On this day...... 15 September

1066: A Viking invasion army under Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, and Tostig, the renegade brother of King Harold II Godwinson of England, burnt Scarborough.  The invaders went on to defeat local troops at Fulford on 20 September, but were then wiped out by Harold on 25 September at Stamford Bridge. 

1914: The Battle of the Aisne marked the first use in action by British aircraft of wireless telegraphy for reporting the fall of shells, and photographic reconnaissance.  In both cases, the equipment was largely homemade modifications.  On the ground, the badly wounded Bombardier Horlock ignored repeated orders from a medical officer to be evacuated to hospital, and continued to man an artillery piece.  He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1915: Britain declared war on Bulgaria, following Bulgaria's declaration against Serbia the previous day.

1916: Three VCs were won on the Western Front. Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, Coldstream Guards, rallied his men after two attacks had failed with heavy casualties, and led from the front in what proved a successful third effort.  Sergeant Brown, of the New Zealand Otago Regiment, attacked three machine-gun nests in turn to open up an advance.  And Lance-Sergeant McNess, Scots Guards, ignored severe wounds to establish a defence in a newly-captured trench against German counter-attacks, finally collapsing from his injuries.

1940: On what is now celebrated as Battle of Britain Day, the Luftwaffe launched all-out attacks on London.  Massive air combats resulted, with the defenders claiming to have shot down 176 German aircraft. In the confusion of air combat, this proved an exaggeration, but the Luftwaffe still lost 60 to the RAF's loss of 25 fighters .  The day's events are recorded on the RAF's Battle of Britain website.  That night, during a Bomber Command raid on Antwerp, Sergeant Hannah, a wireless operator/air gunner, managed to extinguish a serious fire aboard his aircraft caused by an anti-aircraft hit, despite suffering appalling burns in the process.  His parachute harness was burnt to shreds.  The aircraft returned to base safely, and Hannah was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1944: Bomber Command had dispatched Lancasters from 9 and 617 Squadrons to an airbase in northern Russia on 11 September, in preparation for an attack against the German battleship Tirpitz, anchored in Kaa Fjord in northern Norway.  On 15 September, 28 Lancasters set off for the Fjord, loaded with 12,000lb Tallboys and the unusual Johnny Walker bombs.  The Tallboy, designed by Barnes Wallis, was an excellent weapon.  The Johnny Walker proved far less successful: designed for anti-shipping attacks, it alternately rose and sank in the water, drifting across an anchorage in the hope of rising up beneath its target and inflicting critical underwater damage.  One Tallboy hit Tirpitz in the bows, inflicting such heavy damage that the Germans gave up hopes of using her as anything other than a coastal battery.  The extent of the damage was not appreciated by the allies, and 9 and 617 Squadrons were to revisit the battleship in due course.

1950: UN forces landed at Inchon in Korea.  The troops landed were almost wholly US, but the Royal Navy provided significant close-in gunfire support.