To All.
Good Sunday morning April 19, 2026. 51 years ago my wife and I were married at the little church and then had a reception at the Admiral Kidd club on the base. Lots of F-8 drivers there from the F-8 Rag to make it a lot of fun. A short story about that. I was in my office a couple weeks before when the skipper walked in and asked me if I wanted to fly that day because I was not in my flight suit. I said absolutely and he said fine you will be bouncing with the rest of the group that were going to CQ in a couple weeks. That set off something in my brain he continued by saying that I was going to get field qualed and then fly to Pensacola and get day and night qualed on the Lexington and then hop a flight to the PI and join the USS Hancock On cruise. After he laid that out I asked him if I could still get married on Sunday. All went well with Worm as my best man. My parents were there and my dad who had flown from California to Shimia at the end of the island chain in WWII and not returned until after the war was over. knew all about that kind of thing. He left in June of 1943. My mom hopped rides on C-47s to New Jersey to see her mother and the next day I came on 7 June. Then went to Taunton Mass and we spent the rest of the war at my grandparents house.
Yesterday I received a treasure in the mail. A hard bound copy of God is my Co Pilot dated 1943
It is a real treasure that put me on the road as a youngster for becoming a fighter pilot. Thanks to Brockton.
Beautiful day out there and is supposed to stay sunny all day and tomorrow then rain on Tuesday..
.I hope that you all have a great weekend
Regards,
skip
HAGD
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This day in Naval and Marine Corps History (thanks to NHHC)
Go here to see the director’s corner for all 97 H-Grams
Here is a link to the NHHC website: https://www.history.navy.mil/
April 19
1917 The U.S. Naval Armed Guard crew on board SS Mongolia engages and damages a German U-boat, the first engagement against the enemy after declaration of war on April 6.
1920 The first German submarine brought to the United States after World War I arrives at New York. During World War I, U 111 sank three Allied merchant vessels that included the British steamer Boscastle on April 7, 1918. The submarine surrendered later that year.
1945 USS Buckley (DE 51) and USS Reuben James (DE 153) sink the German submarine U-879 southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
1955 USS Albany (CA 123) and USS William Wood (DD 715) begin providing disaster relief to citizens of Volos, Greece, following a catastrophic earthquake.
1960 The Grumman A2F-1 Intruder makes its first flight. The Intruder receives the designation of A-6A in 1962, and upon entering service in 1963, becomes the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps principle all weather/night attack aircraft.
1997 USS The Sullivans (DDG 68) is commissioned at Staten Island, N.Y. The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer is the second Navy ship named after the five Sullivan brothers who died when USS Juneau (CL 52) was sunk shortly after the Battle of Guadalcanal Nov. 13, 1942.
2017 The Cyclone-class patrol coastal ship USS Zephyr (PC 8), its embarked U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment (LEDET) personnel and coalition forces pursue and board a small fishing vessel, called a panga, and interdict 750 kilograms of cocaine with a total street value of $22.5 million.
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This day in World History
April 19
1539 Emperor Charles V reaches a truce with German Protestants at Frankfurt, Germany.
1689 Residents of Boston oust their governor, Edmond Andros.
1764 The English Parliament bans the American colonies from printing paper money.
1775 The American Revolution begins as fighting breaks out at Lexington, Massachusetts.
1782 The Netherlands recognizes the United States.
1794 Tadeusz Kosciuszko forces the Russians out of Warsaw.
1802 The Spanish reopen New Orleans port to American merchants.
1824 English poet Lord George Gordon Byron dies of malaria at age 36 while aiding Greek independence.
1861 The Baltimore riots result in four Union soldiers and nine civilians killed.
1861 President Abraham Lincoln orders a blockade of Confederate ports.
1880 The Times war correspondent telephones a report of the Battle of Ahmed Khel, the first time news is sent from a field of battle in this manner.
1927 In China, Hankow communists declare war on Chiang Kai-shek.
1934 Shirley Temple appears in her first movie.
1938 General Francisco Franco declares victory in the Spanish Civil War.
1939 Connecticut finally approves the Bill of Rights.
1943 The Warsaw Ghetto uprising against Nazi rule begins.
1960 Baseball uniforms begin displaying player's names on their backs.
1971 Russia launches its first Salyut space station.
1977 Alex Haley receives a special Pulitzer Prize for his book Roots.
1982 NASA names Sally Ride to be the first woman astronaut.
1989 The battleship USS Iowa's number 2 turret explodes, killing sailors.
1993 The FBI ends a 51-day siege by storming the Branch Davidian religious cult headquarters in Waco, Texas.
1995 A truck bomb explodes in front of the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.
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.
Rollingthunderremembered.com .
April 19
Hello All,
Thanks to Dan Heller and the Bear
Links to all content can now be found right on the homepage http://www.rollingthunderremembered.com. If you scroll down from the banner and featured content you will find "Today in Rolling Thunder Remembered History" which highlights events in the Vietnam war that occurred on the date the page is visited. Below that are links to browse or search all content. You may search by keyword(s), date, or date range.
An item of importance is the recent incorporation of Task Force Omega (TFO) MIA summaries. There is a link on the homepage and you can also visit directly via https://www.rollingthunderremembered.com/task-force-omega/. There are 60 summaries posted thus far, with about 940 to go (not a typo—TFO has over 1,000 individual case files).
If you have any questions or comments about RTR/TFO, or have a question on my book, you may e-mail me directly at acrossthewing@protonmail.com. Thank you Dan
Thanks to Micro
To remind folks that these are from the Vietnam Air Losses site that Micro put together. You click on the url below and get what happened each day to the crew of the aircraft. ……Skip
For Sunday 19 April. .
April 19: https://www.vietnamairlosses.com/loss.php?id=535
This following work accounts for every fixed wing loss of the Vietnam War and you can use it to read more about the losses in The Bear’s Daily account. Even better it allows you to add your updated information to the work to update for history…skip
Vietnam Air Losses Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady’s work at: https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.
This is a list of all Helicopter Pilots Who Died in the Vietnam War . Listed by last name and has other info https://www.vhpa.org/KIA/KIAINDEX.HTM
MOAA - Wall of Faces Now Includes Photos of All Service members Killed in the Vietnam War
(This site was sent by a friend . The site works, find anyone you knew in “search" feature. https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/ )
https://www.moaa.org/content/publications-and-media/news-articles/2022-news-articles/wall-of-faces-now-includes-photos-of-all-servicemembers-killed-in-the-vietnam-war/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TMNsend&utm_content=Y84UVhi4Z1MAMHJh1eJHNA==+MD+AFHRM+1+Ret+L+NC
Wall of Faces Now Includes Photos of All Service members Killed in the Vietnam War
By: Kipp Hanley
AUGUST 15, 2022
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. Some other bits of history for this date
1775 – At about 5 a.m., 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town’s common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment’s hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the “shot heard around the world” was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others were wounded. Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had begun. By 1775, tensions between the American colonies and the British government approached the breaking point, especially in Massachusetts, where Patriot leaders formed a shadow revolutionary government and trained militias to prepare for armed conflict with the British troops occupying Boston. In the spring of 1775, General Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, received instructions from England to seize all stores of weapons and gunpowder accessible to the American insurgents. On April 18, he ordered British troops to march against the Patriot arsenal at Concord and capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington. The Boston Patriots had been preparing for such a military action by the British for some time, and upon learning of the British plan, Patriots Paul Revere and William Dawes were ordered to set out to rouse the militiamen and warn Adams and Hancock. When the British troops arrived at Lexington, Adams, Hancock, and Revere had already fled to Philadelphia, and a group of militiamen were waiting. The Patriots were routed within minutes, but warfare had begun, leading to calls to arms across the Massachusetts countryside. When the British troops reached Concord at about 7 a.m., they found themselves encircled by hundreds of armed Patriots. They managed to destroy the military supplies the Americans had collected but were soon advanced against by a gang of minutemen, who inflicted numerous casualties. Lieutenant Colonel Frances Smith, the overall commander of the British force, ordered his men to return to Boston without directly engaging the Americans. As the British retraced their 16-mile journey, their lines were constantly beset by Patriot marksmen firing at them Indian-style from behind trees, rocks, and stone walls. At Lexington, Captain Parker’s militia had its revenge, killing several British soldiers as the Red Coats hastily marched through his town. By the time the British finally reached the safety of Boston, nearly 300 British soldiers had been killed, wounded, or were missing in action. The Patriots suffered fewer than 100 casualties. The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first battles of the American Revolution, a conflict that would escalate from a colonial uprising into a world war that, seven years later, would give birth to the independent United States of America.
1951 – Gen. Douglas MacArthur, relieved of his command by President Truman, bid farewell to Congress.
“I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that ‘old soldiers never die; they just fade away.’
“And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.
“Good Bye.”
1995 – A massive explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, kills 168 people and injures hundreds more. The bomb, contained in a Ryder truck parked outside the front of the building, went off at 9:02 a.m. as people were preparing for the workday. Among the victims of America’s worst incident of domestic terrorism were 19 children who were in the daycare center on the first floor of the building. A little over an hour after the explosion, Oklahoma state trooper Charles Hangar pulled over a car without license plates in the town of Perry. Noticing a bulge in the driver’s jacket, Hangar arrested the driver, Timothy McVeigh, and confiscated his concealed gun. McVeigh was held in jail for gun and traffic violations. Meanwhile, a sketch of the man who was seen driving the Ryder truck in Oklahoma City was distributed across the country. On April 21, Hangar saw the sketch and managed to stop McVeigh’s impending release. When investigators looked into McVeigh’s background, they quickly learned that he had ties to militant right-wing groups and was particularly incensed by the Branch Davidian incident in Waco, Texas. The Oklahoma City bomb exploded exactly two years after David Koresh and his followers were killed in the federal government’s raid of the cult compound. Soon, three friends of McVeigh-Terry and James Nichols, and Michael Fortier-were also arrested for their involvement in the bombing. McVeigh and Terry Nichols had gone through basic training together after joining the Army on the same day in 1988. Although Nichols was discharged in 1989, McVeigh had served in Operation Desert Storm before quitting the Army when he was rejected for the Special Forces course. Acquaintances of McVeigh knew that he was obsessed with a book called The Turner Diaries, a fictional account of a race war caused by right-wing extremists in the United States. The book begins with the bombing of the FBI headquarters. McVeigh also told his sister Jennifer that he planned on doing “something big” in April 1995. With Nichols and Fortier’s assistance, McVeigh assembled a bomb that contained nearly 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and racing fuel. After Fortier testified against his former friend, McVeigh was convicted in June 1997. The jury imposed a death sentence. Terry Nichols was convicted of being an accessory to the mass murder, and he received a life sentence. On June 11, 2001, McVeigh was put to death by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, the first federal death penalty to be carried out since 1963.
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Thanks to Interesting Facts
ANCHORED IN SUPERSTITION
10 Strange Nautical Beliefs That Put Old Timey Sailors On Edge Published on April 17, 2024
Credit: Clément Falize
Ahoy, landlubbers! Sailors of yore were a superstitious bunch , believing in omens and all sorts of rituals to keep them safe on the treacherous seas.
But who can blame them? It was a dangerous profession to be a sailor in their times.
From bananas to anchor tattoos, here are 10 eerie maritime superstitions that were once part of the unwritten laws of the sea .
1
No Bananas on Board
Credit: Giorgio Trovato
"Why forbid a good source of fiber and vitamins during a long journey at sea?" you might rightly wonder. While at first glance the taboo doesn’t seem to make much sense, it has been argued that the main reasons were the fruit’s tendency to rot quickly and bring with it all sorts of bugs and critters, particularly the lethal Brazilian wandering spider. Eventually, the real reason got buried beneath the superstition, and the fruit became synonymous with calamity.
2
Whistling Up a Storm
Credit: Vidar Nordli-Mathisen
Whistling was forbidden on board as it was believed to summon fierce winds .
The superstition likely stemmed from the sound mimicking the howling of a gale, striking fear into sailors' hearts. So, should you ever find yourself at sea, resist the temptation to whistle - lest you be blamed for inviting misfortune onboard!
3
Pouring Wine on Deck
Credit: Terry Vlisidis
Spilling wine on the deck was seen as a good omen , believed to appease the sea gods and ensure a safe voyage. Similarly, when a ship is launched for the very first time, a bottle of champagne is smashed on the bow to bring her good fortune. Nevertheless, unless you are the captain, refrain from pouring wine on the deck without asking first - or you might end up scrubbing it!
4
Dropping a Coin into the Sea
Credit: udit saptarshi
Tossing a coin overboard before setting sail was thought to appease the gods and guarantee a prosperous journey . This tradition persisted across cultures, from ancient Greece to Viking Scandinavia. On the contrary, dropping a stone from a departing vessel was considered a bad omen, as it seemingly had the opposite effect, ensuring the ship would never return.
5
Red Sky at Night, Sailor's Delight
Credit: Chris Barbalis
"Red sky at night, sailors' delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning."
This age-old adage served as an ancient way of predicting the weather , with a red sky at night signaling fair weather on the horizon, and a red dawn announcing stormy or treacherous weather. Sailors trusted this rhyme to heart, and according to modern meteorologists, there is an inkling of truth in it. A red sky often means that there is a lot of water vapor in the atmosphere, and since in mid-latitude regions storms tend to move from west to east, the rhyme was an easy mnemotechnic device to broadly estimate weather patterns.
6
Never Start a Voyage on a Friday
Credit: 2H Media
Although Fridays actually seem like one of the best days of the week to go sailing, this is surprisingly an enduring nautical superstition . Old sailors believed that Fridays were unlucky for embarking on a seafaring journey (especially on the 13th). This superstition likely originated from the Christian belief that Jesus was crucified on a Friday, instilling fear in sailors.
7
Tattoos for Safe Passage
Credit: benjamin lehman
Sailors adorned themselves with tattoos not only for personal expression but also for protection at sea. Designs like anchors and nautical stars were believed to ward off evil spirits and ensure a safe return home. These two designs actually served very specific purposes, as an anchor was said to ensure a sailor would not get lost at sea should he fall overboard, and a nautical star allegedly helped sailors find their way home.
8
A Sailor’s Best Friends
Credit: Fer Nando
The sight of an albatross trailing a ship was seen as a symbol of good fortune . Believed to be the souls of dead sailors, the birds were revered among seafaring adventurers, and killing one was said to bring great misfortune upon a ship. This superstition was likely popularized by Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," which warned sailors against harming these majestic birds.
9
Women on Board Bring Storms
Credit: Kalen Emsley
Historically, women were considered bad luck on ships , believed to anger the sea gods and stir up tempests. During the Age of Sail, women who wanted to heed the call of the sea were forced to disguise themselves as men, but in spite of the difficulties some even became feared pirates, like Mary Read and Anne Bonny, who sailed under the command of the infamous Captain Jack Rackham. This misogynistic superstition persisted for centuries, despite the invaluable contributions of female sailors to the art of sailing.
10
Crossing the Line
Credit: Kevin Keith
To this day, when passing the equator, sailors often engage in all sorts of rituals and celebrations in the name of King Neptune. This quirky tradition actually goes back almost 400 years, beginning in the British Navy, and becoming popular even in civilian or scientific crews. The ancient ritual is said to ensure safe passage into the Southern Hemisphere, and even Charles Darwin witnessed it during his voyages!
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Thanks to Nice News
Spotted for the First Time in a Decade, “Cloud Jaguar” Marks Conservation Win in Honduras
Panthera
In 2016, wild cat conservation organization Panthera recorded a jaguar for the first time in the Merendón Mountains between Honduras and Guatemala. A decade then passed with no camera sighting of the elusive species — but on Feb. 6, a jaguar was finally documented once again in images shared with the public last week.
Taken at around 7,217 feet on the tallest peak of the mountain range’s cloud forests, just over 6 feet away from the 2016 sighting, the photos mark the highest elevation at which a “cloud jaguar” has been spotted in Honduras. They also signify a major win for the org’s long-running Jaguar Corridor Initiative, which aims to protect the species by developing safe passages for the animals to roam, hunt, mate, and establish territories.
“What makes this especially significant is what it signals about connectivity. This individual isn’t a resident — he’s a traveler, moving through a corridor that links populations in Honduras and Guatemala, and ultimately connects habitats stretching from Mexico to Argentina,” Franklin Castañeda, Honduras country director at Panthera, tells Nice News.
This Tortoise Is Rolling Into a New Chapter, Thanks to Some Creative Vets
Doc Nielsen Donato/Facebook
This tortoise isn’t so slow and steady anymore! A veterinary practice in the Philippines recently came up with a wheely creative solution to help an Aldabra tortoise struggling with its hind legs by making the shelled friend a scooter of sorts.
According to Popular Science, a private zoo brought the injured tortoise to Nielsen Donato, the chief surgeon at Vets in Practice. After finding no dislocations or fractures, the team suspected the leg weakness might be neurological or the result of interactions with larger companions at the zoo.
In addition to anti-inflammatory therapy, they decided to install four wheels onto the bottom of its shell for an extra mobility boost — as you can watch here (highly recommend). The tortoise was eventually sent home after showing mobility improvements, and we’re happy to share that the reptile is walking normally again without wheels.
Speaking of turtles, Popular Science also put together a handy guide for what to do if you spot a turtle crossing the road this time of year — spoiler alert, don’t grab the tail
This is from the archives and is a very interesting read
The Depopulation Bomb
Thanks to Mud
This is an article I found to be of great interest. It made me wish I could live long enough to see how it plays out.
S/F,
- Mud
spiked-online.com
The Depopulation Bomb
Joel Kotkin
Today, the spectre haunting the global order is not communism, as Marx predicted, but seemingly relentless demographic decline. We can already see its consequences in everything from the fight over pensions in France to the persistent labour shortages across almost all the high-income world. In the future, a lack of human labour is also likely to accelerate a shift towards automation, reshaping economic and political conflict for decades to come.
The world’s population has long been growing on an upward curve. About 75 per cent of the world’s population growth has occurred over the past 100 years, more than 50 per cent of it since 1970. But now, according to the United Nations, population growth is on course to drop to near zero, especially in more developed nations. Globally, last year’s total population growth was the smallest in half a century. By 2050 it is estimated that some 61 countries are expected to experience population declines.
A majority of the world already lives in countries with fertility rates well below the replacement level (2.1 births per woman) – the level, that is, at which a country’s population would remain steady. By 2050, UN data suggests 75 per cent of countries will have fertility rates below replacement level. Some UN demographic projections now contemplate that world population could peak in 2086, with the global population about one billion below today’s level by 2100. Ours will become a rapidly ageing planet. In 1970, the median world age was 20.3 years. By 2020, it had increased to 29.7 years, and it is expected to be 42.3 years in 2100.
It’s no longer a question of if, but when global populations will start to decline. We are entering a new epoch, defined by the first large population declines since medieval times. A series of plagues halved Europe’s population between 1346 and 1460. The primary causes today are not war or disease, however, but social evolution, including the decline of the family and religion, as well as diminished economic opportunity and a soaring cost of living. Most rich countries have to contend with birth rates well below the replacement rate. Japan, which has a fertility rate consistently 50 per cent below replacement, is likely to see its population drop from 126 million in 2021 to under 90 million by 2065. Indeed, last year, Japan recorded twice as many deaths as births.
Similarly, Europe’s population growth has been tapering for a generation. European fertility rates fell from 16.4 babies born for every 1,000 persons in 1970, to 9.1 in 2020. Last year the UK’s birthrate also hit a record low, with fertility rates for women under 30 at their lowest levels since records began in 1938. A fifth of all British women are now childless by middle-age.
The decline in fertility rates has also been evident in North America, traditionally a bastion of stronger demographic growth. US population growth, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, has fallen to the lowest rate in peacetime since America’s founding. China’s birthrate has also cratered, causing its workforce to shrink by 41million – equal to the entire German workforce – in just the past three years. And it’s now slated to drop by a further 20 per cent by 2050. Over the past few decades, fertility has dropped precipitously across east Asia, including in Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore.
This demographic decline is already reshaping the world economy. As economist John Maynard Keynes warned as early as 1937, the ‘chaining up of the one devil’, overpopulation, ‘may, if we are careless, only serve to loose another still fiercer and more intractable’ – the devil of demographic decline. The US population aged between 16 and 64 grew by 21 per cent during the 1980s, but in the 2010s grew by less than three per cent – shrinking as a proportion of the population. Consultancy Korn Ferry projects a deficit of at least six million workers in the US by 2028. Even greater declines in the workforce can be seen in the UK, the EU and east Asia.
The shrinking of the labour force combined with growing numbers of the elderly is already generating political unrest. Take the widespread protests over pensions in France. Strikingly, it’s not the elderly who are protesting, sometimes violently, on the streets, or failing to collect garbage. The protests are driven by working-class voters who are themselves a decade or two from retirement. While more than the 63 per cent of the total population favour the protests, more remarkable still is that 71 per cent of those aged 18-24 are in favour. They fear that they will lose the secure retirement that was once considered a natural right in France’s statist economy.
French president Emmanuel Macron has justified lifting the pension-qualifying age from 62 to 64 by pointing to the fact that France’s retirement population is due to rise from its current level of 16 million to 21 million by 2050. Other countries, like Germany, are confronting the new demographics both by raising taxes as well as raising the pension age. Other countries across the OECD will be faced with similar dilemmas.
These trends will impact both the current economic superpowers, America and China. America’s social-security system is on track to be depleted by 2034. In 1970, there were 18.7 persons aged over 65 for every 100 of working age, but this has increased to 26.4 in 2022. The UN projects it to increase to 57.1 by 2100 if constant rates of fertility continue. China, which once boasted a huge, growing and youthful population, has seen its labour force decline since the 1990s, and it will be fully a third smaller again by 2035. The senior population in China is expected to have more than tripled by 2050, one of the most rapid demographic shifts in history.
Clearly, it’s time to turn the page on biologist Paul Ehrlich’s long-standing prediction that humanity is doomed to ‘breed ourselves to extinction’. In the coming decades, many of humanity’s challenges will likely be products of depopulation, not overpopulation, including a brewing generational conflict between a generally prosperous older generation and its more hard-pressed successors. The erosion of young people’s input, notes economist Gary Becker, also tends to slow the rate of innovation.
In an ageing, slow-growth world, young people are clearly disadvantaged. Indeed, most in the high-income world believe the next generation will be less well-off than the current one. In virtually every high-income country, notes Pew, the vast majority of parents – 80 per cent in Japan and over 70 per cent in the US – are pessimistic about the financial future of their offspring. Young people have a similarly negative outlook, including in the US. Understandably so, given that for initially middling earners, the chance of moving to the top rungs of the earnings ladder over a lifetime has dropped by approximately 20 per cent since the early 1980s.
Resentment of the Baby Boomer generation in particular (born 1946-1964) is likely to only increase, as it is set to hold the most wealth in the US until well into the 2030s. Remarkably, Boomers, many of whom are well into their 70s at least, now account for almost two in five new homes bought in the US – more than Millennials (born 1981-1996) and many more than Generation Z (born 1997-2013).
This alienated young generation is likely to be more radical and less tolerant than the one raised with the expectation of expanding opportunity. Already, barely half of voters for the Democratic Party, the dominant party among Millennials, believe that hard work actually pays off. And as political scientist Yascha Mounk found in 2018, while over two-thirds of older Americans consider it ‘essential’ to live in a democracy, only one in three Millennials feels the same.
Unable to achieve a middle-class standard of living, many young people in France are rejecting society entirely – what Le Monde describes as ‘political de-socialisation’. And many others are drifting to the political extremes, such as supporting the ex-Trotskyite, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, or the doyenne of the French hard right, Marine Le Pen. Both benefit from the popular anger at Macron’s pension reforms. Similarly in the US, younger voters have tended to favour more ideologically hard line candidates, like Bernie Sanders, with his promises of debt forgiveness and permanent subsidies. In the 2016 presidential primaries, Sanders won more votes from people under 30 than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton combined.
The demographic crisis is also reshaping geopolitics. The Ukraine war has become a war of attrition between two countries that are running out of young people. According to UN projections, Ukraine’s population will fall 18 per cent from 2022 to 2050. This is without accounting for the impact of the Russian invasion, which has sent seven million people out of Ukraine. Arch-rival Russia also faces inexorable depopulation, likely to worsen due to its botched invasion. But even before the war and the pandemic, 2019 deaths were running about 50 per cent higher than births. Standing at 145 million in 2022, the Russian population is expected to drop to 133 million by 2050, according to the UN.
With both countries lacking reserves of soldiers, much of the war has consisted of an exchange of drones and missiles, able to terrify populations without massive army losses. Automated warfare seems the future for militaries like the United States, which also is having trouble filling its ranks.
A similar substitution of technology and capital for humans will drive economic competition as well. Already, large tech firms are finding they can operate profitably with dramatically reduced work forces. Asian countries, like Singapore and China, are looking at AI and robots to maintain their industrial prowess as their population ages and declines. A diminished ability to exploit low wages makes technological preeminence more essential. The current battles over China’s tech firms, like Huawei and now TikTok, suggest control of intellectual property may prove a critical determinant of global economic power.
Perhaps the biggest demographic issue pertains to those parts of the world still with growing youth populations, largely in south Asia and Africa. Although India’s birth rate has slowed considerably, it is estimated to have already overtaken China as the most populous country in the world, and is now the fastest growing big economy on the planet. India is also experiencing a rising tide of tech and manufacturing investment. So we may well see a brief period where Beijing displaces New York or London as the world’s economic capital. But, given China’s rapidly ageing population, the day of New Delhi and Mumbai could soon follow.
The main area of global population growth, however, will be in Sub-Saharan Africa. Between 2022 and 2050, UN projections indicate that nearly 55 per cent of world population growth will occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Between 2050 and 2100, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to account for all population growth. This last refuge of Marx’s ‘reserve army of the unemployed’ represents a challenge that must be met, through immigration and through investment in their economies. Or else it will create a source of permanent chaos.
The very things places like Sub-Saharan Africa need – new energy sources, growing export markets and capital investment – will not be easy to procure from stagnant Western economies concerned largely with satisfying their pensioners. Indeed, the West may well choose to protect its economy through ‘the fight against climate change’. In practice, this means imposing carbon taxes on poor-country imports, which the West has already begun to do. Sadly immigration, one obvious palliative, has proved highly unpopular in almost all rich countries, and is leading to tighter border controls across Europe.
For the future, finding common ground between ageing countries and still youthful populations will be critical. To date, the West still seems asleep. It is more obsessed with gender ideology, racial reparations and climate change than the economic growth desperately needed by the developing world. In a sensible world, the West, as well as China, would find a way to use the current surplus labour and to integrate these countries more fully into the world economy. If not, the demographic crisis will lead to ever more conflict, and a world even more unstable than ours is today.
Joel Kotkin is a spiked columnist, the presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University and executive director of the Urban Reform Institute. His latest book, The Coming of Neo-Feudalism, is out now. Follow him on Twitter: @joelkotkin Picture by: Athena / Pexels.
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This Day in U S Military History…….April 19
1892 – Charles Duryea drives the first automobile in the United States, in Springfield, Massachusetts. Charles engineered the car and his brother Frank built it. The Duryea’s “motor wagon” was a used horse drawn buggy that the brothers had purchased for $70 and into which they had installed a 4 HP, single cylinder gasoline engine. The car (buggy) had a friction transmission, spray carburetor and low tension ignition.
1915 – Aviation engineers working for Dutch-born Anthony Fokker develop the mechanical interrupter gear, which allows machine gun bullets to be fired through rotating aircraft propeller blades.
1919 – Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump using a new kind of self-contained parachute. Irvin was born in Los Angeles. He became a stunt-man for the fledgling Californian film industry, for which he had to perform acrobatics on trapezes from balloons and then make descents using a parachute, the Type-A. Irvin made his first jump when aged fourteen. For a film called Sky High, he first jumped from an aircraft from 1,000 feet in 1914. He developed his own static line parachute as a life-saving device in 1918 and jumped with it several times. He joined the Army Air Service’s parachute research team, and at McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio. After World War I, Major E. L. Hoffman of the Army Air Service led an effort to develop an improved parachute for exiting airplanes by bringing together the best elements of multiple parachute designs. Participants included Irvin and James Floyd Smith. The team eventually created the Airplane Parachute Type-A.
1972 – US 7th Fleet warships, while bombarding the North Vietnamese coast, are attacked by MiGs and patrol boats as Hanoi begins to challenge US naval presence in The Tonkin Gulf for the first time since 1964. The destroyer USS Higbee is badly damaged.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
BETTS, CHARLES M.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry. Place and date: At Greensboro, N.C., 19 April 1865. Entered service at: Philadelphia, Pa. Birth: Bucks County, Pa. Date of issue: 10 October 1892. Citation: With a force of but 75 men, while on a scouting expedition, by a judicious disposition of his men, surprised and captured an entire battalion of the enemy’s cavalry.
ELLIOTT, RUSSELL C.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company B, 3d Massachusetts Cavalry. Place and date: At Natchitoches, La., 19 April 1864. Entered service at: Boston, Mass. Birth: Concord, N.H. Date of issue: 20 November 1896. Citation: Seeing a Confederate officer in advance of his command, charged on him alone and unaided and captured him.
LANGBEIN, J. C. JULIUS
Rank and organization: Musician, Company B, 9th New York Infantry. Place and date: At Camden, N.C., 19 April 1862. Entered service at: New York, N.Y. Born: 29 September 1846, Germany. Date of issue: 7 January 1895. Citation: A drummer boy, 15 years of age, he voluntarily and under a heavy fire went to the aid of a wounded officer, procured medical ass1stance for him, and aided in carrying him to a place of safety.
STEVENS, HAZARD
Rank and organization: Captain and Assistant Adjutant General, U.S. Volunteers. Place and Date: At Fort Huger, Va., 19 April 1863. Entered service at: Olympia, Washington Territory. Born: 9 June 1842, Newport, R.I. Date of issue: 13 June 1894. Citation: Gallantly led a party that assaulted and captured the fort.
CARSON, ANTHONY J.
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company H, 43d Infantry, U.S. Volunteers. Place and date: At Catubig, Samar, Philippine Islands, 15-19 April 1900. Entered service at: Malden, Mass. Birth: Boston, Mass. Date of issue: 4 January 1906. Citation: Assumed command of a detachment of the company which had survived an overwhelming attack of the enemy, and by his bravery and untiring efforts and the exercise of extraordinary good judgment in the handling of his men successfully withstood for 2 days the attacks of a large force of the enemy, thereby saving the lives of the survivors and protecting the wounded until relief came.
THORSNESS, LEO K.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel (then Maj.), U.S. Air Force, 357th Tactical Fighter Squadron. Place and date: Over North Vietnam, 19 April 1967. Entered service at: Walnut Grove, Minn. Born: 14 February 1932, Walnut Grove, Minn. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. As pilot of an F- 105 aircraft, Lt. Col. Thorsness was on a surface-to-air missile suppression mission over North Vietnam. Lt. Col. Thorsness and his wingman attacked and silenced a surface-to-air missile site with air-to-ground missiles, and then destroyed a second surface-to-air missile site with bombs. In tile attack on the second missile site, Lt. Col. Thorsness’ wingman was shot down by intensive antiaircraft fire, and the 2 crewmembers abandoned their aircraft. Lt. Col. Thorsness circled the descending parachutes to keep the crewmembers in sight and relay their position to the Search and Rescue Center. During this maneuver, a MIG-17 was sighted in the area. Lt. Col. Thorsness immediately initiated an attack and destroyed the MIG. Because his aircraft was low on fuel, he was forced to depart the area in search of a tanker. Upon being advised that 2 helicopters were orbiting over the downed crew’s position and that there were hostile MlGs in the area posing a serious threat to the helicopters, Lt. Col. Thorsness, despite his low fuel condition, decided to return alone through a hostile environment of surface-to-air missile and antiaircraft defenses to the downed crew’s position. As he approached the area, he spotted 4 MIG-17 aircraft and immediately initiated an attack on the MlGs, damaging 1 and driving the others away from the rescue scene. When it became apparent that an aircraft in the area was critically low on fuel and the crew would have to abandon the aircraft unless they could reach a tanker, Lt. Col. Thorsness, although critically short on fuel himself, helped to avert further possible loss of life and a friendly aircraft by recovering at a forward operating base, thus allowing the aircraft in emergency fuel condition to refuel safely. Lt. Col. Thorsness’ extraordinary heroism, self-sacrifice, and personal bravery involving conspicuous risk of life were in the highest traditions of the military service, and have reflected great credit upon himself and the U.S. Air Force.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for April 19, 2021 FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD “PHIL” MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
19 April
1919: Leslie Leroy Irvin made the first successful parachute jump from an airplane. Capt E. F. White and mechanic H. M. Schaefer flew a DH-4 with a Liberty 400 HP engine for 738.6 miles in 6 hours 50 minutes to set an American distance record in nonstop flight between Chicago and New York. (24) 1932: A Goddard rocket with gyroscopically-controlled vanes for automatically stabilized flight flew for the first time in New Mexico. (4)
1935: Amelia Earhart flew from Burbank to Mexico City with one stop. She completed the trip in 13 hours 32 minutes. (24)
1937: New York City dispatched the first letter to encircle the world by commercial airmail. It went to San Francisco, Hong Kong, Penang, Amsterdam, and Brazil before returning to New York on 25 May 1937. (24)
1938: Lewin B. Barringer set a US glider record of 212.45 miles from Wichita Falls, Tex., to Tulsa.
1941: The Naval Aircraft Factory started work on a Glomb (glider bomb) with a television camera aboard to transmit a view of the target to control planes. Plans called for the Glomb to be towed long distances by powered aircraft for release and guidance to the target by radio control.
1946: Lt R.A. Baird III flew a P-80 to a 494,973-MPH speed record for 100 kilometers. Consolidated Vultee (Convair) Aircraft Corporation received a contract to study subsonic and supersonic missiles with a 1,500- to 5,000-mile range. This program led to the development of the Atlas missile. (6)
1956: After years of controversy, the DoD concluded that the Army would conduct the aviation training needed to support existing Army activities.
1957: Cape Canaveral successfully launched a Douglas-built Thor IRBM (SM-75). (16) (24)
1961: In the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the Alabama ANG lost four B-26 crewmembers—Riley Shamburger, Wade C. Gray, Pete W. Ray, and Leo F. Baker—in a special operations mission. (21)
1967: From the Air Force Western Test Range, an Atlas booster lifted a Precision Recovery Including Maneuvering Entry (PRIME) unmanned spacecraft into space, where it demonstrated maneuvering, lifting, reentry, and aerial recovery techniques. (16) 355 TFW F-105s shot down four MiG-17s during strikes against the Xuan Mai army barracks southwest of Hanoi. (17) MEDAL OF HONOR. Maj Leo K. Thorsness earned his medal by protecting a mission to rescue downed airmen in North Vietnam. While flying an F-105 with low fuel, Thorsness shot down one MiG-17, damaged another, and drove off three more. Despite an urgent need for fuel, Thorsness decided to recover at a forward operating base to allow another aircraft in an emergency condition to refuel from a tanker. Enemy forces, however, shot him down, captured him, and held him as a prisoner of war until 4 March 1973. (21)
1975: Operation FREQUENT WIND. Through 24 April, to support the extraction of Americans, South Vietnamese and other nationals from Saigon, MAC deployed the 18 TFW from Kadena AB to Korat AB, Thailand; airlifted 951 troops and 269 tons of cargo from Kaneoke, Hawaii, to Kadena AB; and airlifted two passengers and 12 tons from Osan AB to Korat. The command operated a total of 17 C-141, 1 C-5, and 3 commercial missions. (18)
1976: SECDEF Donald H. Rumsfeld flew in the B-1. This was the first time a SECDEF had flown in a test aircraft. (3)
1979: Through 20 April, MAC used 7 C-141 and 4 C-130 missions to deliver 139 tons of supplies and equipment to Titograd IAP after a major earthquake rocked the sourthern Adriatic coast of Yugoslavia and Albania. (16)
1984: The USAF held ground-breaking ceremonies for Site III of the phased arrary, sea-launched ballistic warning system, Pave Paws, at Robins AFB.
1993: Through 24 April, units in Alaska participated in the USAF’s first combined exercise with the Russian Air Force. It featured a search-and-rescue effort in Siberia. (21)
1995: OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING. A powerful car bomb leveled a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 169 and wounding 400 people. The USAF airlifted firefighters, search and rescue teams, investigators, and medical personnel to Oklahoma. Units at Tinker AFB provided supplies, equipment, and bomb-sniffing dogs. Through 4 May, Air Mobility Command aircraft flew 25 missions to move 1,359 passengers and 3,864 tons of cargo. (16) (18)
1999: The AFFTC performed a unique flight test for Operation ALLIED FORCE by having a B-52 drop emergency food supplies from a high altitude with reasonable precision. The successful test resulted in considerable humanitarian assistance to refugees. (3)
2003: A McChord AFB C-17 Globemaster III, flown by a crew assigned to the 315 AW (ReserveAssociate) at Charleston AFB returned seven former US Army prisoners of war to the US, one week after their rescue in Iraq. The C-17 flew five men and women from the 507th Maintenance Company to Fort Bliss, Tex., and two Apache helicopter crewmen from the First Cavalry Division to Fort Hood, Tex. A KC-135 and crew from the 157 AREFW at Pease ANGB, N. H., refueled the C-17 on its trip from Ramstein AFB to the US. (22)
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Good Sunday morning April 19, 2026. 51 years ago my wife and I were married at the little church and then had a reception at the Admiral Kidd club on the base. Lots of F-8 drivers there from the F-8 Rag to make it a lot of fun. A short story about that. I was in my office a couple weeks before when the skipper walked in and asked me if I wanted to fly that day because I was not in my flight suit. I said absolutely and he said fine you will be bouncing with the rest of the group that were going to CQ in a couple weeks. That set off something in my brain he continued by saying that I was going to get field qualed and then fly to Pensacola and get day and night qualed on the Lexington and then hop a flight to the PI and join the USS Hancock On cruise. After he laid that out I asked him if I could still get married on Sunday. All went well with Worm as my best man. My parents were there and my dad who had flown from California to Shimia at the end of the island chain in WWII and not returned until after the war was over. knew all about that kind of thing. He left in June of 1943. My mom hopped rides on C-47s to New Jersey to see her mother and the next day I came on 7 June. Then went to Taunton Mass and we spent the rest of the war at my grandparents house.
Yesterday I received a treasure in the mail. A hard bound copy of God is my Co Pilot dated 1943
It is a real treasure that put me on the road as a youngster for becoming a fighter pilot. Thanks to Brockton.
Beautiful day out there and is supposed to stay sunny all day and tomorrow then rain on Tuesday..
.I hope that you all have a great weekend
Regards,
skip
HAGD
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This day in Naval and Marine Corps History (thanks to NHHC)
Go here to see the director’s corner for all 97 H-Grams
Here is a link to the NHHC website: https://www.history.navy.mil/
April 19
1917 The U.S. Naval Armed Guard crew on board SS Mongolia engages and damages a German U-boat, the first engagement against the enemy after declaration of war on April 6.
1920 The first German submarine brought to the United States after World War I arrives at New York. During World War I, U 111 sank three Allied merchant vessels that included the British steamer Boscastle on April 7, 1918. The submarine surrendered later that year.
1945 USS Buckley (DE 51) and USS Reuben James (DE 153) sink the German submarine U-879 southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
1955 USS Albany (CA 123) and USS William Wood (DD 715) begin providing disaster relief to citizens of Volos, Greece, following a catastrophic earthquake.
1960 The Grumman A2F-1 Intruder makes its first flight. The Intruder receives the designation of A-6A in 1962, and upon entering service in 1963, becomes the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps principle all weather/night attack aircraft.
1997 USS The Sullivans (DDG 68) is commissioned at Staten Island, N.Y. The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer is the second Navy ship named after the five Sullivan brothers who died when USS Juneau (CL 52) was sunk shortly after the Battle of Guadalcanal Nov. 13, 1942.
2017 The Cyclone-class patrol coastal ship USS Zephyr (PC 8), its embarked U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment (LEDET) personnel and coalition forces pursue and board a small fishing vessel, called a panga, and interdict 750 kilograms of cocaine with a total street value of $22.5 million.
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This day in World History
April 19
1539 Emperor Charles V reaches a truce with German Protestants at Frankfurt, Germany.
1689 Residents of Boston oust their governor, Edmond Andros.
1764 The English Parliament bans the American colonies from printing paper money.
1775 The American Revolution begins as fighting breaks out at Lexington, Massachusetts.
1782 The Netherlands recognizes the United States.
1794 Tadeusz Kosciuszko forces the Russians out of Warsaw.
1802 The Spanish reopen New Orleans port to American merchants.
1824 English poet Lord George Gordon Byron dies of malaria at age 36 while aiding Greek independence.
1861 The Baltimore riots result in four Union soldiers and nine civilians killed.
1861 President Abraham Lincoln orders a blockade of Confederate ports.
1880 The Times war correspondent telephones a report of the Battle of Ahmed Khel, the first time news is sent from a field of battle in this manner.
1927 In China, Hankow communists declare war on Chiang Kai-shek.
1934 Shirley Temple appears in her first movie.
1938 General Francisco Franco declares victory in the Spanish Civil War.
1939 Connecticut finally approves the Bill of Rights.
1943 The Warsaw Ghetto uprising against Nazi rule begins.
1960 Baseball uniforms begin displaying player's names on their backs.
1971 Russia launches its first Salyut space station.
1977 Alex Haley receives a special Pulitzer Prize for his book Roots.
1982 NASA names Sally Ride to be the first woman astronaut.
1989 The battleship USS Iowa's number 2 turret explodes, killing sailors.
1993 The FBI ends a 51-day siege by storming the Branch Davidian religious cult headquarters in Waco, Texas.
1995 A truck bomb explodes in front of the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.
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Rollingthunderremembered.com .
April 19
Hello All,
Thanks to Dan Heller and the Bear
Links to all content can now be found right on the homepage http://www.rollingthunderremembered.com. If you scroll down from the banner and featured content you will find "Today in Rolling Thunder Remembered History" which highlights events in the Vietnam war that occurred on the date the page is visited. Below that are links to browse or search all content. You may search by keyword(s), date, or date range.
An item of importance is the recent incorporation of Task Force Omega (TFO) MIA summaries. There is a link on the homepage and you can also visit directly via https://www.rollingthunderremembered.com/task-force-omega/. There are 60 summaries posted thus far, with about 940 to go (not a typo—TFO has over 1,000 individual case files).
If you have any questions or comments about RTR/TFO, or have a question on my book, you may e-mail me directly at acrossthewing@protonmail.com. Thank you Dan
Thanks to Micro
To remind folks that these are from the Vietnam Air Losses site that Micro put together. You click on the url below and get what happened each day to the crew of the aircraft. ……Skip
For Sunday 19 April. .
April 19: https://www.vietnamairlosses.com/loss.php?id=535
This following work accounts for every fixed wing loss of the Vietnam War and you can use it to read more about the losses in The Bear’s Daily account. Even better it allows you to add your updated information to the work to update for history…skip
Vietnam Air Losses Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady’s work at: https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.
This is a list of all Helicopter Pilots Who Died in the Vietnam War . Listed by last name and has other info https://www.vhpa.org/KIA/KIAINDEX.HTM
MOAA - Wall of Faces Now Includes Photos of All Service members Killed in the Vietnam War
(This site was sent by a friend . The site works, find anyone you knew in “search" feature. https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/ )
https://www.moaa.org/content/publications-and-media/news-articles/2022-news-articles/wall-of-faces-now-includes-photos-of-all-servicemembers-killed-in-the-vietnam-war/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TMNsend&utm_content=Y84UVhi4Z1MAMHJh1eJHNA==+MD+AFHRM+1+Ret+L+NC
Wall of Faces Now Includes Photos of All Service members Killed in the Vietnam War
By: Kipp Hanley
AUGUST 15, 2022
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. Some other bits of history for this date
1775 – At about 5 a.m., 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town’s common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment’s hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the “shot heard around the world” was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others were wounded. Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had begun. By 1775, tensions between the American colonies and the British government approached the breaking point, especially in Massachusetts, where Patriot leaders formed a shadow revolutionary government and trained militias to prepare for armed conflict with the British troops occupying Boston. In the spring of 1775, General Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, received instructions from England to seize all stores of weapons and gunpowder accessible to the American insurgents. On April 18, he ordered British troops to march against the Patriot arsenal at Concord and capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington. The Boston Patriots had been preparing for such a military action by the British for some time, and upon learning of the British plan, Patriots Paul Revere and William Dawes were ordered to set out to rouse the militiamen and warn Adams and Hancock. When the British troops arrived at Lexington, Adams, Hancock, and Revere had already fled to Philadelphia, and a group of militiamen were waiting. The Patriots were routed within minutes, but warfare had begun, leading to calls to arms across the Massachusetts countryside. When the British troops reached Concord at about 7 a.m., they found themselves encircled by hundreds of armed Patriots. They managed to destroy the military supplies the Americans had collected but were soon advanced against by a gang of minutemen, who inflicted numerous casualties. Lieutenant Colonel Frances Smith, the overall commander of the British force, ordered his men to return to Boston without directly engaging the Americans. As the British retraced their 16-mile journey, their lines were constantly beset by Patriot marksmen firing at them Indian-style from behind trees, rocks, and stone walls. At Lexington, Captain Parker’s militia had its revenge, killing several British soldiers as the Red Coats hastily marched through his town. By the time the British finally reached the safety of Boston, nearly 300 British soldiers had been killed, wounded, or were missing in action. The Patriots suffered fewer than 100 casualties. The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first battles of the American Revolution, a conflict that would escalate from a colonial uprising into a world war that, seven years later, would give birth to the independent United States of America.
1951 – Gen. Douglas MacArthur, relieved of his command by President Truman, bid farewell to Congress.
“I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that ‘old soldiers never die; they just fade away.’
“And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.
“Good Bye.”
1995 – A massive explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, kills 168 people and injures hundreds more. The bomb, contained in a Ryder truck parked outside the front of the building, went off at 9:02 a.m. as people were preparing for the workday. Among the victims of America’s worst incident of domestic terrorism were 19 children who were in the daycare center on the first floor of the building. A little over an hour after the explosion, Oklahoma state trooper Charles Hangar pulled over a car without license plates in the town of Perry. Noticing a bulge in the driver’s jacket, Hangar arrested the driver, Timothy McVeigh, and confiscated his concealed gun. McVeigh was held in jail for gun and traffic violations. Meanwhile, a sketch of the man who was seen driving the Ryder truck in Oklahoma City was distributed across the country. On April 21, Hangar saw the sketch and managed to stop McVeigh’s impending release. When investigators looked into McVeigh’s background, they quickly learned that he had ties to militant right-wing groups and was particularly incensed by the Branch Davidian incident in Waco, Texas. The Oklahoma City bomb exploded exactly two years after David Koresh and his followers were killed in the federal government’s raid of the cult compound. Soon, three friends of McVeigh-Terry and James Nichols, and Michael Fortier-were also arrested for their involvement in the bombing. McVeigh and Terry Nichols had gone through basic training together after joining the Army on the same day in 1988. Although Nichols was discharged in 1989, McVeigh had served in Operation Desert Storm before quitting the Army when he was rejected for the Special Forces course. Acquaintances of McVeigh knew that he was obsessed with a book called The Turner Diaries, a fictional account of a race war caused by right-wing extremists in the United States. The book begins with the bombing of the FBI headquarters. McVeigh also told his sister Jennifer that he planned on doing “something big” in April 1995. With Nichols and Fortier’s assistance, McVeigh assembled a bomb that contained nearly 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and racing fuel. After Fortier testified against his former friend, McVeigh was convicted in June 1997. The jury imposed a death sentence. Terry Nichols was convicted of being an accessory to the mass murder, and he received a life sentence. On June 11, 2001, McVeigh was put to death by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, the first federal death penalty to be carried out since 1963.
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Thanks to Interesting Facts
ANCHORED IN SUPERSTITION
10 Strange Nautical Beliefs That Put Old Timey Sailors On Edge Published on April 17, 2024
Credit: Clément Falize
Ahoy, landlubbers! Sailors of yore were a superstitious bunch , believing in omens and all sorts of rituals to keep them safe on the treacherous seas.
But who can blame them? It was a dangerous profession to be a sailor in their times.
From bananas to anchor tattoos, here are 10 eerie maritime superstitions that were once part of the unwritten laws of the sea .
1
No Bananas on Board
Credit: Giorgio Trovato
"Why forbid a good source of fiber and vitamins during a long journey at sea?" you might rightly wonder. While at first glance the taboo doesn’t seem to make much sense, it has been argued that the main reasons were the fruit’s tendency to rot quickly and bring with it all sorts of bugs and critters, particularly the lethal Brazilian wandering spider. Eventually, the real reason got buried beneath the superstition, and the fruit became synonymous with calamity.
2
Whistling Up a Storm
Credit: Vidar Nordli-Mathisen
Whistling was forbidden on board as it was believed to summon fierce winds .
The superstition likely stemmed from the sound mimicking the howling of a gale, striking fear into sailors' hearts. So, should you ever find yourself at sea, resist the temptation to whistle - lest you be blamed for inviting misfortune onboard!
3
Pouring Wine on Deck
Credit: Terry Vlisidis
Spilling wine on the deck was seen as a good omen , believed to appease the sea gods and ensure a safe voyage. Similarly, when a ship is launched for the very first time, a bottle of champagne is smashed on the bow to bring her good fortune. Nevertheless, unless you are the captain, refrain from pouring wine on the deck without asking first - or you might end up scrubbing it!
4
Dropping a Coin into the Sea
Credit: udit saptarshi
Tossing a coin overboard before setting sail was thought to appease the gods and guarantee a prosperous journey . This tradition persisted across cultures, from ancient Greece to Viking Scandinavia. On the contrary, dropping a stone from a departing vessel was considered a bad omen, as it seemingly had the opposite effect, ensuring the ship would never return.
5
Red Sky at Night, Sailor's Delight
Credit: Chris Barbalis
"Red sky at night, sailors' delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning."
This age-old adage served as an ancient way of predicting the weather , with a red sky at night signaling fair weather on the horizon, and a red dawn announcing stormy or treacherous weather. Sailors trusted this rhyme to heart, and according to modern meteorologists, there is an inkling of truth in it. A red sky often means that there is a lot of water vapor in the atmosphere, and since in mid-latitude regions storms tend to move from west to east, the rhyme was an easy mnemotechnic device to broadly estimate weather patterns.
6
Never Start a Voyage on a Friday
Credit: 2H Media
Although Fridays actually seem like one of the best days of the week to go sailing, this is surprisingly an enduring nautical superstition . Old sailors believed that Fridays were unlucky for embarking on a seafaring journey (especially on the 13th). This superstition likely originated from the Christian belief that Jesus was crucified on a Friday, instilling fear in sailors.
7
Tattoos for Safe Passage
Credit: benjamin lehman
Sailors adorned themselves with tattoos not only for personal expression but also for protection at sea. Designs like anchors and nautical stars were believed to ward off evil spirits and ensure a safe return home. These two designs actually served very specific purposes, as an anchor was said to ensure a sailor would not get lost at sea should he fall overboard, and a nautical star allegedly helped sailors find their way home.
8
A Sailor’s Best Friends
Credit: Fer Nando
The sight of an albatross trailing a ship was seen as a symbol of good fortune . Believed to be the souls of dead sailors, the birds were revered among seafaring adventurers, and killing one was said to bring great misfortune upon a ship. This superstition was likely popularized by Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," which warned sailors against harming these majestic birds.
9
Women on Board Bring Storms
Credit: Kalen Emsley
Historically, women were considered bad luck on ships , believed to anger the sea gods and stir up tempests. During the Age of Sail, women who wanted to heed the call of the sea were forced to disguise themselves as men, but in spite of the difficulties some even became feared pirates, like Mary Read and Anne Bonny, who sailed under the command of the infamous Captain Jack Rackham. This misogynistic superstition persisted for centuries, despite the invaluable contributions of female sailors to the art of sailing.
10
Crossing the Line
Credit: Kevin Keith
To this day, when passing the equator, sailors often engage in all sorts of rituals and celebrations in the name of King Neptune. This quirky tradition actually goes back almost 400 years, beginning in the British Navy, and becoming popular even in civilian or scientific crews. The ancient ritual is said to ensure safe passage into the Southern Hemisphere, and even Charles Darwin witnessed it during his voyages!
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Thanks to Nice News
Spotted for the First Time in a Decade, “Cloud Jaguar” Marks Conservation Win in Honduras
Panthera
In 2016, wild cat conservation organization Panthera recorded a jaguar for the first time in the Merendón Mountains between Honduras and Guatemala. A decade then passed with no camera sighting of the elusive species — but on Feb. 6, a jaguar was finally documented once again in images shared with the public last week.
Taken at around 7,217 feet on the tallest peak of the mountain range’s cloud forests, just over 6 feet away from the 2016 sighting, the photos mark the highest elevation at which a “cloud jaguar” has been spotted in Honduras. They also signify a major win for the org’s long-running Jaguar Corridor Initiative, which aims to protect the species by developing safe passages for the animals to roam, hunt, mate, and establish territories.
“What makes this especially significant is what it signals about connectivity. This individual isn’t a resident — he’s a traveler, moving through a corridor that links populations in Honduras and Guatemala, and ultimately connects habitats stretching from Mexico to Argentina,” Franklin Castañeda, Honduras country director at Panthera, tells Nice News.
This Tortoise Is Rolling Into a New Chapter, Thanks to Some Creative Vets
Doc Nielsen Donato/Facebook
This tortoise isn’t so slow and steady anymore! A veterinary practice in the Philippines recently came up with a wheely creative solution to help an Aldabra tortoise struggling with its hind legs by making the shelled friend a scooter of sorts.
According to Popular Science, a private zoo brought the injured tortoise to Nielsen Donato, the chief surgeon at Vets in Practice. After finding no dislocations or fractures, the team suspected the leg weakness might be neurological or the result of interactions with larger companions at the zoo.
In addition to anti-inflammatory therapy, they decided to install four wheels onto the bottom of its shell for an extra mobility boost — as you can watch here (highly recommend). The tortoise was eventually sent home after showing mobility improvements, and we’re happy to share that the reptile is walking normally again without wheels.
Speaking of turtles, Popular Science also put together a handy guide for what to do if you spot a turtle crossing the road this time of year — spoiler alert, don’t grab the tail
This is from the archives and is a very interesting read
The Depopulation Bomb
Thanks to Mud
This is an article I found to be of great interest. It made me wish I could live long enough to see how it plays out.
S/F,
- Mud
spiked-online.com
The Depopulation Bomb
Joel Kotkin
Today, the spectre haunting the global order is not communism, as Marx predicted, but seemingly relentless demographic decline. We can already see its consequences in everything from the fight over pensions in France to the persistent labour shortages across almost all the high-income world. In the future, a lack of human labour is also likely to accelerate a shift towards automation, reshaping economic and political conflict for decades to come.
The world’s population has long been growing on an upward curve. About 75 per cent of the world’s population growth has occurred over the past 100 years, more than 50 per cent of it since 1970. But now, according to the United Nations, population growth is on course to drop to near zero, especially in more developed nations. Globally, last year’s total population growth was the smallest in half a century. By 2050 it is estimated that some 61 countries are expected to experience population declines.
A majority of the world already lives in countries with fertility rates well below the replacement level (2.1 births per woman) – the level, that is, at which a country’s population would remain steady. By 2050, UN data suggests 75 per cent of countries will have fertility rates below replacement level. Some UN demographic projections now contemplate that world population could peak in 2086, with the global population about one billion below today’s level by 2100. Ours will become a rapidly ageing planet. In 1970, the median world age was 20.3 years. By 2020, it had increased to 29.7 years, and it is expected to be 42.3 years in 2100.
It’s no longer a question of if, but when global populations will start to decline. We are entering a new epoch, defined by the first large population declines since medieval times. A series of plagues halved Europe’s population between 1346 and 1460. The primary causes today are not war or disease, however, but social evolution, including the decline of the family and religion, as well as diminished economic opportunity and a soaring cost of living. Most rich countries have to contend with birth rates well below the replacement rate. Japan, which has a fertility rate consistently 50 per cent below replacement, is likely to see its population drop from 126 million in 2021 to under 90 million by 2065. Indeed, last year, Japan recorded twice as many deaths as births.
Similarly, Europe’s population growth has been tapering for a generation. European fertility rates fell from 16.4 babies born for every 1,000 persons in 1970, to 9.1 in 2020. Last year the UK’s birthrate also hit a record low, with fertility rates for women under 30 at their lowest levels since records began in 1938. A fifth of all British women are now childless by middle-age.
The decline in fertility rates has also been evident in North America, traditionally a bastion of stronger demographic growth. US population growth, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, has fallen to the lowest rate in peacetime since America’s founding. China’s birthrate has also cratered, causing its workforce to shrink by 41million – equal to the entire German workforce – in just the past three years. And it’s now slated to drop by a further 20 per cent by 2050. Over the past few decades, fertility has dropped precipitously across east Asia, including in Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore.
This demographic decline is already reshaping the world economy. As economist John Maynard Keynes warned as early as 1937, the ‘chaining up of the one devil’, overpopulation, ‘may, if we are careless, only serve to loose another still fiercer and more intractable’ – the devil of demographic decline. The US population aged between 16 and 64 grew by 21 per cent during the 1980s, but in the 2010s grew by less than three per cent – shrinking as a proportion of the population. Consultancy Korn Ferry projects a deficit of at least six million workers in the US by 2028. Even greater declines in the workforce can be seen in the UK, the EU and east Asia.
The shrinking of the labour force combined with growing numbers of the elderly is already generating political unrest. Take the widespread protests over pensions in France. Strikingly, it’s not the elderly who are protesting, sometimes violently, on the streets, or failing to collect garbage. The protests are driven by working-class voters who are themselves a decade or two from retirement. While more than the 63 per cent of the total population favour the protests, more remarkable still is that 71 per cent of those aged 18-24 are in favour. They fear that they will lose the secure retirement that was once considered a natural right in France’s statist economy.
French president Emmanuel Macron has justified lifting the pension-qualifying age from 62 to 64 by pointing to the fact that France’s retirement population is due to rise from its current level of 16 million to 21 million by 2050. Other countries, like Germany, are confronting the new demographics both by raising taxes as well as raising the pension age. Other countries across the OECD will be faced with similar dilemmas.
These trends will impact both the current economic superpowers, America and China. America’s social-security system is on track to be depleted by 2034. In 1970, there were 18.7 persons aged over 65 for every 100 of working age, but this has increased to 26.4 in 2022. The UN projects it to increase to 57.1 by 2100 if constant rates of fertility continue. China, which once boasted a huge, growing and youthful population, has seen its labour force decline since the 1990s, and it will be fully a third smaller again by 2035. The senior population in China is expected to have more than tripled by 2050, one of the most rapid demographic shifts in history.
Clearly, it’s time to turn the page on biologist Paul Ehrlich’s long-standing prediction that humanity is doomed to ‘breed ourselves to extinction’. In the coming decades, many of humanity’s challenges will likely be products of depopulation, not overpopulation, including a brewing generational conflict between a generally prosperous older generation and its more hard-pressed successors. The erosion of young people’s input, notes economist Gary Becker, also tends to slow the rate of innovation.
In an ageing, slow-growth world, young people are clearly disadvantaged. Indeed, most in the high-income world believe the next generation will be less well-off than the current one. In virtually every high-income country, notes Pew, the vast majority of parents – 80 per cent in Japan and over 70 per cent in the US – are pessimistic about the financial future of their offspring. Young people have a similarly negative outlook, including in the US. Understandably so, given that for initially middling earners, the chance of moving to the top rungs of the earnings ladder over a lifetime has dropped by approximately 20 per cent since the early 1980s.
Resentment of the Baby Boomer generation in particular (born 1946-1964) is likely to only increase, as it is set to hold the most wealth in the US until well into the 2030s. Remarkably, Boomers, many of whom are well into their 70s at least, now account for almost two in five new homes bought in the US – more than Millennials (born 1981-1996) and many more than Generation Z (born 1997-2013).
This alienated young generation is likely to be more radical and less tolerant than the one raised with the expectation of expanding opportunity. Already, barely half of voters for the Democratic Party, the dominant party among Millennials, believe that hard work actually pays off. And as political scientist Yascha Mounk found in 2018, while over two-thirds of older Americans consider it ‘essential’ to live in a democracy, only one in three Millennials feels the same.
Unable to achieve a middle-class standard of living, many young people in France are rejecting society entirely – what Le Monde describes as ‘political de-socialisation’. And many others are drifting to the political extremes, such as supporting the ex-Trotskyite, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, or the doyenne of the French hard right, Marine Le Pen. Both benefit from the popular anger at Macron’s pension reforms. Similarly in the US, younger voters have tended to favour more ideologically hard line candidates, like Bernie Sanders, with his promises of debt forgiveness and permanent subsidies. In the 2016 presidential primaries, Sanders won more votes from people under 30 than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton combined.
The demographic crisis is also reshaping geopolitics. The Ukraine war has become a war of attrition between two countries that are running out of young people. According to UN projections, Ukraine’s population will fall 18 per cent from 2022 to 2050. This is without accounting for the impact of the Russian invasion, which has sent seven million people out of Ukraine. Arch-rival Russia also faces inexorable depopulation, likely to worsen due to its botched invasion. But even before the war and the pandemic, 2019 deaths were running about 50 per cent higher than births. Standing at 145 million in 2022, the Russian population is expected to drop to 133 million by 2050, according to the UN.
With both countries lacking reserves of soldiers, much of the war has consisted of an exchange of drones and missiles, able to terrify populations without massive army losses. Automated warfare seems the future for militaries like the United States, which also is having trouble filling its ranks.
A similar substitution of technology and capital for humans will drive economic competition as well. Already, large tech firms are finding they can operate profitably with dramatically reduced work forces. Asian countries, like Singapore and China, are looking at AI and robots to maintain their industrial prowess as their population ages and declines. A diminished ability to exploit low wages makes technological preeminence more essential. The current battles over China’s tech firms, like Huawei and now TikTok, suggest control of intellectual property may prove a critical determinant of global economic power.
Perhaps the biggest demographic issue pertains to those parts of the world still with growing youth populations, largely in south Asia and Africa. Although India’s birth rate has slowed considerably, it is estimated to have already overtaken China as the most populous country in the world, and is now the fastest growing big economy on the planet. India is also experiencing a rising tide of tech and manufacturing investment. So we may well see a brief period where Beijing displaces New York or London as the world’s economic capital. But, given China’s rapidly ageing population, the day of New Delhi and Mumbai could soon follow.
The main area of global population growth, however, will be in Sub-Saharan Africa. Between 2022 and 2050, UN projections indicate that nearly 55 per cent of world population growth will occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Between 2050 and 2100, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to account for all population growth. This last refuge of Marx’s ‘reserve army of the unemployed’ represents a challenge that must be met, through immigration and through investment in their economies. Or else it will create a source of permanent chaos.
The very things places like Sub-Saharan Africa need – new energy sources, growing export markets and capital investment – will not be easy to procure from stagnant Western economies concerned largely with satisfying their pensioners. Indeed, the West may well choose to protect its economy through ‘the fight against climate change’. In practice, this means imposing carbon taxes on poor-country imports, which the West has already begun to do. Sadly immigration, one obvious palliative, has proved highly unpopular in almost all rich countries, and is leading to tighter border controls across Europe.
For the future, finding common ground between ageing countries and still youthful populations will be critical. To date, the West still seems asleep. It is more obsessed with gender ideology, racial reparations and climate change than the economic growth desperately needed by the developing world. In a sensible world, the West, as well as China, would find a way to use the current surplus labour and to integrate these countries more fully into the world economy. If not, the demographic crisis will lead to ever more conflict, and a world even more unstable than ours is today.
Joel Kotkin is a spiked columnist, the presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University and executive director of the Urban Reform Institute. His latest book, The Coming of Neo-Feudalism, is out now. Follow him on Twitter: @joelkotkin Picture by: Athena / Pexels.
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This Day in U S Military History…….April 19
1892 – Charles Duryea drives the first automobile in the United States, in Springfield, Massachusetts. Charles engineered the car and his brother Frank built it. The Duryea’s “motor wagon” was a used horse drawn buggy that the brothers had purchased for $70 and into which they had installed a 4 HP, single cylinder gasoline engine. The car (buggy) had a friction transmission, spray carburetor and low tension ignition.
1915 – Aviation engineers working for Dutch-born Anthony Fokker develop the mechanical interrupter gear, which allows machine gun bullets to be fired through rotating aircraft propeller blades.
1919 – Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump using a new kind of self-contained parachute. Irvin was born in Los Angeles. He became a stunt-man for the fledgling Californian film industry, for which he had to perform acrobatics on trapezes from balloons and then make descents using a parachute, the Type-A. Irvin made his first jump when aged fourteen. For a film called Sky High, he first jumped from an aircraft from 1,000 feet in 1914. He developed his own static line parachute as a life-saving device in 1918 and jumped with it several times. He joined the Army Air Service’s parachute research team, and at McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio. After World War I, Major E. L. Hoffman of the Army Air Service led an effort to develop an improved parachute for exiting airplanes by bringing together the best elements of multiple parachute designs. Participants included Irvin and James Floyd Smith. The team eventually created the Airplane Parachute Type-A.
1972 – US 7th Fleet warships, while bombarding the North Vietnamese coast, are attacked by MiGs and patrol boats as Hanoi begins to challenge US naval presence in The Tonkin Gulf for the first time since 1964. The destroyer USS Higbee is badly damaged.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
BETTS, CHARLES M.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry. Place and date: At Greensboro, N.C., 19 April 1865. Entered service at: Philadelphia, Pa. Birth: Bucks County, Pa. Date of issue: 10 October 1892. Citation: With a force of but 75 men, while on a scouting expedition, by a judicious disposition of his men, surprised and captured an entire battalion of the enemy’s cavalry.
ELLIOTT, RUSSELL C.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company B, 3d Massachusetts Cavalry. Place and date: At Natchitoches, La., 19 April 1864. Entered service at: Boston, Mass. Birth: Concord, N.H. Date of issue: 20 November 1896. Citation: Seeing a Confederate officer in advance of his command, charged on him alone and unaided and captured him.
LANGBEIN, J. C. JULIUS
Rank and organization: Musician, Company B, 9th New York Infantry. Place and date: At Camden, N.C., 19 April 1862. Entered service at: New York, N.Y. Born: 29 September 1846, Germany. Date of issue: 7 January 1895. Citation: A drummer boy, 15 years of age, he voluntarily and under a heavy fire went to the aid of a wounded officer, procured medical ass1stance for him, and aided in carrying him to a place of safety.
STEVENS, HAZARD
Rank and organization: Captain and Assistant Adjutant General, U.S. Volunteers. Place and Date: At Fort Huger, Va., 19 April 1863. Entered service at: Olympia, Washington Territory. Born: 9 June 1842, Newport, R.I. Date of issue: 13 June 1894. Citation: Gallantly led a party that assaulted and captured the fort.
CARSON, ANTHONY J.
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company H, 43d Infantry, U.S. Volunteers. Place and date: At Catubig, Samar, Philippine Islands, 15-19 April 1900. Entered service at: Malden, Mass. Birth: Boston, Mass. Date of issue: 4 January 1906. Citation: Assumed command of a detachment of the company which had survived an overwhelming attack of the enemy, and by his bravery and untiring efforts and the exercise of extraordinary good judgment in the handling of his men successfully withstood for 2 days the attacks of a large force of the enemy, thereby saving the lives of the survivors and protecting the wounded until relief came.
THORSNESS, LEO K.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel (then Maj.), U.S. Air Force, 357th Tactical Fighter Squadron. Place and date: Over North Vietnam, 19 April 1967. Entered service at: Walnut Grove, Minn. Born: 14 February 1932, Walnut Grove, Minn. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. As pilot of an F- 105 aircraft, Lt. Col. Thorsness was on a surface-to-air missile suppression mission over North Vietnam. Lt. Col. Thorsness and his wingman attacked and silenced a surface-to-air missile site with air-to-ground missiles, and then destroyed a second surface-to-air missile site with bombs. In tile attack on the second missile site, Lt. Col. Thorsness’ wingman was shot down by intensive antiaircraft fire, and the 2 crewmembers abandoned their aircraft. Lt. Col. Thorsness circled the descending parachutes to keep the crewmembers in sight and relay their position to the Search and Rescue Center. During this maneuver, a MIG-17 was sighted in the area. Lt. Col. Thorsness immediately initiated an attack and destroyed the MIG. Because his aircraft was low on fuel, he was forced to depart the area in search of a tanker. Upon being advised that 2 helicopters were orbiting over the downed crew’s position and that there were hostile MlGs in the area posing a serious threat to the helicopters, Lt. Col. Thorsness, despite his low fuel condition, decided to return alone through a hostile environment of surface-to-air missile and antiaircraft defenses to the downed crew’s position. As he approached the area, he spotted 4 MIG-17 aircraft and immediately initiated an attack on the MlGs, damaging 1 and driving the others away from the rescue scene. When it became apparent that an aircraft in the area was critically low on fuel and the crew would have to abandon the aircraft unless they could reach a tanker, Lt. Col. Thorsness, although critically short on fuel himself, helped to avert further possible loss of life and a friendly aircraft by recovering at a forward operating base, thus allowing the aircraft in emergency fuel condition to refuel safely. Lt. Col. Thorsness’ extraordinary heroism, self-sacrifice, and personal bravery involving conspicuous risk of life were in the highest traditions of the military service, and have reflected great credit upon himself and the U.S. Air Force.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for April 19, 2021 FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD “PHIL” MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
19 April
1919: Leslie Leroy Irvin made the first successful parachute jump from an airplane. Capt E. F. White and mechanic H. M. Schaefer flew a DH-4 with a Liberty 400 HP engine for 738.6 miles in 6 hours 50 minutes to set an American distance record in nonstop flight between Chicago and New York. (24) 1932: A Goddard rocket with gyroscopically-controlled vanes for automatically stabilized flight flew for the first time in New Mexico. (4)
1935: Amelia Earhart flew from Burbank to Mexico City with one stop. She completed the trip in 13 hours 32 minutes. (24)
1937: New York City dispatched the first letter to encircle the world by commercial airmail. It went to San Francisco, Hong Kong, Penang, Amsterdam, and Brazil before returning to New York on 25 May 1937. (24)
1938: Lewin B. Barringer set a US glider record of 212.45 miles from Wichita Falls, Tex., to Tulsa.
1941: The Naval Aircraft Factory started work on a Glomb (glider bomb) with a television camera aboard to transmit a view of the target to control planes. Plans called for the Glomb to be towed long distances by powered aircraft for release and guidance to the target by radio control.
1946: Lt R.A. Baird III flew a P-80 to a 494,973-MPH speed record for 100 kilometers. Consolidated Vultee (Convair) Aircraft Corporation received a contract to study subsonic and supersonic missiles with a 1,500- to 5,000-mile range. This program led to the development of the Atlas missile. (6)
1956: After years of controversy, the DoD concluded that the Army would conduct the aviation training needed to support existing Army activities.
1957: Cape Canaveral successfully launched a Douglas-built Thor IRBM (SM-75). (16) (24)
1961: In the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the Alabama ANG lost four B-26 crewmembers—Riley Shamburger, Wade C. Gray, Pete W. Ray, and Leo F. Baker—in a special operations mission. (21)
1967: From the Air Force Western Test Range, an Atlas booster lifted a Precision Recovery Including Maneuvering Entry (PRIME) unmanned spacecraft into space, where it demonstrated maneuvering, lifting, reentry, and aerial recovery techniques. (16) 355 TFW F-105s shot down four MiG-17s during strikes against the Xuan Mai army barracks southwest of Hanoi. (17) MEDAL OF HONOR. Maj Leo K. Thorsness earned his medal by protecting a mission to rescue downed airmen in North Vietnam. While flying an F-105 with low fuel, Thorsness shot down one MiG-17, damaged another, and drove off three more. Despite an urgent need for fuel, Thorsness decided to recover at a forward operating base to allow another aircraft in an emergency condition to refuel from a tanker. Enemy forces, however, shot him down, captured him, and held him as a prisoner of war until 4 March 1973. (21)
1975: Operation FREQUENT WIND. Through 24 April, to support the extraction of Americans, South Vietnamese and other nationals from Saigon, MAC deployed the 18 TFW from Kadena AB to Korat AB, Thailand; airlifted 951 troops and 269 tons of cargo from Kaneoke, Hawaii, to Kadena AB; and airlifted two passengers and 12 tons from Osan AB to Korat. The command operated a total of 17 C-141, 1 C-5, and 3 commercial missions. (18)
1976: SECDEF Donald H. Rumsfeld flew in the B-1. This was the first time a SECDEF had flown in a test aircraft. (3)
1979: Through 20 April, MAC used 7 C-141 and 4 C-130 missions to deliver 139 tons of supplies and equipment to Titograd IAP after a major earthquake rocked the sourthern Adriatic coast of Yugoslavia and Albania. (16)
1984: The USAF held ground-breaking ceremonies for Site III of the phased arrary, sea-launched ballistic warning system, Pave Paws, at Robins AFB.
1993: Through 24 April, units in Alaska participated in the USAF’s first combined exercise with the Russian Air Force. It featured a search-and-rescue effort in Siberia. (21)
1995: OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING. A powerful car bomb leveled a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 169 and wounding 400 people. The USAF airlifted firefighters, search and rescue teams, investigators, and medical personnel to Oklahoma. Units at Tinker AFB provided supplies, equipment, and bomb-sniffing dogs. Through 4 May, Air Mobility Command aircraft flew 25 missions to move 1,359 passengers and 3,864 tons of cargo. (16) (18)
1999: The AFFTC performed a unique flight test for Operation ALLIED FORCE by having a B-52 drop emergency food supplies from a high altitude with reasonable precision. The successful test resulted in considerable humanitarian assistance to refugees. (3)
2003: A McChord AFB C-17 Globemaster III, flown by a crew assigned to the 315 AW (ReserveAssociate) at Charleston AFB returned seven former US Army prisoners of war to the US, one week after their rescue in Iraq. The C-17 flew five men and women from the 507th Maintenance Company to Fort Bliss, Tex., and two Apache helicopter crewmen from the First Cavalry Division to Fort Hood, Tex. A KC-135 and crew from the 157 AREFW at Pease ANGB, N. H., refueled the C-17 on its trip from Ramstein AFB to the US. (22)
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