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Good Saturday Morning 23 January.
I hope that you all have a great weekend.
Regards,
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Today in Naval History
Jan. 23
1854—The sloop-of-war Germantown captures the slaver R.P. Brown off Porto Praya.
1943—Submarine Guardfish (SS 217) sinks the Japanese destroyer Hakaze off New Ireland.
1945—Three US Navy destroyer escorts, Corbesier (DE 438), Conklin (DE 439) and Raby (DE 698) sink the Japanese submarine I-48 off Yap Island, Caroline Islands.
1960—The Bathyscaph "Trieste" descends on a nine-hour journey seven miles to the deepest part of the world's oceans, Challenger Deep, located at the southern end of the Mariana Trench.
1968—USS Pueblo (AGER 2) is seized by North Korean forces in Sea of Japan. The crew is released on Dec. 23, 1968.
This Day in World History
January 23
1901 | A great fire ravages Montreal, resulting in $2.5 million in property lost. | |
1913 | The "Young Turks" revolt because they are angered by the concessions made at the London peace talks. | |
1932 | Franklin D. Roosevelt enters the presidential race. | |
1948 | The Soviets refuse UN entry into North Korea to administer elections. | |
1949 | The Communist Chinese forces begin their advance on Nanking. | |
1950 | Jerusalem becomes the official capital of Israel. | |
1951 | President Truman creates the Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights, to monitor the anti-Communist campaign. | |
1969 | NASA unveils moon-landing craft. | |
1973 | President Richard Nixon claims that Vietnam peace has been reached in Paris and that the POWs would be home in 60 days. | |
1977 | Alex Haley's Roots begins a record-breaking eight-night broadcast on ABC. | |
1981 | Under international pressure, opposition leader Kim Dae Jung's death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment in Seoul. | |
1986 | U.S. begins maneuvers off the Libyan coast. |
1957 |
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Thanks to Brett
The Weekly Rundown: Farmers' Protests Intensify in India, Greece and Turkey Talk |
What We're Tracking An intensification of protests by Indian farmers in New Delhi. Indian farmers will intensify protests on India's Republic Day (Jan. 26) in New Delhi after the 11th round of talks between farmers and the government failed to produce an agreement on the implementation of controversial agricultural laws. With the protests planned for months, thousands of farmers from other states have been traveling to Delhi over the last several weeks to join the protests. Their intensification will increase the likelihood of disruptions to road traffic and commercial activity in the run-up to and on Republic Day. The unusually large unrest on Republic Day will pressure the government to budge on its position, although it is still unlikely to completely give in to farmers' demands. Reforms in India's agricultural sector are needed to promote the modernization necessary to ensure India's food security. Greece and Turkey talk Eastern Mediterranean issues. Greek and Turkish officials will meet in Istanbul on Jan. 25 to discuss their conflicting territorial claims in the Eastern Mediterranean. While officials in Ankara and Athens have said that this will only be a technical meeting, and that nothing much should be expected from it, it will be the first such meeting since 2016. This is a change in tone after bilateral tensions escalated in 2020, when Turkey sent ships to explore for hydrocarbons in waters claimed by Greece and Cyprus. The Communist Party of Vietnam's 13th National Congress. The Jan. 25 to Feb. 2 meeting will determine new leadership and the next five-year plan. The party and state leadership decisions will take center stage, particularly given that numerous Politburo members will be retiring. More important, the meeting will determine whether Vietnam will return to its long-standing collective leadership model that divided power between the Party secretary-general and the president, prime minister and chairman of the National Assembly. This division of power is meant to avoid consolidating control around a single individual as seen in China, but came into question with the sudden death in 2018 of President Tran Dai Quang and subsequent assumption of the presidency by secretary-general Nguyen Phu Trong. The secretary-general is likely to maintain a key role, providing policy continuity as he continues his crackdown on loyalists to the more business-friendly ex-Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. In the economic realm, the Party will face the challenge of restoring growth to pre-pandemic levels, although its adroit COVID-19 management and prioritization of manufacturing continuity in spite of past restrictions have made Vietnam one of the few bright spots in the 2020 global economy. |
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January 23
This Day in U S Military History
1855 –John Moses Browning, sometimes referred to as the "father of modern firearms," is born in Ogden, Utah. Many of the guns manufactured by companies whose names evoke the history of the American West-Winchester, Colt, Remington, and Savage-were actually based on John Browning's designs. The son of a talented gunsmith, John Browning began experimenting with his own gun designs as a young man. When he was 24 years old, he received his first patent, for a rifle that Winchester manufactured as its Single Shot Model 1885. Impressed by the young man's inventiveness, Winchester asked Browning if he could design a lever-action-repeating shotgun. Browning could and did, but his efforts convinced him that a pump-action mechanism would work better, and he patented his first pump model shotgun in 1888. Fundamentally, all of Browning's manually-operated repeating rifle and shotgun designs were aimed at improving one thing: the speed and reliability with which gun users could fire multiple rounds-whether shooting at game birds or other people. Lever and pump actions allowed the operator to fire a round, operate the lever or pump to quickly eject the spent shell, insert a new cartridge, and then fire again in seconds. By the late 1880s, Browning had perfected the manual repeating weapon; to make guns that fired any faster, he would somehow have to eliminate the need for slow human beings to actually work the mechanisms. But what force could replace that of the operator moving a lever or pump? Browning discovered the answer during a local shooting competition when he noticed that reeds between a man firing and his target were violently blown aside by gases escaping from the gun muzzle. He decided to try using the force of that escaping gas to automatically work the repeating mechanism. Browning began experimenting with his idea in 1889. Three years later, he received a patent for the first crude fully automatic weapon that captured the gases at the muzzle and used them to power a mechanism that automatically reloaded the next bullet. In subsequent years, Browning refined his automatic weapon design. When U.S. soldiers went to Europe during WWI, many of them carried Browning Automatic Rifles, as well as Browning's deadly machine guns. During a career spanning more than five decades, Browning's guns went from being the classic weapons of the American West to deadly tools of world war carnage. Amazingly, since Browning's death in 1926, there have been no further fundamental changes in the modern firearm industry.
1951 – Thirty-three F-84s of the U.S. Air Force's 27th Fighter-Escort Wing engaged 30 MiG-15s in a dogfight over the skies of Sinuiju. In less than a minute Captains Allen McGuire and William Slaughter each destroyed a MiG while First Lieutenant Jacob Kratt scored two kills, the first double MiG kill of the war.
1953 – The U.S. Air Force's 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing flew the last F-51 Mustang mission of the war.
1960 – The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to 10,911 meters (35,797 ft) in the Pacific Ocean. Trieste is a Swiss-designed, Italian-built deep-diving research bathyscaphe, which with her crew of two reached a record maximum depth of about 10,911 metres (35,797 ft), in the deepest known part of the Earth's oceans, the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench near Guam in the Pacific. On 23 January 1960, Jacques Piccard (son of the boat's designer Auguste Piccard) and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh achieved the goal of Project Nekton. Trieste was the first manned vessel to have reached the bottom of the Challenger Deep.
1968 – The U.S. intelligence-gathering ship Pueblo is seized by North Korean naval vessels and charged with spying and violating North Korean territorial waters. Negotiations to free the 83-man crew of the U.S. ship dragged on for nearly a year, damaging the credibility of and confidence in the foreign policy of President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration. The capture of the ship and internment of its crew by North Korea was loudly protested by the Johnson administration. The U.S. government vehemently denied that North Korea's territorial waters had been violated and argued the ship was merely performing routine intelligence gathering duties in the Sea of Japan. Some U.S. officials, including Johnson himself, were convinced that the seizure was part of a larger communist-bloc offensive, since exactly one week later, communist forces in South Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive, the largest attack of the Vietnam War. Despite this, however, the Johnson administration took a restrained stance toward the incident. Fully occupied with the Tet Offensive, Johnson resorted to quieter diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in North Korea. In December 1968, the commander of the Pueblo, Capt. Lloyd Bucher, grudgingly signed a confession indicating that his ship was spying on North Korea prior to its capture. With this propaganda victory in hand, the North Koreans turned the crew and captain (including one crewman who had died) over to the United States. The Pueblo incident was a blow to the Johnson administration's credibility, as the president seemed powerless to free the captured crew and ship. Combined with the public's perception–in the wake of the Tet Offensive–that the Vietnam War was being lost, the Pueblo incident resulted in a serious faltering of Johnson's popularity with the American people. The crewmen's reports about their horrific treatment at the hands of the North Koreans during their 11 months in captivity further incensed American citizens, many of whom believed that Johnson should have taken more aggressive action to free the captive Americans.
1973 – President Nixon announces that Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the chief North Vietnamese negotiator, have initialled a peace agreement in Paris "to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia." Kissinger and Tho had been conducting secret negotiations since 1969. After the South Vietnamese had blunted the massive North Vietnamese invasion launched in the spring of 1972, Kissinger and the North Vietnamese had finally made some progress on reaching a negotiated end to the war. However, a recalcitrant South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu had inserted several demands into to the negotiations that caused the North Vietnamese negotiators to walk out of the talks with Kissinger on December 13. President Nixon issued an ultimatum to Hanoi to send its representatives back to the conference table within 72 hours "or else." The North Vietnamese rejected Nixon's demand and the president ordered Operation Linebacker II, a full-scale air campaign against the Hanoi area. This operation was the most concentrated air offensive of the war. During the 11 days of the attack, 700 B-52 sorties and more than 1,000 fighter-bomber sorties dropped roughly 20,000 tons of bombs, mostly over the densely populated area between Hanoi and Haiphong. On December 28, after 11 days of intensive bombing, the North Vietnamese agreed to return to the talks. When the negotiators met again in early January, they quickly worked out a settlement. Under the terms of the agreement, which became known as the Paris Peace Accords, a cease-fire would begin at 8 a.m., January 28, Saigon time (7 p.m., January 27, Eastern Standard Time). In addition, all prisoners of war were to be released within 60 days and in turn, all U.S. and other foreign troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam within 60 days. With respect to the political situation in South Vietnam, the Accords called for a National Council of Reconciliation and Concord, with representatives from both South Vietnamese sides (Saigon and the National Liberation Front) to oversee negotiations and organize elections for a new government. The actual document was entitled "An Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam" and it was formally signed on January 27.
1991 – After some 12,000 sorties in the Gulf War, General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said allied forces had achieved air superiority, and would focus air fire on Iraqi ground forces around Kuwait.Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
2013 – The United States Armed Forces overturns its ban on women serving in combat, reversing a 1994 rule, and potentially clearing the way for women to serve in front-line units and elite commando forces.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions taken This Day
DEMPSEY, JOHN
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1848, Ireland. Accredited to: Massachusetts. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Kearsarge at Shanghai, China, 23 January 1875. Displaying gallant conduct, Dempsey jumped overboard from the Kearsarge and rescued from drowning one of the crew of that vessel.
MOORE, FRANCIS
Rank and organization: Boatswain's Mate, U.S. Navy. Born: 1858 New York. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 326, 18 October 1884. Citation: For jumping overboard from the U.S. Training Ship Portsmouth, at the Washington Navy Yard, 23 January 1882, and endeavoring to rescue Thomas Duncan, carpenter and calker, who had fallen overboard.
FOSS, JOSEPH JACOB
Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Marine Fighting Squadron 121, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. Place and date: Over Guadalcanal, 9 October to 19 November 1942, 15 and 23 January 1943. Entered service at: South Dakota. Born: 17 April 1 915, Sioux Falls, S. Dak. Citation: For outstanding heroism and courage above and beyond the call of duty as executive officer of Marine Fighting Squadron 121, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, at Guadalcanal. Engaging in almost daily combat with the enemy from 9 October to 19 November 1942, Capt. Foss personally shot down 23 Japanese planes and damaged others so severely that their destruction was extremely probable. In addition, during this period, he successfully led a large number of escort missions, skillfully covering reconnaissance, bombing, and photographic planes as well as surface craft. On 15 January 1943, he added 3 more enemy planes to his already brilliant successes for a record of aerial combat achievement unsurpassed in this war. Boldly searching out an approaching enemy force on 25 January, Capt. Foss led his 8 F-4F Marine planes and 4 Army P-38's into action and, undaunted by tremendously superior numbers, intercepted and struck with such force that 4 Japanese fighters were shot down and the bombers were turned back without releasing a single bomb. His remarkable flying skill, inspiring leadership, and indomitable fighting spirit were distinctive factors in the defense of strategic American positions on Guadalcanal.
ORESKO, NICHOLAS
Rank and organization: Master Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company C, 302d Infantry, 94th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Tettington, Germany, 23 January 1945. Entered service at: Bayonne, N.J. Birth: Bayonne, N.J. G.O. No.: 95, 30 October 1945. Citation: M/Sgt. Oresko was a platoon leader with Company C, in an attack against strong enemy positions. Deadly automatic fire from the flanks pinned down his unit. Realizing that a machinegun in a nearby bunker must be eliminated, he swiftly worked ahead alone, braving bullets which struck about him, until close enough to throw a grenade into the German position. He rushed the bunker and, with pointblank rifle fire, killed all the hostile occupants who survived the grenade blast. Another machinegun opened up on him, knocking him down and seriously wounding him in the hip. Refusing to withdraw from the battle, he placed himself at the head of his platoon to continue the assault. As withering machinegun and rifle fire swept the area, he struck out alone in advance of his men to a second bunker. With a grenade, he crippled the dug-in machinegun defending this position and then wiped out the troops manning it with his rifle, completing his second self-imposed, 1-man attack. Although weak from loss of blood, he refused to be evacuated until assured the mission was successfully accomplished. Through quick thinking, indomitable courage, and unswerving devotion to the attack in the face of bitter resistance and while wounded, M /Sgt. Oresko killed 12 Germans, prevented a delay in the assault, and made it possible for Company C to obtain its objective with minimum casualties.
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Thanks to Bill but worth time to read/Watch it again
WW ll WAR MISSION
Four Motored Dogfight
Very interesting story!
The Most-Honored Photograph |
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Doesn't look like much, does it? But, depending upon your definition, this photograph,
a team effort by 9 men, is the most honored picture in U. S. History. It's an interesting tale about how people sometimes rise beyond all expectations. |
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First, let's get this out of the way: Jay Zeamer wasn't a photographer by trade. He was mostly a wanna-be pilot. He looked good on paper, having graduated with a degree in civil engineering from MIT, joining the Army Air Corps, and receiving his wings in March 1941. He was a B-26 bomber co-pilot when World War II started. |
His classmates all rapidly became lead pilots and squadron leaders, but not Jay. He couldn't pass the pilot check tests despite trying numerous times. He was a good pilot, but just couldn't seem to land the B-26. Landing, from what I've read, was considered one of the more important qualifications for a pilot. Stuck as a co-pilot while his classmates and then those from the classes behind him were promoted, he got bored and lost all motivation. |
Things came to a head when co-pilot Zeamer fell asleep while his plane was in flight—not just in flight, but in flight through heavy anti-aircraft fire during a bombing run. He only woke when the pilot beat him on the chest because he needed help. |
His squadron commander had him transferred to a B-17 squadron in Port Moresby , Papua New Guinea, where he was allowed to fly as a fill-in navigator and occasionally as a co-pilot. He was well liked and popular — on the ground. But no one wanted to fly with him. |
Zeamer finally managed to get into the pilot's seat by volunteering for a photo-reconnaissance mission when the scheduled pilot became ill. The mission, an extremely dangerous one over the Japanese stronghold at Rabual, won Zeamer a Silver Star – despite the fact that he still hadn't qualified to pilot a B-17. |
The Eager Beavers
Zeamer become the Operations Officer (a ground position) at the 43rd Air Group. Despite his lack of qualification, he still managed to fly as a B-17 fill-in pilot fairly often. He had discovered that he loved to fly B-17s on photo-reconnaissance missions, and he wanted to do it full time. There were only three things standing in his way: he didn't have a crew, he didn't have an airplane, and oh, yeah, he still wasn't a qualified pilot. |
He solved the first problem by gravitating to every misfit and ne'er-do-well in the 43rd Air Group. As another pilot, Walt Krell, recalled, "He recruited a crew of renegades and screwoffs. They were the worst — men nobody else wanted. But they gravitated toward one another and made a hell of a team." |
The plane came later. An old, beat-up B-17, serial number 41-2666, that had seen better days was flown into their field to be scavenged for spare parts. Captain Zeamer had other ideas. He and his crew decided to rebuild the plane in their spare time, since they weren't going to get to fly any other way. Exactly how they managed to accomplish their task is the subject of some debate. Remember, there were so few spare parts available that their 'plane' was actually brought in originally to be a parts donor. |
But rebuild it they did. Once it was in flying shape the base commander congratulated them and said he'd find a new crew to fly it. Not surprisingly, Zeamer and his crew took exception to this idea, and according Walt Krell the crew slept in their airplane, having loudly announced that the 50 caliber machine guns were kept loaded in case anyone came around to 'borrow' it. There was a severe shortage of planes, so the base commander ignored the mutiny and let the crew fly – but generally expected them to take on missions that no one else wanted. |
The misfit crew thrived on it. They hung around the base operations center, volunteering for every mission no one else wanted. That earned them the nickname "The Eager Beavers," and their patched up B-17 was called "Old 666." |
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The Eager Beavers |
(Back Row) Bud Thues, Zeamer, Hank Dominski, Sarnoski
(Front Row) Vaughn, Kendrick, Able, Pugh. |
Once they started flying their plane on difficult photo-reconnaissance missions, they made some modifications. Even among the men of a combat air station, the Eager Beavers became known as gun nuts. They replaced all of the light 30 caliber machine guns in the plane with heavier 50 caliber weapons. Then the 50 caliber machine guns were replaced with double 50 caliber guns. Zeamer had another pair of machine guns mounted to the front of the plane so he could remotely fire them like a fighter pilot. And the crew kept extra machine guns stored in the plane, just in case one of their other guns jammed or malfunctioned. |
As odd as all this sounds, the South Pacific theatre in the early days of World War II was a chaotic area scattered over thousands of miles with very little equipment. Having a plane with an apparently nutty crew who volunteered for every awful mission not surprisingly made the commanding officers look the other way. |
In June, 1943, the U. S. had secured Guadalcanal in the southern Solomon Islands. They knew the Japanese had a huge base at Rabual, but were certain there were other airfields being built in the Northern Solomon Islands. They asked for a volunteer crew to take photographs of Bougainville Island to plan for an eventual invasion, and of Buka airfield on the north side of the island to assess for increased activity there. It was considered a near-suicide mission — flying hundreds of miles over enemy airspace in a single, slow bomber. Not to mention photo-reconnaissance meant staying in level flight and taking no evasive action even if they were attacked. |
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Credit: World Factbook |
The only crew that volunteered, of course, was Jay Zeamer and the Eager Beavers. One of the crew, bombardier Joseph Sarnovski, had absolutely no reason to volunteer. He'd already been in combat for 18 months and was scheduled to go home in 3 days. Being a photo mission, there was no need for a bombardier. But if his friends were going, he wanted to go, and one of the bombardier's battle stations was to man the forward machine guns. They might need him; so he went. |
They suspected the airstrip at Buka had been expanded and reinforced, but weren't sure until they got close. As soon as the airfield came in sight, they saw numerous fighters taking off and heading their way. The logical thing to do would have been to turn right and head for home. They would be able to tell the intelligence officers about the increased number of planes at Buka even if they didn't get photos. |
But Zeamer and photographer William Kendrick knew that photos would be invaluable for subsequent planes attacking the base, and for Marines who were planning to invade the island later. Zeamer held the plane level (tilting the wings even one degree at that altitude could put the photograph half a mile off target) and Kendrick took his photos, which gave plenty of time for over 20 enemy fighters to get up to the altitude Old 666 was flying at. |
The fighter group, commanded by Chief Petty Officer Yoshio Ooki, was experienced and professional. They carefully set up their attack, forming a semi-circle all around the B-17 and then attacking from all directions at once. Ooki didn't know about the extra weapons the Eager Beavers had mounted to their plane, but it wouldn't matter if he had; there was no way for a single B-17 to survive those odds.
During the first fighter pass the plane was hit by hundreds of machine gun bullets and cannon shells. Five crewman of the B-17 were wounded and the plane badly damaged. All of the wounded men stayed at their stations and were still firing when the fighters came in for a second pass, which caused as much damage as the first. Hydraulic cables were cut, holes the size of footballs appeared in the wings, and the front plexiglas canopy of the plane was shattered. |
Zeamer was wounded during the second fighter pass, but kept the plane flying level and took no evasive action until Kendrick called over the intercom that the photography was completed. Only then did he begin to move the plane from side-to-side allowing his gunners better shots, just as the fighters came in for a third wave of attacks. The third pass blew out the oxygen system of the plane, which was flying at 28,000 feet. Despite the obvious structural damage Zeamer put the plane in an emergency dive to get down to a level where there was enough oxygen for them men to survive. |
During the dive, a 20mm cannon shell exploded in the navigator's compartment. Sarnoski, who was already wounded, was blown out of his compartment and beneath the cockpit. Another crewman reached him and saw there was a huge wound in his side. Despite his obviously mortal wound, Sarnoski said, "Don't worry about me; I'm all right" and crawled back to his gun which was now exposed to 300-mile-an-hour winds since the plexiglass front of the plane was now gone. He shot down one more fighter before he died a minute or two later. |
The battle continued for over 40 minutes. The Eager Beavers shot down several fighters and heavily damaged several others. The B-17 was so heavily damaged, however, that they didn't expect to make the several-hundred-mile-long flight back home. Sarnoski had already died from his wounds. Zeamer had continued piloting the plane despite multiple wounds. Five other men were seriously wounded. |
Flight Officer Ooki's squadron returned to Buka out of ammunition and fuel. They understandably reported the B-17 was destroyed and about to crash in the ocean when they last saw it. |
The B-17 didn't quite crash, though. Zeamer had lost consciousness from loss of blood, but regained it when he was removed from the pilot seat and lay on the floor of the plane. The copilot, Lt. Britton, was the most qualified to care for the wounded and was needed in the back of the plane. One of the gunners, Sergeant Able, had liked to sit in the cockpit behind the pilots and watch them fly. That made him the most qualified of the crewmen; so he flew the plane with Zeamer advising him from the floor while Britton cared for the wounded. |
The plane made it back to base. (Britton did return to the cockpit for the landing.) After the landing, the medical triage team had Zeamer removed from the plane last, because they considered his wounds mortal. Amazingly, the one thing on the plane not damaged were the cameras and the photos in them were considered invaluable in planning the invasion of Bougainville.
Epilogue |
All of the wounded men recovered, although it was a close thing for Captain Zeamer. In fact, a death notification was sent to his parents somewhat prematurely. He spent the next year in hospitals recovering from his wounds, but lived a long and happy life, passing away at age 88. |
Both Zeamer and Sarnovski were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for the mission, the only time in World War II that two men from one plane ever received America's highest medal for valor in combat. The other members of the crew were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor as an award for bravery.
So, somewhat surprisingly, the most decorated combat flight in U. S. history didn't take place in a major battle: It was a photo-reconnaissance flight------the flight of 'old 666′ in June of 1943.
There is a show called dogfight (you can find it on YouTube I'm sure) that recounts this flight of old 666! Truly amazing!
Here it is.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for January 23, 2021 FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
23 January
1918: The first American military balloon ascension in the American Expeditionary Force took place at the American Balloon School, Cuperly, Marne, France. (24)
1929: Through 27 January, the aircraft carriers USS Lexington and USS Saratoga participated in fleet exercises for the first time. (20)
1940: In the first American test to see if a complete unit could be moved by air, the 7th Bombardment Group from Hamilton Field, Calif., used 38 bombers to transport a battalion of 65th Coast Artillery troops 500 miles. (24)
1949: Operation SNOWBOUND (also HAYLIFT). The USAF aided snowbound western ranchers by dropping 25,000 pounds of feed to sheep and cattle. Over the next four weeks, Military Air Transport Service C-82s and Air Rescue Service SC-47s also dropped 525 cases of "C" rations, 20,000 pounds of food, and 10,000 pounds of coal to area residents. (2) (24)
1951: The USAF activated Project MX-1593, successor to MX-774 for the Atlas prototype, in a contract with Convair. Since 1947, when the Air Force cancelled the Atlas to pursue Snark and Navaho missiles, Convair had financed its own limited research on ballistic missiles. (24) KOREAN WAR. Far East Air Forces tasked 33 F-84s from Taegu to attack Sinuiju, which provoked a furious 30-minute air battle with MiG-15s from across the Yalu. The F-84s shot down three MiGs, the highest daily USAF aerial victory total in the month. While 46 F-80s suppressed antiaircraft artillery around Pyongyang, 21 B-29s bombed enemy airfields there. (28)
1961: The last Atlas-D launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., was a success. Altogether, there were 35 completely successful launches, eight partial successes, and six failures in the program. (6)
1963: Turkey announced plans to phaseout one squadron of Jupiter missiles. (6)
1964: The USAF launched a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile from an underground silo at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on a 5,000-mile flight down the Pacific Missile Range. (5)
1975: An Air Force directive specified that early DoD space shuttle missions would be planned and controlled by a National Air and Space Administration team in NASA facilities. (5)
1981: Two 6594th Test Group helicopters performed a pararescue-assisted hoist pickup of an injured seaman from a merchant vessel 240 nautical miles west of Honolulu. (26)
2002: A 305th Air Mobility Wing KC-10 from McGuire AFB, N. J., arrived at Dulles International Airport, DC, with John Walker Lindh, a 20-year-old American accused of joining Al Qaeda and fighting in Afghanistan against US forces. A US Park Police helicopter took Lindh from the KC-10 flight to a detention facility in northern Virginia. On 24 January in Alexandria, Va., he was charged with conspiring to kill Americans. A C-17 flew Lindh from Kandahar to Incirlik AB for transfer to the KC-10. (22)
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