To All.
Good Tuesday morning April 14, 2026. I hope thar your week is off to a great start.
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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 14
1898 The first post-Civil War hospital ship, USS Solace (AH 2) is commissioned and soon participates in the Spanish-American War attending to wounded servicemen from battles in Cuba
1942 USS Roper (DD 147) sinks German submarine U 85 off the Virginia Capes. Before being sunk by Roper, U 85 sank three Allied merchant vessels.
1945 USS Tirante (SS 420), commanded by Lt. Cmdr. George L. Street III, attacks a Japanese convoy in the approaches to the Yellow Sea and sinks a transport ship and two vessels. Street earns Medal of Honor for his actions.
1969 A North Korean aircraft shoots down an unarmed EC-121 propeller-driven Constellation, killing all 31 crewmembers on board.
1988 During Operation Ernest Will, USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) strikes an Iranian mine off Qatar, injuring 10 sailors. Four days later, the US Navy retaliates with Operation Praying Mantis, which strikes Iranian oil platforms, sinks an Iranian frigate, patrol ship, and damages another frigate.
On This Day In The Navy:
1960 - The Navy's navigation satellite, Transit 1B, which demonstrates the first engine restart in space, is placed into orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida, by Thor-Able-Star.
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This Day in World History April14
1471 The Earl of Warwick, who fought on both sides in the War of the Roses, is killed at the Battle of Barnet with the defeat of the Lancastrians.
1543 Bartolome Ferrelo returns to Spain after discovering a large bay in the New World (San Francisco).
1775 The first abolitionist society in United States is organized in Philadelphia.
1793 A royalist rebellion in Santo Domingo is crushed by French republican troops.
1828 The first edition of Noah Webster's dictionary is published.
1860 The first Pony Express rider arrives in San Francisco with mail originating in St. Joseph, Missouri.
1865 President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated in Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth.
1894 Thomas Edison's kinetoscope is shown to the public for the first time.
1900 The World Exposition opens in Paris.
1912 The passenger liner Titanic--deemed unsinkable--strikes an iceberg on her maiden voyage and begins to sink. The ship will go under the next day with a loss of 1,500 lives.
1931 King Alfonso XIII of Spain is overthrown.
1945 American B-29 bombers damage the Imperial Palace during firebombing raid over Tokyo.
1953 The Viet Minh invade Laos with 40,00 troops in their war against French colonial forces.
1959 The Taft Memorial Bell Tower is dedicated in Washington, D.C.
1961 The first live broadcast is televised from the Soviet Union.
1969 The first major league baseball game in Montreal, Canada is played.
1981 America's first space shuttle, Columbia, returns to Earth.
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Thanks to This day in History
John Wilkes Booth shoots Abraham Lincoln
HISTORY.com Editors
Published: November 13, 2009
Last Updated: April 06, 2026
President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865. The assassin, actor John Wilkes Booth, shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis! (Ever thus to tyrants!) The South is avenged,” as he jumped onto the stage and fled on horseback. Lincoln died the next morning.
Booth, who remained in the North during the war despite his Confederate sympathies, initially plotted to capture President Lincoln and take him to Richmond, the Confederate capital. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, the president failed to appear at the spot where Booth and his six fellow conspirators lay in wait. Two weeks later, Richmond fell to Union forces. In April, with Confederate armies near collapse across the South, Booth hatched a desperate plan to save the Confederacy.
The Lincoln Assassination Plot
The assassination of President Lincoln was just one part of a larger plot to decapitate the federal government of the U.S. after the Civil War.
Learning that Lincoln was to attend Laura Keene’s acclaimed performance in Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater on April 14, Booth plotted the simultaneous assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William H. Seward. By murdering the president and two of his possible successors, Booth and his conspirators hoped to throw the U.S. government into a paralyzing disarray.
On the evening of April 14, conspirator Lewis T. Powell burst into Secretary of State Seward’s home, seriously wounding him and three others, while George A. Atzerodt, assigned to Vice President Johnson, lost his nerve and fled.
Meanwhile, just after 10 p.m., Booth entered Lincoln’s private theater box unnoticed, and shot the president with a single bullet in the back of his head. Although Booth had broken his left leg jumping from Lincoln’s box, he succeeded in escaping Washington.
The president, mortally wounded, was carried to a cheap lodging house opposite Ford’s Theater. At about 7:22 the next morning, he died—the first U.S. president to be assassinated.
Booth was a well-regarded actor who was particularly loved in the South before the Civil War. During the war, he stayed in the North and became increasingly bitter when audiences weren’t as enamored of him as they were in Dixie. Along with friends Samuel Arnold, Michael O’Laughlin and John Surratt, Booth conspired to kidnap Lincoln and deliver him to the South.
On March 17, along with George Atzerodt, David Herold and Lewis Powell, the group met in a Washington bar to plot the abduction of the president three days later. However, when the president changed his plans, the scheme was scuttled. Shortly afterward, the South surrendered to the Union and the conspirators altered their plan. They decided to kill Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward on the same evening.
When April 14 came around, Atzerodt backed out of his part to kill Johnson. Upset, Booth went to drink at a saloon near Ford’s Theatre. At about 10 p.m. he walked into the theater and up to the president’s box. Lincoln’s guard, John Parker, was not there because he had gotten bored with the play and left his post to get a beer. Booth easily slipped in and shot the president in the back of the head. The president’s friend, Major Rathbone, attempted to grab Booth but was slashed by Booth’s knife. Booth injured his leg badly when he jumped to the stage to escape, but he managed to hobble outside to his horse.
Meanwhile, Lewis Powell forced his way into William Seward’s house and stabbed the secretary of state several times before fleeing. Booth rode to Maryland with David Herold and stopped at the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who placed splints on Booth’s leg. They hid in a barn on Richard Garrett’s farm as thousands of Union troops combed the area looking for them. The other conspirators were captured, except for John Surratt, who fled to Canada.
When the troops finally caught up with Booth and Herold on April 26, they gave them the option of surrendering before the barn was burned down. Herold decided to surrender, but Booth remained in the barn as it went up in flames. Booth was then shot and killed in the burning barn by Corporal Boston Corbett. On July 7, George Atzerodt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and John Surratt’s mother, Mary, were hanged in Washington. The execution of Mary Surratt is believed by some to have been a miscarriage of justice. Although there was proof of Surratt’s involvement in the original abduction conspiracy, it is clear that her deeds were minor compared to those of the others who were executed.
Her son John was eventually tracked down in Egypt and brought back to trial, but he managed, with the help of clever lawyers, to win an acquittal.
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Rollingthunderremembered.com .
April 14
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
From Vietnam Air Losses site for ..April 14 . .
April 14: https://www.vietnamairlosses.com/loss.php?id=1084
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
The site works, find anyone you knew in “search" feature. https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/ )
By: Kipp Hanley
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From the list archives just about 10 years ago. This is worth the repeat just because it says a lot about who we were and what we did as Naval Aviators and I was proud to be one of them. I have read every one of his books and they are very entertaining…Skip
Thanks to The Bear
Naval Aviation…Intruder Reunion …San Diego, April 16, 2016
Reaching back a few years - thanks to THE Bear, who we hope is comfortable and safe on his mountain
Steven Coonts on Naval Aviation…Intruder Reunion Speech…San Diego, April 16, 2016
April 30, 2016Mighty Thunder0 Comments STEVEN COONTS ON NAVAL AVIATION…INTRUDER REUNION SPEECH…SAN DIEGO, APRIL 16, 2016
Ladies and gentlemen, friends, shipmates:
Naval Aviation, which for me was A-6 Intruders, was the great adventure of my life. It was one of those rare instances in life when the reality lives up to its advanced billing. Actually, the reality was better than anything I dreamed it could be. I have certainly had other great adventures, including marriage, the practice of law, fatherhood, civilian flying and writing. Still, naval aviation was…….
Well, let me tell you about it. I was awe-struck by my instructors in flight school. They were mostly fleet pilots doing an instructor tour, except for a few plow-backs who desperately wanted to get to the fleet, and many were combat veterans. They were really old, positively geriatric, in their mid-to late twenties mostly, with a few old crocks in their early thirties.
They were warm and fuzzy, touchy-feely guys. I remember one flight I had in basic training in a T-2 Buckeye, with an instructor who was trying to teach me the nuances of basic instruments. I was trying to make all those little needles behave and grossly over-controlling with a death grip on the stick when my instructor in the back seat grabbed the stick and started bucking the airplane. “You don’t have to be smart to do this,” he said, and whack, whack, whack, with the stick. “If I had any goddamn brains I wouldn’t be here.” Whack, whack, whack. “Now stop trying to squeeze the black juice out of the fuckin’ stick. Use your fingers.” Whack, whack, whack. “Your airplane.”
I thought those guys owned the ground they walked on, and I wanted to be one of them.
After the west coast RAG, VA-128, I reported to VA-196, the Main Battery. On our first cruise to WESTPAC aboard USS Enterprise, I realized that I had finally made it into this Band of Brothers, this fraternity of those who were willing and could and did. It was a self-selected group. All those who didn’t want it or couldn’t do it had dropped out, or been washed out or killed somewhere along the way.
A-6s were something special because they carried a crew of two. That meant the A-6 squadrons were large, with many diverse personalities. Later, when I tried to write a novel about the experience, that wonderful human zoo gave me plenty of inspiration.
No doubt your naval aviation adventures were very similar to mine. The young nugget pilots and BNs, the old fart lieutenant commanders, and the fossil commanders were almost universally from blue-collar or middle-class families. Naval Aviation was a step up in life for all of us. To my delight, I fit right in. I had grown up in a coal town in central West Virginia; I knew that no matter what happened, I didn’t want to spend the rest of my days grubbing out a meager living in the coalfields. That ambition kept me motivated all the way. Not that we were making big bucks in the Navy, because we weren’t. Still, we were all a part of something larger than we were individually; we served in the United States Navy and Marine Corps, and we served our nation.
Truthfully, I feel blessed that life gave me that opportunity. And I feel sorry for all of those young men who found a reason to take the easy course, who didn’t see or appreciate the challenges of naval aviation that demanded the best that was in them every single day, from flying, counseling sailors, pretending to give guidance to chiefs, wrestling with the supply system and the paperwork, to horsing around with friends in the ready room and ashore. Later, for me, came a flight instructor’s tour at VA-128 and a tour as an assistant catapult and arresting gear officer aboard USS Nimitz. Every day I was called upon to give the best I had.
I loved the Navy and would have probably stayed in until they kicked me out if I had only had a wife who was willing to share the adventure. Mine wasn’t. So after nine years of active duty I pulled the plug, went to law school, became a lawyer and ultimately got into writing.
It was in 1984, after a divorce, when I had plenty of spare time and absolutely no money, that I finally decided to put butt in chair and write that story of what naval aviation was like during my two Vietnam cruises. The flying, the dying, the fear, the exhilaration I felt in a cockpit with the stick and throttles in my hands and the rudder pedals beneath my feet, the insanity of the Vietnam War, the truly marvelous young men I shared it with… all of it. I only wish that I had been a better, more experienced writer, but I wasn’t. Still, I had lived it and tried to capture it. I was willing to fail. You can’t be a writer unless you are willing to fail.
Like every first novelist, I wrote nights and weekends. Unlike most, I then got lucky; The US Naval Institute was looking for a novel to follow Tom Clancy’s The Hunt For Red October. I had thirty-two rejections in hand when the Naval Institute accepted my little flying story, picked my manuscript from the 150 that had been submitted. The original working title was For Each Other. I thought that title worked rather well, because if we didn’t know what we were fighting for, at least we knew we were fighting for each other. The publisher thought that title smacked too much of a romance novel. They retitled it Flight of the Intruder, and to my absolute amazement, the novel stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 28 weeks.
Fools occasionally ask me if I was Jake Grafton, the hero of the tale. Of course not. The book was the lore of the time and place, and the characters were amalgams of all the people I met in naval aviation. I didn’t want to tell my story—I wanted to tell everyone’s story. One perceptive reviewer noted that all the characters in the book were flawed in some ways and heroes in others. Of course; they were human.
That is not to say I liked everyone I met along the way, because I am no saint and only a saint could do that. I met some jerks and I met some fantastic officers who rose to very high positions in the Navy. But most of the people I met were like me, serving their country, doing the best they could, and eventually, sooner or later, they left the service and got on with the rest of their lives. They were the same type of men who served with George Washington, with U.S. Grant, who fought in the trenches of France, who manned the destroyers and destroyer escorts in the Battle of the Atlantic, who went ashore on Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima, who manned SBDs and torpedo planes to hit the Japanese task force at Midway. I am so proud that I was one of them.
All of us carry Naval Aviation with us everywhere we go, every day.
Sometimes young men and women ask me if they should join the service. Yes, I always say. It isn’t a lifetime commitment. The experience will enrich your life if you treat every day as an adventure, not a career. If you spend your days sucking up to the boss while worrying about your fittie, you won’t enjoy the challenge and the people. Do something else. Go to truck driving school, or become a plumber, or a politician.
The success of Flight of the Intruder allowed me to become a professional novelist. I have been doing it for thirty years. So far, I have published 36 books: twenty-one solo novels, nine co-authored tales, one work of nonfiction, and five anthologies. One of my novels was published under a pen name, Eve Adams, The Garden of Eden. Three of my novels were actually semi-sci-fi, the Saucer trilogy. If you are a hard-core sci-fi fan, you will be disappointed. The three Saucer tales are flying stories, chase books mixed with political satire.
I am always a bit skeptical when someone tells me they have read everything I ever wrote, because very, very, few people ever found The Garden of Eden, no doubt because the publisher slapped a pen name on it and refused to tell anyone who wrote it. Like most of my old paperbacks, you can buy it on amazon for a penny plus shipping. If you can’t afford a penny for a really terrific book, you should probably get a job as a greeter at Walmart.
My latest literary crime is The Art of War, which was published in February in hardcover, audio and ebook formats. The Chinese plant a nuclear weapon in Norfolk to destroy the Atlantic Fleet, sort of Pearl Harbor II. Fortunately Jake Grafton and Tommy Carmellini manage to once again save the world as we know it from the forces of evil, which is the definition of a thriller.
People ask me, “Of all the books you have written, which is your favorite?” It’s always the next one. My next novel will be published just two months from now, on June 13th; Liberty’s Last Stand. It is perhaps the most politically incorrect book yet to be published in this century. Knowing naval aviators as I do, I think most of you are going to love it. It’s a big book, 178,000 words, a doorstop. President Barry Soetoro declares martial law, and Texas declares its independence. Texas is joined by a handful of other states, and what happens is another American Civil War. You will be delighted to hear that Jake Grafton and Tommy Carmellini manage to save America from its president. Liberty’s Last Stand, available in all formats on June 13. It’s available for preorder now online from amazon and Barnes & Noble, and from your favorite bookstore.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that if you are a fan or disciple of Barack Obama, you should probably avoid this book, which will raise your blood pressure to unacceptable levels.
And since writers write, perhaps I should tell you a little about my next two projects, both non-fiction. We are negotiating a contract for License to Kill, which I wrote with William B. Scott and Mike McDaniel. The manuscript is complete, almost, and will probably be published later this year or early next year. Unfortunately I can’t tell you any more about it at this time. We still have a few more people to talk to and don’t want the buzz to turn them off.
Aviation historian Barrett Tillman and I are in the early stages of writing a book about The Dragon’s Jaw: The Thanh Hoa Bridge. I was very reluctant to emotionally go back to Vietnam, so this project dragged for a couple of years. Finally I decided to suck it up and do it while I was still able and many of the men who flew the missions were still above ground to talk to. This evening I am soliciting your help. If you flew one or more missions against the Dragon’s Jaw, which wasn’t dropped into the Ma River until May 10, 1972, or against the associated rail-yard, barracks, SAM or flak sites, we would like to hear from you.
The best way to help would be for you to send me an email detailing your experiences, the squadron, your pilot or BN, the date, other planes involved, basically everything you can remember. I am especially interested in how the mission affected you. Where in the cruise did it come, were you especially worried, how was the flak and SAMs? What was memorable about the mission or missions? In other words, tell me more than date and target. Don’t think this is an English essay; I’ll write the story, that’s what they pay me for, but I need your thoughts and input to do that.
On every table tonight I have placed a stack of my cards. Grab one. It gives my email address and the coonts.com website, which also has an email address. If you lose the card, don’t sweat it. I am ridiculously easy to find; Coonts.com, or if you can’t remember that, and some of us pilots have trouble with the memory thing, which was why we flew with kneeboards and pencils and BNs, you can google me: Stephen Coonts. That will take you to the website, where you can hit the Contact Steve icon. All you have to do is remember how to spell my name. C-o-o-n-t-s.
Home | Stephen Coonts
NEW Release by Stephen Coonts. THE ART OF WAR. Stephen Coonts’ latest thriller, The Art of War, was published February 2, 2016, by St Martin’s Press. Steve has published more books since that time and THE DRAGON’S JAW with Barrett Tillman Tillman was exceptional
I’d like to close by telling you about a telephone conversation I had with a former A-6 pilot, Captain Sam Sayers, who flew eleven missions against the bridge, in Alpha strikes and single-plane night missions as a member of VA-85. Many of you will remember Captain Sam, who went on to command the Blue Blasters of VA-34, then the east coast RAG, VA-42. He and his BN Charlie Hawkins were once shot up near Vinh. He made it to the ocean, and when the plane, which was on fire, became uncontrollable, he and Charlie ejected. They were rescued from the ocean by an HU-16 Albatross from Da Nang. I met Sam when he was the technical adviser on the movie Flight of the Intruder and we became good friends and hunting buddies. As he once told me about the movie, “Don’t blame me. I would tell them that they had something wrong and the director would listen respectfully, then say, ‘Duly noted, but we’re making a movie. Now go find a chair in a corner and watch.
I suppose you have all seen the movie at one time or another. At the publicity blast for the opening, the director, John Milius, asked me if I would have done anything differently than he did. I would have opened the movie differently, I said. I would have had Jake and Morg fly the mission, take the bullet, and after landing back aboard ship, I would have had the camera linger on the scene of the corpsmen lifting the BN’s body from the cockpit as the opening credits ran, and I would have showed the blood. A cockpit full of blood, rich red blood, all over everything. The novel and the movie are about blood. As is naval aviation. As is war. The Intruder crews were American warriors riding the hard, sharp, deadly tip of the arrow. Some of them gave their lives, and some of them spent an early stint in hell as prisoners of the North Vietnamese.
I remember standing at my locker aboard Enterprise donning my flight gear for missions up north. Taking off my wedding ring, putting my wallet in the locker, knowing that I might be shot down, killed or captured. You had to be willing to die to do this. I was young, and perhaps foolish, but I was one of those idiots who would rather die than look bad, one of those who would rather die than let my shipmates down, those whose luck was not as good as mine, those who had gone before and paid the ultimate price.
I didn’t get shot down, and obviously I didn’t die. My luck was better than those who did, and believe me, it was only luck. So I tried to tell their story, your story, our story, for all of us. For Each Other.
But I digress……..
I ended my telephone call with Sam Sayers a few weeks ago with a question. “Knowing all you know now about naval aviation and the political mess that was the Vietnam War, if you had it to do over again, would you do it?”
Sam spoke for me, and perhaps all of us, when he said, “Hell, yes!”
Thank you… and God Bless America.
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Some bits and pieces from the Flyover
TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2026
Good Morning! On this day in 1902, James Cash Penney Jr., along with two partners, opened the 25-foot by 40-foot “Golden Rule Store” in the mining town of Kemmerer, Wyoming. Annual sales that year totaled $28,900 for what would later become the national chain of JCPenney stores.
Swalwell, Gonzales to Leave Congress
Two congressmen, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, both announced Monday that they’ll be leaving the House in the wake of misconduct investigations.
Swalwell said Monday that he will resign from Congress following sexual assault allegations from multiple women, accusations that also forced him to abandon his campaign for California governor.
One of Swalwell’s former staffers accused him of having sex with her when she was too intoxicated to consent. Three additional women described misconduct including unsolicited explicit messages and pressuring employees into intimate situations.
Not long after Swalwell’s statement, Gonzales announced that he would retire from the House. He faces an expulsion vote in the coming days stemming in part from his affair with a staffer who later died by suicide.
Under pressure from House GOP leadership, Gonzales ended his campaign for reelection in March after he admitted to the affair.
US Begins Blockade of Iranian Ports
The U.S. Navy on Monday began blockading Iranian ports and partially blockading the Strait of Hormuz after weekend peace talks in Pakistan collapsed, with Vice President JD Vance saying Iran refused to give up its nuclear ambitions.
Central Command said the blockade would be enforced against all vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports but would not impede ships transiting the strait to and from non-Iranian ports. Iran called the move piracy and warned that no Gulf ports would be safe if its own were threatened.
The U.K. said it would not support the blockade, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisting Britain would not be dragged into the war. France announced it would co-host a conference aimed at a separate multinational mission to reopen the strait.
Oil prices jumped nearly 8% Monday, with both Brent and WTI crude topping $100 a barrel. Pakistan is pushing to get the two sides back to the table before the current ceasefire expires next week.
Ranking: States Attracting the Most Tourists
Just four states attracted 57% of all overseas visitors to the U.S. in 2024, according to data from the National Travel and Tourism Office.
New York led with 9.8 million international tourists, followed by Florida (8.9 million), California (7 million), and Nevada (2.6 million).
Las Vegas helped Nevada punch well above its weight compared to far larger states like Texas (2.1 million) and Illinois (1.4 million). Hawaii also stood out, drawing nearly 2 million overseas visitors, more than its entire population of 1.4 million.
Nebraska and Mississippi tied as the second-lowest at just 49,000 visitors each, behind only Delaware at 42,000. Distance from the coasts and limited airport connectivity helped explain the gap. See the full map here.
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From the archives
Thanks to John
Skip,
According to JIMMY STEWART - Bomber Pilot, he was the C.O. of the 703rd Bomber Squadron from November 1943 to March 1944. He was then transferred to the 445th Bombardment Group at Old Buckingham (Old Bus) as the Operations Officer.
That can be confirmed in the soon to be released book Diary of A Bomber Pilot - A B-24 Pilot and His Bride. The young 20 year old pilot ws assigned the Group duty one night when the Ops Officer, Jimmy Stewart, stayed up and wrote the Operations Order for the next day’s mission. Jimmy told him to “go lay down on the cot and get some rest. There’s no use both of us staying up all night” but the young second lieutenant stayed awake all night and just watched him. Stewart had already won an Oscar by the time he entered the Army.
The lieutenant, Jim Workman - my father in law, wrote the diary to his bride as it would probably not be censored when it was returned to her after he was a POW or killed (it got mushy).
I’ll let you know when it comes out.
John
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This Day in U S Military History…….April 14
1918 – Six days after being assigned for the first time to the western front, two American pilots from the U.S. First Aero Squadron engaged in America’s first aerial dogfight with enemy aircraft. In a battle fought almost directly over the Allied Squadron Aerodome at Toul, France, U.S. fliers Douglas Campbell and Alan Winslow succeeded in shooting down two German two-seaters. By the end of May, Campbell had shot down five enemy aircraft, making him the first American to qualify as a “flying ace” in World War I. The First Aero Squadron, organized in 1914 after the outbreak of World War I, undertook its first combat mission on March 19, 1917, in support of the 7,000 U.S. troops that invaded Mexico to capture Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. Despite numerous mechanical and navigational problems, the American fliers flew hundreds of scouting missions for U.S. Brigadier General John J. Pershing and gained important experience that would later be used over the battlefields of Europe in World War I.
1942 – The American destroyer Roper sinks German U-boat U-85. This is the first sinking of an German submarine by an American ship.
1945 – Robert Dole, later US senator and 1996 presidential candidate, was severely crippled by an artillery shell. During World War II, Robert Dole served in the 85th Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division. While stationed in Italy he participated in Operation Craftsman where he was wounded during a firefight with German troops. Dole spent nearly 40 months in army hospitals and lost most of the use of his right arm as a result.
1945 – US 7th Army and allies forces captured Nuremberg and Stuttgart, Germany. The US 3rd Army captures Bayreuth.
1945 – Reichsfuhrer SS Himmler orders that no prisoners at Dachau “shall be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy alive.”
1945 – Allied forces conduct Operation Teardrop. Two carrier task groups carry out an extensive search for Seewolf U-boats suspected of transporting V2 rockets to be launched against New York City.
1945 – The US 14th Corps continues its advance onto the Bicol Peninsula in the southwest of Luzon. Calauag is taken. In north Luzon, US 1st Corps continues attacking near Baguio but fails to make significant progress.
1945 – Japanese Kamikaze attacks damage the battleship USS New York. On Okinawa, American forces attack strong Japanese defenses in the hilly Motobu Peninsula in the north.
1945 – B-29’s damaged the Imperial Palace during firebombing raid over Tokyo.
1945 – The Fifth Army, now under Lucian K. Truscott (General Mark Clark, former commander of the Fifth, was made commander of the Allied armies in Italy), began pushing its way up the peninsula, capturing Massa and crossing the Frigido River. After meeting considerable German resistance in the mountains, the Fifth sent the Germans running once the battle took to open country. Bologna became the next target, falling to the Fifth one week after engaging the enemy in Italy. Ferrara, Bondeno, and Modena succumbed shortly thereafter, Genoa on the 27th, and Milan on the 29th–an agenda of assaults that mimicked Napoleon’s Italian campaigns. Helping the U.S. effort was the work of Italian guerilla partisan groups, who had successfully taken control of the area west of the Como-Milan-Genoa line. By the time of the unconditional surrender of the Germans, signed at Caserta on April 29, almost 660,000 Axis troops lay dead–compared with 321,000 Allied dead.
1975 – The American airlift of Vietnamese orphans to the United States ends after 2,600 children are transported to America. The operation began disastrously on April 4 when an Air Force cargo jet crashed shortly after take-off from Tan Son Nhut airbase in Saigon. More than 138 of the passengers, mostly children, were killed. Operation Baby Lift was initiated to bring South Vietnamese orphans to the United States for adoption by American parents. Baby Lift lasted 10 days and was carried out during the final, desperate phase of the war, as North Vietnamese forces were closing in on Saigon. Although the first flight ended in tragedy, all other flights took place without incident, and Baby Lift aircraft ferried orphans across the Pacific until the mission concluded on April 14, only 16 days before the fall of Saigon and the end of the war.
1988 – The USS Samuel B. Roberts strikes a mine in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will. The Roberts had arrived in the Persian Gulf and was heading for a refueling rendezvous with USS San Jose on 14 April when the ship struck an M-08 naval mine in the central Persian Gulf, an area she had safely transited a few days previously. The mine blew a 15-foot (5 m) hole in the hull, flooded the engine room, and knocked the two gas turbines from their mounts. The blast also broke the keel of the ship; such structural damage is almost always fatal to most vessels. The crew fought fire and flooding for five hours and saved the ship. Among other steps, sailors cinched cables on the cracked superstructure in an effort to stabilize it. She used her auxiliary thrusters to get out of the mine field at 5kts. She never lost combat capability with her radars and Mk13 missile launcher. Ten sailors were medevaced by HC-5 CH-46s embarked in USS San Jose for injuries sustained in the blast, six returned to the Roberts in a day or so. Four burn victims were sent for treatment to a military hospital in Germany, and eventually to medical facilities in the United States. Four days later, U.S. forces retaliated against Iran in Operation Praying Mantis, a one-day campaign that was the largest American surface engagement since World War II. U.S. ships, aircraft, and troops destroyed two Iranian oil platforms allegedly used to control Iranian naval forces in the Persian Gulf, sank one Iranian frigate, damaged another, and sent at least three armed, high-speed boats to the bottom. The U.S. lost one Marine helicopter and its crew of two airmen in what appeared to be a night maneuver accident rather than a result of hostile operations.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
JORDAN, ROBERT
Rank and organization: Coxswain, U.S. Navy. Born: 1826, New York, N.Y. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 17, 10 July 1863. Citation: Attached to the U.S.S. Minnesota and temporarily serving on the U.S.S. Mount Washington, during action against the enemy in the Nansemond River, 14 April 1863. When the Mount Washington drifted against the bank following several successive hits which struck her boilers and stopped her engines, Jordan boarded the stricken vessel and, for 6 hours as fierce artillery and musketry continued to rake her decks, calmly assisted in manning a 12-pound howitzer which had been mounted on the open hurricane deck.
SIMONDS, WILLIAM EDGAR
Rank and organization: Sergeant Major, 25th Connecticut Infantry. Place and date: At Irish Bend, La., 14 April 1863. Entered service at: Canton, Conn. Birth: ——. Date of issue: 25 February 1899. Citation. Displayed great gallantry, under a heavy fire from the enemy, in calling in the skirmishers and assisting in forming the line of battle.
THIELBERG, HENRY
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1833, Germany. Accredited to: Massachusetts. G.O. No.: 17, 10 July 1863. Citation: Serving temporarily on board the U.S.S. Mount Washington during the Nansemond River action, 14 April 1863. After assisting in hauling up and raising the flagstaff, Thielberg volunteered to go up on the pilothouse and observe the movements of the enemy and although 3 shells struck within a few inches of his head, remained at his post until ordered to descend.
WOOD, ROBERT B.
Rank and organization: Coxswain, U.S. Navy. Born: New Garden Ohio. Accredited to: Ohio. G.O. No.: 17, 10 July 1863. Citation: Attached to the U.S.S. Minnesota and temporarily serving on the U.S.S. Mount Washington, during action against the enemy in the Nansemond River, 14 April 1863. When the U.S.S. Mount Washington drifted against the bank and all men were driven from the decks by escaping steam following several successive hits which struck her boilers and stopped her engines, Wood boarded the stricken vessel and, despite a strike on the head by a spent ball, continued at his gun for 6 hours as fierce artillery and musketry continued to rake her decks.
WOODS, SAMUEL
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1835, California. Accredited to. California. G.O. No.: 17, 10 July 1863. Citation: As captain of the gun, serving temporarily on board the U.S.S. Mount Washington, during the Nansemond River action, 14 April 1863. When one of his comrades was struck by a bullet and knocked overboard, Woods fearlessly jumped into the water and swam after him. Before he reached him, the man sank beneath the surface and Woods promptly swam back to the vessel, went to his gun, and fought it to the close of the action. At the close of the battle, he tirelessly cared for the wounded.
*MAGRATH, JOHN D.
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company G, 85th Infantry, 10th Mountain Division. Place and date: Near Castel d’Aiano, Italy, 14 April 1945. Entered service at: East Norwalk, Conn. Birth: East Norwalk, Conn. G.O. No.: 71, 17 July 1946. Citation: He displayed conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty when his company was pinned down by heavy artillery, mortar, and small arms fire, near Castel d’Aiano, Italy. Volunteering to act as a scout, armed with only a rifle, he charged headlong into withering fire, killing 2 Germans and wounding 3 in order to capture a machinegun. Carrying this enemy weapon across an open field through heavy fire, he neutralized 2 more machinegun nests; he then circled behind 4 other Germans, killing them with a burst as they were firing on his company. Spotting another dangerous enemy position to this right, he knelt with the machinegun in his arms and exchanged fire with the Germans until he had killed 2 and wounded 3. The enemy now poured increased mortar and artillery fire on the company’s newly won position. Pfc. Magrath fearlessly volunteered again to brave the shelling in order to collect a report of casualties. Heroically carrying out this task, he made the supreme sacrifice–a climax to the valor and courage that are in keeping with highest traditions of the military service.
STREET, GEORGE LEVICK, III
Rank and organization: Commander, U.S. Navy, U.S.S. Tirante. Place and date: Harbor of Quelpart Island, off the coast of Korea, 14 April 1945. Entered service at. Virginia. Born: 27 July 1913, Richmond, Va. Other Navy awards: Navy Cross, Silver Star with 1 Gold Star. Citation. For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Tirante during the first war patrol of that vessel against enemy Japanese surface forces in the harbor of Quelpart Island, off the coast of Korea, on 14 April 1945. With the crew at surface battle stations, Comdr. (then Lt. Comdr.) Street approached the hostile anchorage from the south within 1,200 yards of the coast to complete a reconnoitering circuit of the island. Leaving the 10-fathom curve far behind he penetrated the mined and shoal-obstructed waters of the restricted harbor despite numerous patrolling vessels and in defiance of 5 shore-based radar stations and menacing aircraft. Prepared to fight it out on the surface if attacked, Comdr. Street went into action, sending 2 torpedoes with deadly accuracy into a large Japanese ammunition ship and exploding the target in a mountainous and blinding glare of white flames. With the Tirante instantly spotted by the enemy as she stood out plainly in the flare of light, he ordered the torpedo data computer set up while retiring and fired his last 2 torpedoes to disintegrate in quick succession the leading frigate and a similar flanking vessel. Clearing the gutted harbor at emergency full speed ahead, he slipped undetected along the shoreline, diving deep as a pursuing patrol dropped a pattern of depth charges at the point of submergence. His illustrious record of combat achievement during the first war patrol of the Tirante characterizes Comdr. Street as a daring and skilled leader and reflects the highest credit upon himself, his valiant command, and the U.S. Naval Service.
*DUNHAM, JASON L.
Rank and Organization: Corporal, United States Marine CorpsFor conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as Rifle Squad Leader, 4th Platoon, Company K, Third Battalion, Seventh Marines (Reinforced), Regimental Combat Team 7, First Marine Division (Reinforced), on 14 April 2004. Corporal Dunham’s squad was conducting a reconnaissance mission in the town of Karabilah, Iraq, when they heard rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire erupt approximately two kilometers to the west. Corporal Dunham led his Combined Anti-Armor Team towards the engagement to provide fire support to their Battalion Commander’s convoy, which had been ambushed as it was traveling to Camp Husaybah. As Corporal Dunham and his Marines advanced, they quickly began to receive enemy fire. Corporal Dunham ordered his squad to dismount their vehicles and led one of his fire teams on foot several blocks south of the ambushed convoy. Discovering seven Iraqi vehicles in a column attempting to depart, Corporal Dunham and his team stopped the vehicles to search them for weapons. As they approached the vehicles, an insurgent leaped out and attacked Corporal Dunham. Corporal Dunham wrestled the insurgent to the ground and in the ensuing struggle saw the insurgent release a grenade. Corporal Dunham immediately alerted his fellow Marines to the threat. Aware of the imminent danger and without hesitation, Corporal Dunham covered the grenade with his helmet and body, bearing the brunt of the explosion and shielding his Marines from the blast. In an ultimate and selfless act of bravery in which he was mortally wounded, he saved the lives of at least two fellow Marines. By his undaunted courage, intrepid fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty, Corporal Dunham gallantly gave his life for his country, thereby reflecting great credit upon himself and upholding the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for April 14, FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD “PHIL” MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
14 April
1917: The Navy’s first guided missile effort began when the Naval Consulting Board recommended a $50,000 payment to test aerial torpedoes--automatically controlled airplanes or aerial machines carrying high explosives--to the Navy Secretary. (24)
1918: Lts Douglas Campbell and Alan F. Winslow, flying Nieuport 28s of the 94th Pursuit Squadron, shot down the first two enemy aircraft in a 10-minute battle over Toul Airdrome on the first day of U.S combat operations in World War I. (4) (20)
1918: Capt. Edward V. Rickenbacker flies his first combat mission in France. He will become America’s “Ace of Aces” during WW I.
1929: The patent application is made for the “pilot maker” flight trainer by inventor Edward Albert Link. Link's first military sales came because of the Air Mail scandal, when the Army Air Corps took over carriage of U.S. Air Mail. Twelve pilots were killed in a 78-day period due to their unfamiliarity with Instrument Flying Conditions. The Link Trainer will become an essential part of every pilot’s training before the Second World War begins.
1936: Boris Sergievsky set a 24,950.712-foot world altitude record and a world record for amphibians with a payload of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) at Stratford using a Sikorsky S-43. (24)
1940: First Air Corps detachment assigned to an Alaskan station arrived at Fairbanks, Alaska. (24)
1952: KOREAN WAR. The first AFRES wing ordered to active duty service, the 403d Troop Carrier Wing (Medium), arrived at Ashiya AB, Japan. An SA-16 from the 3 ARS, while under enemy small arms fire from the shoreline, rescued a U.S. naval aviator from the water. (28)
1960: The US Navy’s first underwater launch of a Polaris missile, from a depth of 200 feet off San Clemente Island, achieved a surface ignition. (24) Through 16 June, TAC’s first RB-66C quarterly rotation to Europe, called Swamp Fox, took place. 1962: Lt Col Leland F. Wilhelm (USA) set a world time-to-climb record by flying a YHU-ID Iroquois helicopter to 9,843 feet in 2 minutes 14.6 seconds. (24)
1966: The C-141A’s first airdrops from an altitude below 1,200 feet were made at Fort Bragg. The aircraft made “jeep size” drops from 700 feet. (18) 1970: The Minuteman III deployment in North Dakota began when Minot’s 91 SMW accepted its first missile. It arrived on board a C-141 in a flight from Hill AFB in the first airlift of an operational Minuteman III. (6) (16)
1972: BATTLE OF AN LOC. Through 30 June, C-130s airdropped 4,853 tons in 359 sorties to the besieged garrison at An Loc to prevent a North Vietnamese take over. The C-130s used high altitude airdrops for the first time to resupply US forces. By the time the road routes to An Loc reopened on 23 July, the C-130s had flown 763 sorties to deliver 10,081 tons of supplies. B-52 attacks provided essential close air support to embattled troops in An Loc. (18)
1986: Operation EL DORADO CANYON. The US retaliated against Libya for its involvement in terrorism with an airstrike, using 24 F-111s from RAF Lakenheath, five EF-111s from RAF Upper Heyford and Navy aircraft from the USS America and USS Coral Sea (14 A-6Es, six A-7s and six F/A-18s). In the mission, the aircraft successfully hit targets at Benina Airfield, Benghazi Military Barracks, and Aziziyah Barracks in Tripoli. The USAF lost an F-111 in the attack. Air refueling support came from 28 KC-10 Extenders and KC-135 Stratotankers, flying out of RAF Fairford and RAF Mildenhall. The tankers refueled the F-111 strike force four times, maintaining radio silence during the entire mission. On the return flight to the UK, the tankers refueled the F-111s two more times. (16) (26)
1999: Operation NORTHERN WATCH. Through 15 April, New York’s 107 AREFW deployed nearly 100 members and 4 KC-135Rs to Turkey for a month with this operation. They teamed up there with New Hampshire's 157 AREFW. (32)
2000: Through 15 April, the Global Hawk UAV set a new unofficial record for its weight class by completing a 31.5-hour endurance mission. The Compass Cope-R remotely piloted vehicle held the previous record of 28.2 hours for 26 years. (3)
2006: An AFFTC crew flew an F-22 Raptor at Edwards AFB for the first time with an AIM-120D Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile. The test determined the effects of noise and vibration on the missile while still under development. (3)
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