TheList 5298

The List 5298 TGB


Good Wednesday Morning April 29.A lot of history and some tidbits. Also with regret our Bubba Breakfast for this Friday is cancelled.

Regards,

skip



This day in Naval History April 29

1814 American sloop USS Peacock and HMS Epervier engage in battle. Peacock takes two 32-pound shots in her fore-yard with the first exchange, but her return broadside smashes most of Eperviers rigging and guns. After 45 minutes, Epervier is captured. The battle is hailed as a tribute of American gunnery as Epervier has 45 shot holes in her port side.



1944 Task Force 58 begins a two-day attack on Japanese shipping, oil and ammunition dumps, aircraft facilities, and other installations at Truk following the support of the Hollandia landings in the Pacific.



1944 USS Pogy (SS 266) sinks the Japanese submarine I 183, 30 miles south of Ashizuri Saki, Japan.



1945 USS Comfort (AH 6) is hit by a kamikaze plane off Okinawa, which kills 28 persons (including six nurses), wounds48 others, and causes considerable damage.



1961 USS Kitty Hawk (CVA 63), an oil-fired aircraft carrier, is commissioned at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.



1975 Commander Task Force 76 receives the order to execute Operation Frequent Wind (initially Talon Vise), the evacuation of U.S. personnel and Vietnamese who might suffer as a result of their past service to the allied effort.



2009 A destroyer formerly known as USS Conolly (DD 979) is sunk during the UNITAS Gold sinking exercise in the Atlantic Ocean.



Thanks to CHINFO

Executive Summary:

• Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition James Geurts said the Navy has infused $600 million into the shipbuilding industrial base, multiple outlets report.

• Multiple outlets report that USS Kidd arrived in San Diego where its crew will begin off-ship quarantine and isolation.

• The Associated Press reports that USS Theodore Roosevelt Sailors who have been quarantined on Guam began moving back to the carrier Tuesday night.

.

.What Happened This Day In History April 29



1289 Qalawun, the Sultan of Egypt, captures Tripoli.

1429 Joan of Arc leads French forces to victory over English at Orleans.

1624 Louis XIII appoints Cardinal Richelieu chief minister of the Royal Council of France.

1661 The Chinese Ming dynasty occupies Taiwan.

1672 King Louis XIV of France invades the Netherlands.

1813 Rubber is patented.

1852 The first edition of Peter Roget's Thesaurus is published.

1856 Yokut Indians repel a second attack by the 'Petticoat Rangers,' a band of civilian Indian fighters at Four Creeks, California.

1858 Austrian troops invade Piedmont.

1859 As the French army races to support them and the Austrian army mobilizes to oppose them, 150,000 Piedmontese troops invade Piedmontese territory.

1861 The Maryland House of Delegates votes against seceding from Union.

1862 Forts Philip and Jackson surrender to Admiral David Farragut outside New Orleans.

1913 Gideon Sundback of Hoboken patents the all-purpose zipper.

1916 Irish nationalists surrender to the British in Dublin.

1918 America's WWI Ace of Aces, Eddie Rickenbacker, scores his first victory with the help of Captain James Norman Hall.

1924 Open revolt breaks out in Santa Clara, Cuba.

1927 Construction of the Spirit of St. Louis is completed.

1930 The film All Quiet on the Western Front, based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel Im Western Nichts Neues, premiers.

1945 The Nazi concentration camp of Dachau is liberated by Allied troops.

1945 The German Army in Italy surrenders unconditionally to the Allies.

1946 Former Japanese leaders are indicted in Tokyo as war criminals.

1975 The U.S. embassy in Vietnam is evacuated as North Vietnamese forces fight their way into Saigon.

1983 Harold Washington is sworn in as Chicago's first black mayor.

1992 Four Los Angeles police offices are acquitted of charges stemming from the beating of Rodney King. Rioting ensues.



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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS

FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR APRIL 29

THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY



1898: The first joint Army-Navy board on aeronautics submitted a report on Professor Samuel P.

Langley's flying machine (at that time a model with a 12-foot wing span) to the War Department.

The report favored further support for Professor Langley's experiments. (29) (See 25

March 1898)



1905: Using the Montgomery Glider, Daniel Malony began a series of glides. He took off from captive

balloons. (24)



1918: Lt Edward V. Rickenbacker, who became the leading American ace of World War I, downed

his first aircraft. (4)



1926: Ward T. Van Orman and W. W. Morton won the National Balloon Race at Little Rock by flying

848 miles to Petersburg, Va. (24)



1931: The Boeing XB-901 first flew.



1946: Bell Aircraft Corp. received a contract to research and design a 100-mile range subsonic air-to surface

missile. It later became the Rascal. (6) (24)



1960: NASA's first test firing of all eight first-stage rocket engines on the Saturn produced 1,300,000

pounds of thrust. (24)



1965: Operation POWER PACK. The USAF used C-130s and C-124s to airlift 12,000 troops and

17,250 tons of equipment and supplies from Pope AFB to San Isidro, Dominican Republic. The

airlift, as part of the operation, allowed the US to restore stability to the Caribbean island nation

and prevent unfriendly elements from taking it over. Reserve transports and ANG communications

aircraft also joined USAF fighters and reconnaissance aircraft in the operation. (21)

The Air Force initiated the F-X (later F-15) program by directing AFSC to begin efforts toward

acquiring a new tactical fighter. (30)



1967: President Johnson gave the go-ahead to build two prototype supersonic jet transports that could

carry 300 passengers at 1,750 MPH. Boeing built the airframe and General Electric the engines

at a total cost of $1.144 billion.



1970: APOLLO XI/THOMAS D. WHITE TROPHY. Neil A. Armstrong, and Cols Edwin W. Aldrin

and Michael Collins received the trophy for the outstanding scientific and technological accomplishment

in achieving the first landing of man on the moon. (See 6 May 1970). (5) (16)



1972: A C-141 airlifted 394 South Vietnamese refugees fleeing a Communist invasion of the Central

Highlands to Tan Son Nhut AB. The passenger total was the greatest number transported on a

C-141 to date. (18)



1974: SECDEF James R. Schlesinger redirected the lightweight fighter program as a competition between

the YF-16 and YF-17 to become the new air combat fighter for the Air Force. (3)



1975: Operation NEW LIFE. Just before the fall of South Vietnam, MAC moved the last of 50,493

refugees from Saigon to safe haven bases in the Pacific on 201 C-141 and C-130 missions. Air

Rescue and Recovery Service HH-53 helicopters airlifted another 362 evacuees from Saigon to

the USS Midway. (2) (16) (18)



Operation NEW ARRIVAL. Through 16 September, MAC used 196 C-141s and C-130s to

airlift 31,155 Vietnamese refugees from the Philippines to Guam, while commercial contract

carriers began an effort to move 121,560 refugees from SEA to the US. (18) (21)



Operation FREQUENT WIND. Through 30 April, USAF, Marine, and Navy helicopters

airlifted 6,000-plus people in the final evacuation of Saigon. This was the first major operation

involving flights of USAF helicopters from an aircraft carrier, the USS Midway. (21)



1976: Through 15 May, USAFE aircrews participated in the first Allied Air Forces Center Europe

Tactical Weapons Meet at Twenthe AB, Netherlands. (16) (26)



1983: First multinational staged improvement program modified F-16B flight accepted. (12)



1985: In the seventh Challenger mission, the Space Shuttle carried Spacelab-3 in the cargo bay. It returned

to earth on 6 May.Through 17 May, USAFE units at Spangdahlem AB participated in Exercise Salty Demo, the

first integrated basewide effort to measure all facets of an air base's ability to survive attacks

and generate post-attack sorties. (26)



1986: Through 7 May, MAC's Weather reconnaissance squadrons carried over 700 air sample containers

from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in the Soviet Union to the Air Force

Technical Applications Center at McClellan AFB, Calif. (16)



1993: The Rockwell X-31A EFM Demonstrator made the first high-angle-of-attack, post-stall, 180-

degree turn known as the Herbst Manuever. The aircraft made the turn in a 475-foot radius.

(20)



2006: A C-17 flew 110 Iraqi children, along with 97 parents and escorts, from Amman, Jordan, to

Baghdad International Airport, Iraq, in support of "Operation Smile," an international, nongovernmental

organization that provides corrective facial surgery for children. Secretary ofDefense Donald H. Rumsfeld approved the C-17 flight to keep the group from having to travel 22 hours by bus from Amman to Baghdad through Iraq's volatile western provinces. (22)



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"This Day in Aviation History" brought to you by the Daedalians Airpower Blog Update. To subscribe to this weekly email, go to https://daedalians.org/airpower-blog/.

April 26, 1962

At Lake Groom, Nevada, Louis W. "Lou" Schalk Jr. made the first of 13 flights in the A-12, which was the prototype for later versions of the Blackbird, including the SR-71. He reached a top speed of 2,287 mph and altitudes that exceeded 90,000 feet.



April 27, 1939

In Washington, D.C., the Army Air Corps places an order for the first production batch of Lockheed P-38 Lightnings.



April 28, 1919

American Leslie Irvin made the first jump from an airplane using a free-type (to be opened at will by a rip-chord) backpack parachute and landed at McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio. The parachute was designed by Floyd Smith.



April 29, 1918

Capt. Edward V. "Eddie" Rickenbacker, Daedalian Founder Member #169, assists downing a German Albatros scout craft over Toul, France and receives half credit for the kill. A former racecar driver, he originally reached France as Gen. John J. Pershing's chauffeur, but volunteered for combat.



April 30, 1917

In Europe, Capt. William "Billy" Mitchell, Daedalian Founder Member #12595, becomes the first officer of the Army Air Service to fly over enemy territory in a French aircraft.



May 1, 1934

Navy Lt. Frank Akers made a hooded landing in an OJ-2 observation biplane at College Park, Maryland, in the first demonstration of the blind landing system intended for carrier use and under development by the Washington Institute of Technology. In subsequent flights Akers took off under a hood from NAS Anacostia, D.C., and landed at College Park without assistance.



May 2, 1923

From May 2-3, 1923, Lieutenants John A. Macready and Oakley G. Kelly completed the first nonstop, transcontinental flight across the U.S. in a Fokker T-2. The mission originated at Roosevelt Field, New York, and lasted 26 hours and 50 minutes, traversing 2,500 miles. They were greeted at Rockwell Field in San Diego by an estimated 100,000 spectators upon arrival. Kelly was Daedalian Founder Member #34. Macready was Founder Member #469; learn more about him HERE.



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This day in American Military History

1781 – British and French ships clash in the Battle of Fort Royal off the coast of Martinique. The Battle of Fort Royal was a naval battle fought off Fort Royal, Martinique in the West Indies during the American War of Independence between fleets of the British Royal Navy and the French Navy. After an engagement lasting four hours, the British squadron under Sir Samuel Hood broke off and retreated. De Grasse offered a desultory chase before seeing the French convoys safely to port.

1862 – Union troops officially take possession of New Orleans, completing the occupation that had begun four days earlier. The capture of this vital southern city was a huge blow to the Confederacy. Southern military strategists planned for a Union attack down the Mississippi, not from the Gulf of Mexico. In early 1862, the Confederates concentrated their forces in northern Mississippi and western Tennessee to stave off the Yankee invasion. Many of these troops fought at Shiloh on April 6 and 7. Eight Rebel gunboats were dispatched up the great river to stop a Union flotilla above Memphis, leaving only 3,000 militia, two uncompleted ironclads, and a few steamboats to defend New Orleans. The most imposing obstacles for the Union were two forts, Jackson and St. Phillip. In the middle of the night of April 24, Admiral David Farragut led a fleet of 24 gunboats, 19 mortar boats, and 15,000 soldiers large fleet of ships in a daring run past the forts. Now, the River was open to New Orleans except for the rag-tag Confederate fleet. The mighty Union armada plowed right through, sinking eight ships. At New Orleans, Confederate General Mansfield Lovell surveyed his tiny force and realized that resistance was futile. If he resisted, Lovell told Mayor John Monroe, Farragut would bombard the city and inflict severe damage and casualties. Lovell pulled his troops out of New Orleans and the Yankees began arriving on April 25. The troops could not land until Forts Jackson and St. Phillip were secured. They surrendered on April 29, and now New Orleans had no protection. Crowds cursed the Yankees as all Confederate flags in the city were lowered and stars and stripes were raised in their place. The Confederacy lost a major city, and the lower Mississippi soon became a Union highway for 400 miles to Vicksburg, Mississippi.

1945 – U.S. Seventh Army's 45th Infantry Division liberates Dachau, the first concentration camp established by Germany's Nazi regime. A major Dachau subcamp was liberated the same day by the 42nd Rainbow Division. Established five weeks after Adolf Hitler took power as German chancellor in 1933, Dachau was situated on the outskirts of the town of Dachau, about 10 miles northwest of Munich. During its first year, the camp held about 5,000 political prisoners, consisting primarily of German communists, Social Democrats, and other political opponents of the Nazi regime. During the next few years, the number of prisoners grew dramatically, and other groups were interned at Dachau, including Jehovah's Witnesses, Gypsies, homosexuals, and repeat criminals. Beginning in 1938, Jews began to comprise a major portion of camp internees. Prisoners at Dachau were used as forced laborers, initially in the construction and expansion of the camp and later for German armaments production. The camp served as the training center for SS concentration camp guards and was a model for other Nazi concentration camps. Dachau was also the first Nazi camp to use prisoners as human guinea pigs in medical experiments. At Dachau, Nazi scientists tested the effects of freezing and changes to atmospheric pressure on inmates, infected them with malaria and tuberculosis and treated them with experimental drugs, and forced them to test methods of making seawater potable and of halting excessive bleeding. Hundreds of prisoners died or were crippled as a result of these experiments. Thousands of inmates died or were executed at Dachau, and thousands more were transferred to a Nazi extermination center near Linz, Austria, when they became too sick or weak to work. In 1944, to increase war production, the main camp was supplemented by dozens of satellite camps established near armaments factories in southern Germany and Austria. These camps were administered by the main camp and collectively called Dachau. With the advance of Allied forces against Germany in April 1945, the Germans transferred prisoners from concentration camps near the front to Dachau, leading to a general deterioration of conditions and typhus epidemics. On April 27, 1945, approximately 7,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced to begin a death march from Dachau to Tegernsee, far to the south. The next day, many of the SS guards abandoned the camp. On April 29, the Dachau main camp was liberated by units of the 45th Infantry after a brief battle with the camp's remaining guards. As they neared the camp, the Americans found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies in various states of decomposition. Inside the camp there were more bodies and 30,000 survivors, most severely emaciated. Some of the American troops who liberated Dachau were so appalled by conditions at the camp that they machine-gunned at least two groups of captured German guards. It is officially reported that 30 SS guards were killed in this fashion, but conspiracy theorists have alleged that more than 10 times that number were executed by the American liberators. The German citizens of the town of Dachau were later forced to bury the 9,000 dead inmates found at the camp. In the course of Dachau's history, at least 160,000 prisoners passed through the main camp, and 90,000 through the subcamps. Incomplete records indicate that at least 32,000 of the inmates perished at Dachau and its subcamps, but countless more were shipped to extermination camps elsewhere.
1945 – The unofficial surrender of German forces in Italy is signed at Caserta. The German representatives are present here because of a secret negotiation between the head of the OSS mission in Switzerland, Allan Dulles, and SS General Wolff. These talks have been going on since much earlier in the year, but because of their clandestine nature, the German representatives at Caserta cannot guarantee that the surrender will be ratified by Vietinghoff, commanding German forces in Italy.
1945 – Adolf Hitler marries his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designates Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor. Both Hitler and Braun commit suicide the following day. Eva Braun met Hitler while employed as an assistant to Hitler's official photographer. Of a middle-class Catholic background, Braun spent her time with Hitler out of public view, entertaining herself by skiing and swimming. She had no discernible influence on Hitler's political career but provided a certain domesticity to the life of the dictator. Loyal to the end, she refused to leave the Berlin bunker buried beneath the chancellery as the Russians closed in. The couple was married only hours before they both committed suicide.

1970 – U.S. and South Vietnamese forces launch a limited "incursion" into Cambodia. The campaign included 13 major ground operations to clear North Vietnamese sanctuaries 20 miles inside the Cambodian border. Some 50,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and 30,000 U.S. troops were involved, making it the largest operation of the war since Operation Junction City in 1967. The operation began with South Vietnamese forces attacking into the "Parrot's Beak" area of Cambodia that projects into South Vietnam above the Mekong Delta. During the first two days, an 8,000-man South Vietnamese task force, including two infantry divisions, four ranger battalions, and four armored cavalry squadrons, killed 84 communist soldiers while suffering 16 dead and 157 wounded. The second stage of the campaign began on May 2 with a series of joint U.S.-South Vietnamese operations. These operations were aimed at clearing communist sanctuaries located in the densely vegetated "Fishhook" area of Cambodia (across the border from South Vietnam, immediately north of Tay Ninh Province and west of Binh Long Province, 70 miles from Saigon). The U.S. 1st Cavalry Division and 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, along with the South Vietnamese 3rd Airborne Brigade, killed 3,190 communists in the action and captured massive amounts of war booty, including 2,000 individual and crew-served weapons, 300 trucks, and 40 tons of foodstuffs. By the time all U.S. ground forces had departed Cambodia on June 30, the Allied forces had discovered and captured or destroyed 10 times more enemy supplies and equipment than they had captured inside South Vietnam during the entire previous year. Many intelligence analysts at the time believed that the Cambodian incursion dealt a stunning blow to the communists, driving main force units away from the border and damaging their morale, and in the process buying as much as a year for South Vietnam's survival. However, the incursion gave the antiwar movement in the United States a new rallying point. News of the incursion set off a wave of antiwar demonstrations, including one at Kent State University that resulted in the killing of four students by Army National Guard troops and another at Jackson State in Mississippi that resulted in the shooting of two students when police opened fire on a women's dormitory. The incursion also angered many in Congress, who felt that Nixon was illegally widening the scope of the war; this resulted in a series of congressional resolutions and legislative initiatives that would severely limit the executive power of the president.

1975 – Operation Frequent Wind, the largest helicopter evacuation on record, begins removing the last Americans from Saigon. The North Vietnamese had launched their final offensive in March 1975 and the South Vietnamese forces had fallen back before their rapid advance, losing Quang Tri, Hue, Da Nang, Qui Nhon, Tuy Hoa, Nha Trang, and Xuan Loc in quick succession. With the North Vietnamese attacking the outskirts of Saigon, U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin ordered the commencement of Frequent Wind. In 19 hours, 81 helicopters carried more than 1,000 Americans and almost 6,000 Vietnamese to aircraft carriers offshore. Cpl. Charles McMahon, Jr. and Lance Cpl. Darwin Judge, USMC, were the last U.S. military personnel killed in action in Vietnam, when shrapnel from a North Vietnamese rocket struck them as they were guarding Tan Son Nhut Airbase during the evacuation. At 7:53 a.m. on April 30, the last helicopter lifted off the rook of the embassy and headed out to sea. Later that morning, North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace. North Vietnamese Col. Bui Tin accepted the surrender from Gen. Duong Van Minh, who had taken over from Tran Van Huong (who only spent one day in power after President Nguyen Van Thieu fled). The Vietnam War was over.

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Thanks to Clyde….This is a repeat but worth it

Playing with words.

Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternative meanings for common words.

The winners are:

Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs. (editorial note. Special significance these days)

Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.

Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

Gargoyle, olive-flavoured mouthwash.

Flatulence (n.), emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

Pokemon, a Rastafarian proctologist.

Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

The winners are:

-Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

-Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

-Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

-Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

-Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

- Karmageddon (n): It's like, when everybody is sending off all these Really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

- Glibido (v): All talk and no action.

- Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

- Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature: . . . . . . .

- Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

Regards,

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits

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A catchy tune from Dr, Rich

For you rotorheads ... "Pre-flight the Jesus Nut"

https://youtu.be/JNBIhUf9HR8



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Thanks to Dutch

When the world is run by bureaucrats and politikos are engaged with their pet rocks - - Dutch

BLAME ALL AROUND

Congress, White House, media botched virus response

BY STEPHEN DINAN THE WASHINGTON TIMES

China reported to the World Health Organization on New Year's Eve that it was facing a novel coronavirus.

Three weeks later, the first mention of the coronavirus was made on the floor of one of the chambers of Congress. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, interrupted Democrats' impeachment proceedings against President Trump on Jan. 23 to announce a high-level, closed-door briefing the next day. Few senators bothered to attend.

Rep. Roger Marshall, Kansas Republican and a medical doctor, five days later became the first to broach the virus on the House floor. He thought the information he heard coming out of China sounded fishy, and he wanted to sound the alarm.

"There were just too many loose ends," Mr. Marshall told The Washington Times last week, looking back at what prompted him to take the matter to the well of the House.

The finger-pointing in Washington has hit fever pitch. Democrats and the media accuse Mr. Trump of being slow off the mark in confronting the COVID-19 pandemic.

But a Washington Times review of who said and did what and when shows few heroes inside the Beltway in the early weeks of the outbreak. The press and politicians were more consumed with phone calls to Ukraine than a virus killing people in China.

U.S. health officials did move early to try to get on top of the situation and offered assistance to China on Jan. 3. They renewed the offer two days later, according to the president's team.

Those same public health offi cials spent much of January insisting the danger to the U.S. was minimal and telling Americans not to wear masks. That directive now seems unimaginable, given current knowledge about the virus.

Mr. Trump made his first public mentions of the coronavirus on Jan. 22 in a CNBC interview and in a meeting with the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government. He downplayed risks to the U.S. and praised China's handling of the outbreak.

"We do have a plan, and we think it's going to be handled very well. We've already handled it very well," he said. "CDC has been terrific. Very great professionals. And we're in very good shape. And I think China is in very good shape, also."

In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was about to ship tests already tainted with the virus, rendering them uninterpretable.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, raised the matter at a press conference in New York on Jan. 26. He said the Department of Health and Human Services needed to declare a public health emergency to free up money in the Infectious Diseases Rapid Response Reserve Fund. Five days later, the Trump administration issued the declaration.

The House didn't hold its first hearing on the virus until Feb. 5, and it took almost another week for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, to make her first public mention. In a press conference, she complained that the president's budget proposal envisioned less money for the CDC.

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, weighed in with an op-ed in USA Today on Jan. 27. He said Mr. Trump was the wrong type of person to lead America through a pandemic, though he cast the international outbreak as more of a foreign policy challenge than a U.S. public health threat.

Throughout those early months, the press delivered contradictory coverage of the "Chinese virus," as The New York Times called it in a Jan. 20 "briefing" article. The coronavirus repeatedly played second chair to impeachment and other Trump-gazing until weeks into the growing outbreak. It wasn't until early February that the Gray Lady's briefing scribes began to give the coronavirus top billing on its daily update column.

CNN has been particularly defiant in recent weeks and challenged Mr. Trump's assertion that the press was slower than he was to spot the dangers. The network ran its first story about a "mysterious virus" on Jan. 6 and reported Jan. 18 that China's statements were "likely grossly underestimated."

The network began posting live daily updates on Jan. 22 of what it labeled the "Wuhan virus" deep into February. Like Mr. Trump, Congress and health officials, CNN was limited chiefly to what China was reporting, though it offered more caveats than the president did in trusting Beijing's statements.

While the coronavirus was spreading in China, the U.S. didn't have its first confirmed COVID-19 case until Jan. 21. Eight cases had been confirmed as of Feb. 1, and just 15 had been confirmed when Mr. Trump held a press conference at the White House.

Top health officials said they expected the number to rise, though they said the immediate risk was still low.

"Our containment strategy has been working," said HHS Secretary Alex Azar.

Mr. Trump chimed in: "When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done."

Instead, the U.S. had 98 confirmed cases a week later and recorded its first death in Washington state. It now turns out that two people in California died at the beginning of February, but their deaths weren't attributed to the virus until this month.

Mrs. Pelosi, while touring Chinatown in San Francisco on Feb. 24, insisted that the risk of infection was low and fears of the virus' spread were "unwarranted in light of the precautions that are being taken here in the United States."

Her big gripe against Mr. Trump was over money and his proposed budget for fiscal 2021. Congress had already shelved the document.

Now Mrs. Pelosi says Mr. Trump is responsible for the deaths of Americans because he reacted too slowly, and the president complains that Democrats fiddled or, more accurately, impeached while he was crafting policy in January.

The public has been left wondering what to make of it all.

Yotam Ophir, a communications professor at the University of Buffalo, said neither the press nor the politicians got it right in the early days, though for different reasons.

Reporters covered the coronavirus "as an external threat," with headlines calling it "the Wuhan virus." It's a mistake news media often make, said Mr. Ophir, pointing to his own research with outbreaks of Ebola, Zika and H1N1.

"So my view on the media is that, as was in the past, it took journalists too long to consider the virus a local problem. It was kept as an international news curiosity at times when major health organizations already warned of an upcoming dramatic outbreak," he told The Washington Times.

The finger-pointing in Washington, meanwhile, is the latest example of politicizing science, Mr. Ophir said. COVID19 became yet another issue viewed through the lens of the presidential campaign.

"Right away, it was framed through its potential effects on Trump's chances in the elections, as it could threaten the economy, which is perceived by some, including the Republican Party, to be one of his advantages …," he said. "A few weeks later, not only did the Trump administration and the president himself downplay the severity of the virus, but they also began accusing the media of pushing forward a Democrat plot to overthrow the president."

Mr. Ophir gave the public health agencies a cleaner bill of health. He said their messages evolved as knowledge of the coronavirus grew



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