TheList 5810

The List 5810     TGB

 

Good Saturday Morning August 14

I am watching Gregory Peck as Captain Hornblower doing his thing while I complete this list.

One of my all time favorite movies.

 

I hope that your weekend is off to a good start.

 

Regards

Skip

 

This Day in Navy and Marine Corps History:

 

August 14

1813 In the early morning, the brig USS Argus, commanded by William H. Allen, battles HMS Pelican, off England's coast. During battle, Allens right leg is shot off, but he remains on station until fainting. As Pelicans men board, USS Argus strikes her colors. Allen died four days later.

 

1886 The Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney signs General Order 354 establishing the Naval Gun Factory at the Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.

 

1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill agreed to the Atlantic Charter at Argentia, Nova Scotia.

 

1945 USS Spikefish (SS 404) sink the Japanese submarine (I 373), in the Sea of Japan. Also on this date, USS Torsk (SS 423) sinks Coast Defense Vessel (No.13), and Coast Defense Vessel No.47.

 

1945 The Japanese accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and agree to surrender, ending World War II. It is known as V-J Day! Announcing the news to the country in the evening, President Harry S. Truman proclaims a two-day holiday. Explosive celebrations immediately follow as Americans and their Allies rejoice that World War II is finally over.

 

 

Today in History August 14

1457		The first book ever printed is published by a German astrologer named Faust. He is thrown in jail while trying to sell books in Paris. Authorities concluded that all the identical books meant Faust had dealt with the devil.
1559		Spanish explorer Tristan de Luna enters Pensacola Bay, Florida.
1605		The Popham expedition reaches the Sagadahoc River in present-day Maine and settles there.
1756		French commander Louis Montcalm takes Fort Oswego, New England, from the British.
1793		Republican troops in France lay siege to the city of Lyons.
1900		The European allies enter Beijing, relieving their besieged legations from the Chinese Boxers.
1917		The Chinese Parliament declares war on the Central Powers.
1942		Dwight D. Eisenhower is named the Anglo-American commander for Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa.
1945		Japan announces its unconditional surrender in World War II.
1947		Pakistan becomes an independent country.
1969		British troops arrived Northern Ireland in response to sectarian violence between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
1973		The United States ends the "secret" bombing of Cambodia.
1987		Mark McGwire hits his 49th home run of the season, setting the major league home run record for a rookie.
1995		Shannon Faulker becomes the first female cadet in the long history of South Carolina's state military college, The Citadel. Her presence is met with intense resistance, reportedly including death threats, and she will leave the school a week later.
2007		Four coordinated suicide bomb attacks in Yazidi towns near Mosul, Iraq, kill more than 400 people.
2010		First-ever Summer Youth Olympic Games open, in Singapore. Athletes must be 14–18 years old.   2003 Blackout hits Northeast United States

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1945

Japan's surrender made public »

 

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Thanks to Dr. Rich

 

A local philanthropist here in Jackson, "Old Bill", contributes matching funds toward contributions for local charities … $1M this year!!

 

We have a program here in Jackson, "Honoring Our Veterans", where we bring in combat wounded veterans for various forms of recreational rehabilitation like fishing, hunting, photography, riding, hiking, tours of Yellowstone, etc…

 

One our volunteer photography instructors, "C.J.", has started a program to send the veterans home with items they can use after their HOV session here.

 

Here's an example of the quality of the photography they produce, a nighttime photo of our Teton mountains and Milky Way, hanging on the wall of SECNAV's office in the Pentagon:

 

If you'd like to join a simple program to help a wounded vet, consider joining CJ's campaign:

 

"Those of you who have followed my journey of teaching photography to combat wounded veterans know that my vision has always been to send the veterans home with a camera so that they can continue to enjoy photography and the therapeutic benefits it provides. Honoring Our Veterans already sends fly fishing session participants home with a fly rod and fly tying kit. We have always had cameras to loan the veterans but have never been able to send them home with a camera until now. With your help my dream can come true. We are asking folks to donate to our "Sponsor a Veteran" program through Old Bill's."

 

$150 gives a veteran a fly rod and fly tying kit.

 

$250 gives a veteran a rejuvenated Apple laptop computer.

 

$500 gives a veteran a Canon digital SLR camera and two lenses.

 

Any donation of any size is of course very welcome.

 

Please share with everyone!

 

The link to donate is here:

 

https://cfjh.iphiview.com/.../accountselecti.../Default.aspx

 

Thanks!

 

Cathy, "C.J." Aronson

Photography Instructor

Honoring Our Veterans 

Jackson Hole, WY

 

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Thanks to Bill

 

WHERE ARE THE CLOWNS?

 

I miss every single one of those clowns

 

After viewing this, it made me think that we were so lucky to be born in a generation that could appreciate the great "clowns" shown in this video.

A wonderful song sprinkled with humor and the memory of when life was simpler. Enjoy this one.....

https://www.theretrosite.com/uploads/videos/6c636bd484d7.mp4

 

 

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ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED Thanks to the Bear

LOOKING BACK 55-YEARS to the Vietnam Air War— … For The List for Saturday, 14 August 2021… Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻

 

OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (1965-1968)…

From the archives at rollingthunderremembered.com post of 14 August 1966… "Fight or Flee"… Dick Wyman on "guts and heart"…

 

https://www.rollingthunderremembered.com/rolling-thunder-remembered-14-august-1966-desertion/

 

 

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.

 

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This is a repeat but worth the read

Another from  Dr. Rich

Spies Helped the USAF shoot down Hanoi jets

Thanks to Jon …

…and another! Pretty cool F-4 stuff.

Also attached is a photo I took at Steve Ritchie's birthday party in Bellevue last month. The really cool part is the gentleman to the right of Ritchie…John Madden. John had 3.5 kills in the F-4 and was the real reason Ritchie became an Ace. The thing that struck me most about John has been his statements to me about their successes - he has shared thoughts with me on two occasions, last year and this year. The greatest success story, Madden says, is that they never lost anyone during combat.

PS I always am the person who takes the photos and very seldom am I in one…mostly because I don't recognize the old looking man…me!:)

Jon

..........,I understand there may be a variance in what those in NSA said they knew, or not, but if it worked...,,,,,

Spies Helped the USAF Shoot Down a Third of North Vietnam's MiG-21s

Joseph Trevithick

Dec 30, 2014 · 7 min read

 

The American pilots had to keep the NSA in the dark

On Jan. 2, 1967, around 30 U.S. Air Force F-4 Phantom fighter jets flying from Ubon in Thailand shot down a full third of North Vietnam's MiG-21s—for a loss of just one of their own.

It was a strategic victory in an air war that had been going poorly for American forces.

And now newly-declassified documents reveal that this complex mission—Operation Bolo—couldn't have succeeded without significant help from the signal-snooping Air Force Security Service.

And to avoid a squabbles over scarce intel resources, the Op Bolo units had to keep the National Security Agency in the dark.

The operation—originally known simply as the "special mission"—had a hard time getting approved in the first place. By the end of 1966, both sides in the bitter war had lost just a few aircraft in air-to-air combat over North Vietnam, rendering a dramatic aerial sweep unnecessary.

In almost two years of air strikes, the Pentagon had lost only 10 planes to enemy MiGs. American fliers had themselves scored fewer than 30 aerial kills.

On top of this, Washington was worried about drawing countries including the Soviet Union and China into the conflict—a distinct possibility considering that Soviet and Chinese advisers were working with Hanoi's air force.

The rules of engagement forbade American pilots from attacking Hanoi's airfields for fear of killing foreign advisers. Knowing all of this, the Vietnamese People's Air Force adopted new tactics for harassing its larger and vastly more powerful American enemy.

The MiGs would zip through flights of less nimble fighter-bombers just long enough to scare American crews into ditching their bombs or extra fuel tanks. Afterwards, the North Vietnamese pilots would often speed back to their bases—safe from their opponents—without even firing a shot..

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The U.S. Air Force's Seventh Air Force, which controlled most of the service's operations in Southeast Asia, was soon fed up with this dynamic. So the unit's commanders proposed an elaborate ambush aimed at whittling down Hanoi's fighter jets.

Seventh Air Force chose the famous Robin Olds—then a colonel in charge of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing in Thailand—to lead the American strike force.

To lure out the North Vietnamese, American F-4s would fly the same routes into the country as the heavyset F-105 bombers—and at the same altitudes and speeds while using the same radio call signs.

But another key—and previously unknown—element of the top secret plan involved deploying signal-snooping aircraft to keep track of the MiGs. The special C-130B-IIs would listen in on enemy radio chatter and feed information straight to American pilots throughout the mission, according to a just-released historical study.

Olds wanted to be alerted if things weren't working out so he could "turn around and lead the force home rather than expose it for no purpose," the official document explains.

With timely information, the task force could also try to cut off the MiGs from their bases if "the North Vietnamese suddenly figured out what was going on and wanted no part of it."

But the secret spy planes in question were tangled up in a serious bureaucratic mess. While technically Air Force property, the special C-130s fell under the control of the National Security Agency, which could refuse to loan them out for the mission.

NSA officials had objected to sending the aerial spooks—which flew under the codename Silver Dawn—on regular military operations. With fewer than 20 modified Hercules flying worldwide, the NSA probably worried these sort of day-to-day requirements would impede its own intelligence-gathering.

To alleviate these concerns, Pacific Air Forces tacitly approved a novel idea. Up and down the chain of command, everyone would simply cut the NSA out of the loop.

In any event, the flying branch's commanders in the Pacific felt that the existing Silver Dawn mandate justified sending the C-130s to help out with Operation Bolo, anyway.

Intelligence specialists were already using radio chatter that the Silver Dawn planes scooped up to figure out how many fighter jets Hanoi had on hand and where the aircraft were located, according to separate documents the NSA released recently..

The Air Force's Pacific headquarters "seemed to feel that [Seventh Air Force] was responsible for fighting the war in whatever way was necessary." But if the spy agency did find out, PACAF would "play down any prior knowledge of Silver Dawn involvement or deviation from normal operation," the special history notes.

The 6922nd Security Wing, which provided the intelligence personnel to operate the C-130s' special gear, also refused to be a part the final planning process—in order to shield itself from any repercussions.

Maj. John Chaueteur, who acted as a go-between for the Seventh Air Force and the Air Force Security Service, was most concerned about going behind the NSA's back. Chaueteur was in the uncomfortable position of effectively being ordered not to do his job.

"Chaueteur gets 'clobbered' every time he uses NSA as a reason for not doing something that [Seventh Air Force] wants done," the Air Force monograph quotes another official as saying.

Chaueteur was so worried about being reprimanded or relieved that he ordered the head of the Silver Dawn project to destroy evidence of any messages concerning Operation Bolo.

To help keep up this ruse-within-a-ruse, the bulk of the task force was told that normal EC-121 radar planes were supplying updates on the MiGs during the operation. This misinformation would also prevent the North Vietnamese pilots from thinking anything was amiss.

When Operation Bolo finally kicked off, two Silver Dawn C-130s were already orbiting in the Gulf of Tonkin, scanning the airwaves. Vietnamese, Russian, Chinese and Korean linguists were all at their posts.

These specialized personnel not only made sure the Vietnamese were responding as expected, but also kept watch in case Chinese jets decided to join the battle. Olds wanted to know if Russian or North Korean advisers were actually in the cockpits when the fighting started.

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The operation turned out to be a major success for the U.S. Hanoi's pilots were caught completely off guard.

When Olds' strike team started its attack, the C-130s picked up enemy pilots shocked to find that "the sky is full of F-4s," according to the declassified report. "Where are the F-105s? You briefed us to expect F-105s!"

 "I'd like to come down now," another Vietnamese pilot reportedly declared.

Seven MiG-21s fell to Earth. The Pentagon had estimated Hanoi possessed between 20 to 25 of the jet interceptors before the secret op.

The NSA doesn't appear to have been aware, at the time, that the Air Force had appropriated its aircraft. We couldn't find out what happened to Chaueteur, but Olds earned a promotion to brigadier general the following year.

After a series of additional aerial ambushes, the Vietnamese People's Air Force grounded its MiGs and completely revised its procedures. At the end of the year, Washington approved strikes on Hanoi's air bases.

By 1973, American airmen had scored 137 confirmed air-to-air kills against their North Vietnamese adversaries.

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Thanks to NiseGuy.The first time I read this many years ago it was very enlightening and still is

God or 3 Mistakes?
 
What God did at Pearl Harbor that day is interesting and I never knew this little bit of history.    
Tour   boats ferry people out to the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii every thirty minutes.  We just missed a ferry and had to wait thirty minutes.  I went into a small gift shop to kill time.  

 

In the gift shop, I purchased a small book entitled, "Reflections on Pearl Harbor" by Admiral Chester Nimitz. 
Sunday, December 7th, 1941— Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert   in Washington, DC.  He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone.  
 
He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet. Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941.  There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat--you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war.    
 
On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters everywhere you looked.  As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?"
 
Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice.  Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America.     Which do you think it was?"    
 
Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, "What do you mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?
Nimitz explained:
 

Mistake number one:  
The Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave.   If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.    
 
Mistake number two : 
When the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships.  If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired.  As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be  raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America.  And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.    
 
Mistake number three :  Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill.  One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply.    
 
That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or, God was taking care of America.  
 
I've never forgotten what I read in that little book. It is still an inspiration as I reflect upon it.  In jest, I might suggest that because Admiral Nimitz was a Texan, born and raised in Fredericksburg, Texas -- he was a born optimist.  
 
But any way you look at it -- Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism.  
 
President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job. We desperately needed a leader that could see the silver lining in the midst of the clouds of dejection, despair and defeat.  
 
There is a reason that our national motto is,  IN GOD WE TRUST.  
 
Why have we forgotten?     PRAY FOR OUR COUNTRY!     IN GOD WE TRUST.  
 
Please pass this important message to others.  Americans need to stand behind one another!  
 
 God Bless America

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This Day in U S Military History

 

1784 – On Kodiak Island, Grigory Shelikhov, a Russian fur trader, founds Three Saints Bay, the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska. The European discovery of Alaska came in 1741, when a Russian expedition led by Danish navigator Vitus Bering sighted the Alaskan mainland. Russian hunters were soon making incursions into Alaska, and the native Aleut population suffered greatly after being exposed to foreign diseases. The Three Saints Bay colony was founded on Kodiak Island in 1784, and Shelikhov lived there for two years with his wife and 200 men. From Three Saints Bay, the Alaskan mainland was explored, and other fur-trade centers were established. In 1786, Shelikhov returned to Russia and in 1790 dispatched Aleksandr Baranov to manage his affairs in Russia. Baranov established the Russian American Company and in 1799 was granted a monopoly over Alaska. Baranov extended the Russian trade far down the west coast of North America and in 1812, after several unsuccessful attempts, founded a settlement in Northern California near Bodega Bay. British and American trading vessels soon disputed Russia's claims to the northwest coast of America, and the Russians retreated north to the present southern border of Alaska. Russian interests in Alaska gradually declined, and after the Crimean War in the 1850s, a nearly bankrupt Russia sought to dispose of the territory altogether. The czarist government first approached the United States about selling the territory during the administration of President James Buchanan, but negotiations were stalled by the outbreak of the American Civil War. After the war, Secretary of State William H. Seward, a supporter of territorial expansion, was eager to acquire the tremendous landmass of Alaska, one-fifth the size of the rest of the United States. On March 30, 1867, Secretary of State William H. Seward signed a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska for $7.2 million. Despite the bargain price of roughly two cents an acre, the Alaskan purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as "Seward's folly," "Seward's icebox," and President Andrew Johnson's "polar bear garden." In April 1867, the Senate ratified the treaty by a margin of just one vote. Despite a slow start in settlement by Americans from the continental United States, the discovery of gold in 1898 brought a rapid influx of people to the territory. Alaska, rich in natural resources, has been contributing to American prosperity ever since. On January 3, 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation admitting the territory of Alaska into the Union as the 49th state.

 

1900 – During the Boxer Rebellion, an international force featuring British, Russian, American, Japanese, French, and German troops relieves the Chinese capital of Peking after fighting its way 80 miles from the port of Tientsin. The Chinese nationalists besieging Peking's diplomatic quarter were crushed, and the Boxer Rebellion effectively came to an end. By the end of the 19th century, the Western powers and Japan had forced China's ruling Ch'ing dynasty to accept wide foreign control over the country's economic affairs. In the Opium Wars, popular rebellions, and the Sino-Japanese War, China had fought to resist the foreigners, but it lacked a modernized military and millions died. In 1898, Tz'u Hsi, the dowager empress, gained control of the Chinese government in a conservative coup against the Emperor Kuang-hsu, her adoptive son and an advocate of reforms. Tz'u Hsi had previously served as ruler of China in various regencies and was deeply anti-foreign in her ideology. In 1899, her court began to secretly support the anti-foreign rebels known as the I Ho Ch'uan, or the "Righteous and Harmonious Fists." The I Ho Ch'uan was a secret society formed with the original goal of expelling the foreigners and overthrowing the Ch'ing dynasty. The group practiced a ritualistic form of martial arts that they believed gave them supernatural powers and made them impervious to bullets. After witnessing these fighting displays, Westerners named members of the society "Boxers." Most Boxers came from northern China, where natural calamities and foreign aggression in the late 1890s had ruined the economy. The ranks of the I Ho Ch'uan swelled with embittered peasants who directed their anger against Christian converts and foreign missionaries, whom they saw as a threat to their traditional ways and blamed for their misery. After the dowager empress returned to power, the Boxers pushed for an alliance with the imperial court against the foreigners. Tz'u Hsi gave her tacit support to their growing violence against the Westerners and their institutions, and some officials incorporated the Boxers into local militias. Open attacks on missionaries and Chinese Christians began in late 1899, and by May 1900 bands of Boxers had begun gathering in the countryside around Peking. In spite of threats by the foreign powers, the empress dowager began openly supporting the Boxers. In early June, an international relief force of 2,000 soldiers was dispatched by Western and Japanese authorities from the port of Tientsin to Peking. The empress dowager ordered Imperial forces to block the advance of the foreigners, and the relief force was turned back. Meanwhile, the Peking-Tientsin railway line and other railroads were destroyed by the Chinese. On June 13, the Boxers, now some 140,000 strong, moved into Peking and began burning churches and foreign residences. On June 17, the foreign powers seized forts between Tientsin and Peking, and the next day Tz'u Hsi called on all Chinese to attack foreigners. On June 20, the German ambassador Baron von Ketteler was killed and the boxers began besieging the foreign legations in the diplomatic quarter of the Chinese capital. As the foreign powers organized a multinational force to crush the rebellion, the siege of the Peking legations stretched into weeks, and the diplomats, their families, and guards suffered through hunger and degrading conditions as they fought desperately to keep the Boxers at bay. Eventually, an expedition of 19,000 multinational troops pushed their way to Peking after fighting two major battles against the Boxers. On August 14, the eight-nation allied relief force captured Peking and liberated the legations. The foreign troops looted the city and routed the Boxers, while the empress and her court fled to the north. The victorious powers began work on a peace settlement. Due to mutual jealousies between the nations, it was agreed that China would not be partitioned further, and in September 1901 the Peking Protocol was signed, formally ending the Boxer Rebellion. By the terms of agreement, the foreign nations received extremely favorable commercial treaties with China, foreign troops were permanently stationed in Peking, and China was forced to pay $333 million as penalty for its rebellion. China was effectively a subject nation. The Boxers had failed to expel the foreigners, but their rebellion set the stage for the successful Chinese revolutions of the 20th century

 

1940 – Sir Henry Tizard heads a British scientific mission to the United States, carrying with him details of all of Britain's most advanced thinking in several vital fields. There are ideas on jet engines, explosives, gun turrets and above all a little device called the cavity magnetron. This valve is vital for the development of more advanced types of radar, including the versions used in proximity fuses later and the types working on centimetric wavelengths which will be vital at sea in the U-boat war. The US Official History will later describe this collection as the "most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores."

 

1965 – The advance units of the Seventh Marines land at Chu Lai, bringing U.S. Marine strength in South Vietnam to four regiments and four air groups. The Marines were given the responsibility of conducting operations in southern I Corps and northern II Corps, just south of the Demilitarized Zone. Hanoi Radio broadcasted an appeal to American troops, particularly African Americans, to "get out." This was purportedly a message from an American defector from the Korean War living in Peking. In South Korea, the National Assembly approved sending troops to fight in South Vietnam; in exchange for sending one combat division to Vietnam, the United States agreed to equip five South Korean divisions.

 

2007 – The deadliest single attack of the whole war occurred. Nearly 800 civilians were killed by a series of coordinated suicide bomb attacks on the northern Iraqi settlement of Kahtaniya. More than 100 homes and shops were destroyed in the blasts. U.S. officials blamed al-Qaeda. The targeted villagers belonged to the non-Muslim Yazidi ethnic minority. The attack may have represented the latest in a feud that erupted earlier that year when members of the Yazidi community stoned to death a teenage girl called Du'a Khalil Aswad accused of dating a Sunni Arab man and converting to Islam. The killing of the girl was recorded on camera-mobiles and the video was uploaded onto the internet.

 

Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

 

*HAMMOND, LESTER, JR.
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Army, Company A, 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team. Place and date: Near Kumwha, Korea, 14 August 1952. Entered service at: Quincy, Ill. Born: 25 March 1931, Wayland, Mo. G.O. No.: 63, 17 August 1953. Citation: Cpl. Hammond, a radio operator with Company A, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and outstanding courage above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. Cpl. Hammond was a member of a 6 man reconnaissance patrol which had penetrated approximately 3,500 yards into enemy-held territory. Ambushed and partially surrounded by a large hostile force, the small group opened fire, then quickly withdrew up a narrow ravine in search of protective cover. Despite a wound sustained in the initial exchange of fire and imminent danger of being overrun by the numerically superior foe, he refused to seek shelter and, remaining in an exposed place, called for artillery fire to support a defensive action. Constantly vulnerable to enemy observation and action, he coordinated and directed crippling fire on the assailants, inflicting heavy casualties and repulsing several attempts to overrun friendly positions. Although wounded a second time, he remained steadfast and maintained his stand until mortally wounded. His indomitable fighting spirit set an inspiring example of valor to his comrades and, through his actions, the onslaught was stemmed, enabling a friendly platoon to reach the beleaguered patrol, evacuate the wounded, and effect a safe withdrawal to friendly lines. Cpl. Hammond's unflinching courage and consummate devotion to duty reflect lasting glory on himself and uphold the finest traditions of the military service.

 

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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for 14 August, 2021 FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY

 

14 August

1911: Through 25 August, Harry N. Atwood flew from St. Louis to New York, covering 1,155 miles, in the longest cross-country flight to date. (24)

 

1917: Lt. E.O. McDonnell (USN) launched a torpedo from a seaplane at Huntington Bay, Long Island. Afterwards, the Navy became seriously interested in launching torpedos from aircraft. 1919: An Aeromarine flying boat delivered the first airmail to a steamer at sea, when it dropped mail off to the White Star Liner Adriatic. (24)

 

1942: When Lt Elza Shahn ferried his P-38 to England, he spotted a German FW-200 Condor near Iceland. These German long-range reconnaissance aircraft gathered data on weather and allied shipping to help U-boats attack ships in the Atlantic. Shahn turned and shot the Condor down, becoming the first American Army pilot to shoot down a German plane in World War II. (4)

 

1945: FINAL B-29 COMBAT MISSION AGAINST JAPAN. This Twentieth Air Force mission included a record number of effective aircraft: 754 B-29s and 169 fighters. One phase of the mission, against Tsuchizaka, produced the longest unstaged mission (3,650 miles) of the war from the Marianas. (21)

 

1954: Convair delivered the last B-36 to the Air Force.

 

1957: SAC's Deputy Director of Operations, Brig Gen James V. Edmundson, flew a 321 BMW B-47 nonstop from Andersen AFB to Sidi Slimane, Morocco. He set a B-47 record for distance: 11,450 miles in 22 hours 50 minutes. He used four refuelings from KC-97 tankers during his journey. (1)

 

1959: The last active B-17 left for stockpile at Tucson. Seven days earlier, the Air Force destroyed the last B-17 drone.

 

1963: At Edwards AFB, Maj Robert W. Smith flew Northrop's F-5A multi-purpose fighter in its first military test flight. (3)

 

1964: The first combat employment of the F-105D in Southeast Asia involved 36 TFS aircraft from Korat RTAFB. (17)

 

1968: PROJECT GIANT BOOST. The third attempt to launch a Minuteman II from an operational base, Grand Forks AFB, failed. (6)

 

1971: The first C-5A landed at Tan Son Nhut AB to deliver general cargo and pick up three C-47 helicopters. (18)

 

1974: Northrop Corporation rolled out the F-5F at Hawthorne. (12) 1978: Through 16 August, as part of flood relief operations, a C-141 Starlifter delivered 26 tons of supplies to Khartoum. (16) (26)

1980: A C-5A with modified wings made its first flight at Dobbins AFB. Under this contract, Lockheed-Georgia had to retrofit 77 C-5As with new wings by July 1987. (16) (26)

 

1992: Operation PROVIDE RELIEF. Through 28 February 1993, US airlifters moved over 23,000 tons of food, water, medicine, and other relief supplies in 3,000 missions to Somalia. The supplies helped thousands of starving refugees, who suffered from a prolonged drought and civil war. The airlifters flew over 3,100 missions to deliver 34,400 tons of cargo in the operation. (16) (18) (21)

 

2003: A B-2 flown by an AFFTC crew released two GBU-28 B/B bombs at the Utah Testing and Training Range. This was the first successful live drop of the newly upgraded 5,000-pound weapon, an enhanced version of the GBU-28 designed specifically for the B-2. (3)

 

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