet_items/

Sorry about the lack of websites, but it's a part of history Australia dosen't want to remember.

:eek:fftopic: I discovered this by accident, after discovering in army records that my Great Grandfather was an Aboriginal. My family then discovered that our family was in fact of Wiradjuri decent, by tracking down birth details, Aboriginal missions and what not. Even though I look nothing like an Aboriginal, I'm desendant of the Wiradjuri People.
 
Nope, the air support was what the Cubans against Castro needed and were expecting, but didn't get. There was no US military involvement in the Bay of Pigs.
 
...
In its final online release of material related to the conference, the National Security Archive has also posted audio recordings of two telephone conversations between President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, on March 2, 1963, in which they discuss concerns that a Senate investigating committee might reveal that the president had authorized jets from the U.S. aircraft carrier Essex to provide one hour of air cover for the brigade's B-26 bombers on the morning of April 19.  The unmarked jets failed to rendezvous with the bombers, however, because the CIA and the Pentagon were unaware of a time zone difference between Nicaragua and Cuba. Two B-26s were shot down and four Americans lost.

...

The invasion was planned by the U.S. The exile army was recruited, trained, paid, and supplied by the U.S. The planes, boats, tanks and military equipment used was supplied by the U.S. The provisional government was assembled and funded by the U.S. The first on the beach were American frogmen. Four American pilots were killed in battle. Thomas “Pete” Ray, Riley Shamburger, Leo Francis Baker (who died in a gun battle after crashing) and Wade Gray. Joe Shannon, a Colonel in the Alabama Air National Guard and a surviving pilot, remembers them well, “We had lived with the Cubans for three months, and we were so close to them that their cause became our cause.”

...
 
Those B-26s were given to the Cubans. The American pilots were CIA - not military. They may have later rejoined the military, but at the time they were not official members of the US military - as were the frogmen. I realize it's a muddy point, but it was a CIA operation and not the US military's own. I don't feel it qualifies as a US military action. If you feel differently, you're welcome to your opinion.
 
Actually I don't feel differently. All I said is that US pilots flew combat missions and they did.

The CIA, in its own little way, has taken full ownership.
 
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