The List 6110
Good Saturday Morning May 28
I hope that your Memorial Day weekend is off to a good start.
Regards,
Skip.
This day in Naval and Marine Corps History May 28
On This Day
1813 During the War of 1812, the frigate Essex, commanded by Capt. David Porter, and her prize, Georgiana, capture the British whalers Atlantic, Greenwich, Catharine (burned), Rose, and Hector (burned) in the Pacific.
1943 USS Peto (SS 265) sinks Japanese hydrographic-meteorological research ship Tenkai No.2 northeast of Mussau Island. Also on this date, USS Tunny (SS 282) sinks Japanese gunboat Shotoku Maru off the west coast of Rota, Mariana Islands.
1945 USS Ray (SS 271) sinks Japanese freighter Biko Maru northwest of Changshan. Also on this date, USS Blueback (SS 326) and USS Lamprey (SS 372) damage Japanese submarine chaser Ch1 in a surface gunnery action off Japara, N.E.I.
1958 USS Galveston (CLG 3, previously CL 93), the first Talos-firing missile cruiser, is placed in commission. USS Galveston participates in the Vietnam War with the Seventh Fleet and serves in the Mediterranean during the Arab-Israeli War during 1967.
1980 55 women become the first female graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy.
2017 Special Operator 1st Class Remington J. Peters, dies of injuries sustained during an airborne demonstration of the Navy Leap Frogs at Liberty State Park for New York Fleet Week. Peters, a veteran of two combat deployments, was a member of the parachute team for more than a year with more than 900 jumps.
Today in World History May 27
Today in History May 28
585 BC A solar eclipse interrupts a battle outside Sardis in western Turkey between Medes and Lydians. The battle ends in a draw.
1805 Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned in Milan, Italy.
1830 Congress authorizes Indian removal from all states to the western Prairie.
1863 The 54th Massachusetts, a regiment of African-American recruits, leaves Boston, headed for Hilton Head, South Carolina.
1859 The French army launches a flanking attack on the Austrian army in Northern France.
1871 The Paris commune is suppressed by troops from Versailles.
1900 Britain annexes the Orange Free State in South Africa.
1940 Belgium surrenders to Germany.
1953 Melody, the first animated 3-D cartoon in Technicolor, premiers.
1961 Amnesty International, a human rights organization, is founded.
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ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED Thanks to the Bear … Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (1965-1968)…
From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com post
… For The List for Saturday, 28 May 2022… Bear 🇺🇸⚓️🐻
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (1965-1968)
From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com post for 28 May 1967… USS John F. Kennedy I christened in Philly…
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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Thanks to Dutch
Memorial Day: A somber thanks to our fallen troops
And remembering the sources who saved countless lives
By Daniel N. Hoffman
There is no more sacred and somber day for the U.S. than Memorial Day when we commemorate the men and women who died in military service, whether in combat or as a result of wounds sustained during combat. Like many families, my sons and I will take time to reflect on the impact and legacies of our fallen heroes. It is they to whom we are in debt for all of the freedoms we enjoy.
The bookend holidays for Memorial Day are Mother's Day and Father's Day. It is during this period of about a month when we remember what binds our families together including all too often our sacrifices.
My sons and I will also reflect on the work of our Intelligence Community, which has provided such critical support to the warfighter, especially during the past two decades. In war zones, where I served for three years of my career, the IC collects strategic intelligence about the enemy's plans and intentions as well as tactical intelligence about the enemy's location, movements and composition. It is the tactical intelligence, like the location of IEDs, a planned ambush or a suicide attack, that saves soldiers' lives because it gives us the precious time to detect and preempt threats "left of boom," before any harm comes to our presence in-country.
While serving at the CIA, my colleagues and I rarely had the time for counterfactual history, namely hypothesizing about what might have been if conditions had been different. We were too singularly focused on dealing with the reality of recruiting spies and stealing secrets so that policymakers could better understand our nation's wickedly challenging national security landscape.
But this year I found myself taking a new path of inquiry as I imagined what might have befallen some of the soldiers with whom I had the honor of serving in war zones had we not obtained the most timely threat warnings from our sensitive source penetrations.
Intelligence as one of the mentors at the CIA was fond of saying, is not like a fine wine getting better with age. Time is precious. That means after collecting raw intelligence from our sources, we must perform analysis with lightning speed so that executive decisions can be made with the greatest precision and alacrity. Tactical intelligence about a terrorist who placed a roadside bomb where our troops were planning to be is of value only if we deliver it in time.
That's why on this Memorial Day I will remember one of our sources in particular, from whom we obtained a treasure trove of intelligence on a particular terrorist group in the Middle East, which had our soldiers in its crosshairs. From the source, we learned about planned terrorist attacks far enough in advance so that our soldiers could safely "get off the X". And we learned the identities of the other terrorists in the network, who had not the faintest inkling that one of their own had betrayed them on our behalf.
ILLUSTRATION BY LINAS GARSYS
I'll never forget that late night one autumn when I happened across one of our young case officers who was the source's handler. The case officer was slumped over his desk watching a video of our source, who had been killed in battle. His body was being washed and shrouded in cloth for Islamic burial. I sat with the case officer, who pointed out evidence the source had been tortured. We would later confirm it was a rival militant group, which had been responsible for the source's death. We had been focused on doing everything possible to protect our source from discovery. But this was what happened all too often in wartime. Still, the fact that we were unable to keep our source out of harm's way weighed on the case officer's conscience and mine as well. Our source had saved countless American lives. He had repeatedly risked his own life on our behalf. It would be our sacred duty to ensure we gave his family the financial support they deserved.
It's counterfactual history to be sure, but on this Memorial Day I will be thinking about how many of our soldiers would not be on this earth were it not for our brave source and countless others like him. My sons and I will remember them all with prayer and reflect together on the ultimate sacrifice they made to keep our comrades safe from harm.
Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domes-tic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018.
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Thanks to Barrel…..very cute
ONE OF THE BEST THINGS I'VE SEEN 😂😂🔥 | BASEBALL
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Thanks to Jim
A Sailor's Life
All me bloomin' life!
Me father was King Neptune,
me mother was a mermaid,
I was born on the crest of a wave,
and rocked in the cradle of the deep.
Me eyes are stars, me teeth are spars,
Me hair is hemp and seaweed…
and when I spits, I spits tar,
I's tough I is, I am, I are!
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Thanks to Shadow
Jewish Comedians - Shadow's experience w. Highway Patrol and mine w. Buddy Hackett ...
Shecky Greene provided me with one of the hilarious events of my life. He used to do a skit about being pulled over in New Mexico by a NM Highway Patrol. Shecky is pulled off the road and is watching the patrolman in his rear view mirror as the Patrolman steps out of his car. Shecky notices he has on cowboy boots, mirrored Ray-Ban glasses… and he stops to put on his big, perfectly bent Stetson Hat… The whole ensemble made him look seven feet tall! He walks up to Shecky's open window, bends down and says "HOWDY"! For some damn reason Shecky thought the whole scenario was hilarious and started laughing his ass off! One of those deals where once you start almost impossible to stop. Pretty soon, the patrolman starts laughing with him, while not knowing what Shecky was laughing about… finally he looks down and says, "Get the hell out of here… never wrote him a ticket. Well, in my young life, it somehow impressed me too.
Fast forward 20 years later… I'm driving to Houston to meet up with the wife, after a weekend in Vegas together. She was flying to Sacramento for his youngest sister's college graduation and then would fly to Houston and meet up with me there, where we would visit a family friend. I had a "Z Car" in those days and left Vegas and cut down through Sedona, caught I-10 and headed for Texas. It was 55 in those days and I don't think I was ever below 70 on the whole trip… mostly 80's on the Interstate. Just west of Lordsburg, New Mexico… I pass an off ramp that went up a hill to a gas station. Big station… had concrete where the pumps were… but also had a big gravel area around the concrete. As I pass the station… I see a New Mexico Highway Patrol car, sitting at the pumps and notice a patrolman sitting inside. I looked down and damn… I was doing 85!
All of a sudden I see the Patrol Car come screaming out of the pump area and throwing rocks and gravel in his wake. No doubt in my mind, he was after me! It was one of those moments when you knew you were screwed! Decision time… should I fake it and slow to the speed limit or just pull over and take my medicine. Common sense told me it was a better choice than to have him run me down. So I pulled over and waited for him to catch up. He pulls up behind me and sat there for a minute or two; I was assuming he was checking my license plate for warrants. He was far enough behind me I could see the whole car in my mirror. Finally he opens his door and I see this long leg step out covered by a cowboy boot! Instantly, Shecky Greene pops into my mind! Holy shit! Then as he gets out… he has on mirrored Bay-Bans… then he leans back into the car and pulls out his Stetson Hat! OMG… a comedy routine is being replayed in real life. As he approached my car, it was everything I could do to keep from laughing… but when he leaned over and dropped his head down to look at me and said. "HOWDY"! I freakin' lost it! I had one of those un- contained… outbursts and coughs at the same time… while laughing my ass off. He rears back… stumbled, dropped his ticket book and starts laughing like hell with me! He finally steps back forward and yells out… "Shecky Greene… Right! I'm laughing so hard I just nodded> It went on for a couple of more minutes and finally calms down enough and said… "Mister, I've been waiting over 20 years for this moment… I must have given out of a thousand tickets in my lifetime and have had dreams that this would happen some day"! We finally calmed down and he asked where I was going, I told him… Then asked how fast was I really going and I told him the truth. He then asked about the car… I filled him in… and then between giggles he said, "Because you are honest and you have given me the laugh of a lifetime, I'm gonna let you go. But I'm warning you… you better be careful when you get over in Texas… them Ranger Boys have no sense of humor at all. They'll nail your ass"! With that, he shook my hand, said "Have a safe trip"… and starts to walk away. He stopped and turned around and said… "I can't wait to tell my supervisor about this"! Last thing I heard was a big guffaw!
It really happened!
Shadow
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The Battle of Midway This is a full length effort and worth your time. More to come over the next few days. I read Dusty Kleiss book Never Call Me a Hero and learned a lot of things about the Battle I had never read before. skip
Thanks to Tom
This is surprisingly one of the best you tubes I have seen on the fog of war and why the Japanese reacted the way they did to the attacks during the Battle of Midway. Very informative and well worth the review. It really makes you aware of the American ingenuity, intelligence and surprise we had on their operations. And true sacrifice.
Ever wonder how you would react if you were sitting on the Japanese side with the intelligence they had?
Add to this that the Japanese went down with their ships, and you see the great loss of flight, maintenance, ship crew, and war experience all lost in one major battle.
Tom Monroe
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Thanks to John W.
The Bruce Carr Story
20 year old Bruce Carr, a fighter pilot
The dead chicken was starting to smell. After carrying it for several
days, 20-year-old Bruce Carr still hadn't decided how to cook it without
the Germans catching him. But as hungry as he was, he couldn't bring
himself to eat it. In his mind, no meat was better than raw chicken meat,
so he threw it away.
Resigning himself to what appeared to be his unavoidable fate, he turned
in the direction of the nearest German airfield. Even POW's get to eat
sometimes. And aren't they constantly dodging from tree to tree . . .ditch
to culvert? He was exhausted!
He was tired of trying to find cover where there was none. Carr hadn't
realized that Czechoslovakian forests had no underbrush until, at the edge
of the farm field, he struggled out of his parachute and dragged it into
the woods.
During the times he had been screaming along at treetop level in his P-51
Angels Playmate' the forests and fields had been nothing more than a green
blur behind the Messerchmitts, Focke-Wulfs, trains and trucks he had in
his sights. He never expected to find himself a pedestrian far behind
enemy lines.
The instant antiaircraft shrapnel ripped into the engine, he knew he was
in trouble. Serious trouble. Clouds of coolant steam hissing through
jagged holes in the cowling told Carr he was about to ride the silk
elevator down to a long walk back to his squadron. A very long walk.
This had not been part of the mission plan. Several years before, when
18-year-old Bruce Carr enlisted in the Army, in no way could he have
imagined himself taking a walking tour of rural Czechoslovakia with
Germans everywhere around him. When he enlisted, all he could think about
was flying fighters.
By the time he had joined the military, Carr already knew how to fly. He
had been flying as a private pilot since 1939, soloing in a $25 Piper Cub
his father had bought from a disgusted pilot who had left it lodged
securely in the top of a tree. His instructor had been an Auburn, New
York, native by the name of 'Johnny' Bruns.
"In 1942, after I enlisted," as Bruce Carr remembers it, "we went to meet
our instructors. I was the last cadet left in the assignment room and was
nervous. Then the door opened and out stepped the man who was to be my
military flight instructor. It was Johnny Bruns!
"We took a Stearman to an outlying field, doing aerobatics all the way;
then he got out and soloed me. That was my first flight in the military.
"The guy I had in advanced training in the AT-6 had just graduated himself
and didn't know a damned bit more than I did." Carr can't help but smile,
as he remembers: "which meant neither one of us knew anything. Zilch!
"After three or four hours in the AT-6, they took me and a few others
aside, told us we were going to fly P-40s and we left for Tipton, Georgia.
We got to Tipton, and a lieutenant just back from North Africa kneeled on
the P-40s wing, showed me where all the levers were, made sure I knew how
everything worked, then said, 'If you can get it started . . go flying,'
just like that!
"I was 19 years old and thought I knew everything. I didn't know enough to
be scared. They didn't tell us what to do. They just said: 'Go fly!' so I
buzzed every cow in that part of the state. Nineteen years old and 1,100
horsepower, what did they expect? Then we went overseas."
By today's standards, Carr and that first contingent of pilots shipped to
England were painfully short of experience. They had so little flight time
that today; they would barely have their civilian pilot's license. Flight
training eventually became more formal, but in those early days, it had a
hint of fatalistic Darwinism: if they learned fast enough to survive, they
were ready to move on to the next step.
Including his 40 hours in the P-40 terrorizing Georgia, Carr had less than
160 hours flight time when he arrived in England.
His group in England was to be the pioneering group that would take the
Mustang into combat, and he clearly remembers his introduction to the
airplane.
"I thought I was an old P-40 pilot and the P-51B would be no big deal. But
I was wrong. I was truly impressed with the airplane. I mean REALLY
impressed! It flew like an airplane. I just flew the P-40, but in the P-51
I was part of the airplane. And it was part of me! There was a world of
difference."
When he first arrived in England, the instructions were, 'This is a P-51.
Go fly it. Soon, we'll have to form a unit, so go fly.' A lot of English
cows were buzzed.
"On my first long-range mission, we just kept climbing, and I'd never had
an airplane above about 10,000 feet before. Then we were at 30,000 feet
with Â'Angels PlaymateÂ' and I couldn't believe it! I'd gone to church as
a kid, and I knew that's where the angels were and that's when I named my
airplane Angels Playmate.'
"Then a bunch of Germans roared down through us, and my leader immediately
dropped tanks and turned hard for home. But I'm not that smart. I'm 19
years old and this SOB shoots at me. And I'm not going to let him get away
with it
"We went round and round. And I'm really mad because he shot at me.
Childish emotions, in retrospect. He couldn't shake me, but I couldn't get
on his tail to get any hits either.
"Before long, we're right down in the trees. I'm shooting, but I'm not
hitting. I am, however, scaring the hell out of him. But I'm at least as
excited as he is. Then I tell myself to calm down.
"We're roaring around within a few feet of the ground, and he pulls up to
go over some trees, so I just pull the trigger and keep it down. The gun
barrels burned out and one bullet, a tracer, came tumbling out and made a
great huge arc. It came down and hit him on the left wing about where the
aileron is. He pulled up, off came the canopy, and he jumped out, but too
low for the chute to open and the airplane crashed. I didn't shoot him
down, I scared him to death with one bullet hole in his left wing. My
first victory wasn't a kill; it was more of a suicide."
The rest of his 14 victories were much more conclusive. Being a red-hot
fighter pilot, however, was absolutely no use to him as he lay shivering
in the Czechoslovakian forest. He knew he would die if he didn't get some
food and shelter soon.
"I knew where the German field was because I'd flown over it, so I headed
in that direction to surrender. I intended to walk in the main gate, but
it was late afternoon and, for some reason, I had second thoughts and
decided to wait in the woods until morning.
"While I was lying there, I saw a crew working on an FW 190 right at the
edge of the woods. When they were done, I assumed, just like you assume in
America, that the thing was all finished. The cowling's on. The engine has
been run. The fuel truck has been there. It's ready to go. Maybe a dumb
assumption for a young fellow, but I assumed so. So, I got in the airplane
and spent the night all hunkered down in the cockpit.
"Before dawn, it got light and I started studying the cockpit. I can't
read German, so I couldn't decipher dials and I couldn't find the normal
switches like there were in American airplanes. I kept looking, and on the
right side was a smooth panel. Under this was a compartment with something
I would classify as circuit breakers. They didn't look like ours, but they
weren't regular switches either.
"I began to think that the Germans were probably no different from the
Americans in that they would turn off all the switches when finished with
the airplane. I had no earthly idea what those circuit breakers or
switches did, but I reversed every one of them. If they were off, that
would turn them on. When I did that, the gauges showed there was
electricity on the airplane.
"I'd seen this metal T-handle on the right side of the cockpit that had a
word on it that looked enough like 'starter' for me to think that's what
it was. But when I pulled it, nothing happened. Nothing.
"But if pulling doesn't work . . . you push. And when I did, an inertia
starter started winding up. I let it go for a while, then pulled on the
handle and the engine started!"
The sun had yet to make it over the far trees and the air base was just
waking up, getting ready to go to war. The FW 190 was one of many
dispersed through-out the woods, and at that time of the morning, the
sound of the engine must have been heard by many Germans not far away on
the main base.
But even if they heard it, there was no reason for alarm. The last thing
they expected was one of their fighters taxiing out with a weary Mustang
pilot at the controls. Carr, however, wanted to take no chances.
"The taxiway came out of the woods and turned right towards where I knew
the airfield was because I'd watched them land and take off while I was in
the trees.
"On the left side of the taxiway, there was a shallow ditch and a space
where there had been two hangars. The slabs were there, but the hangars
were gone, and the area around them had been cleaned of all debris.
"I didn't want to go to the airfield, so I plowed down through the ditch
and then the airplane started up the other side.
Â"When the airplane started up . . . I shoved the throttle forward and
took off right between where the two hangars had been."
At that point, Bruce Carr had no time to look around to see what effect
the sight of a Focke-Wulf erupting from the trees had on the Germans.
Undoubtedly, they were confused, but not unduly concerned. After all, it
was probably just one of their maverick pilots doing something against the
rules They didn't know it was one of OUR maverick pilots doing something
against the rules.
Carr had problems more immediate than a bunch of confused Germans. He had
just pulled off the perfect plane-jacking; but he knew nothing about the
airplane, couldn't read the placards and had 200 miles of enemy territory
to cross. At home, there would be hundreds of his friends and fellow
warriors, all of whom were, at that moment, preparing their guns to shoot
at airplanes marked with swastikas and crosses-airplanes identical to the
one Bruce Carr was at that moment flying. But Carr wasn't thinking that
far ahead.
First, he had to get there, and that meant learning how to fly the
airplane. "There were two buttons behind the throttle and three buttons
behind those two. I wasn't sure what to push, so I pushed one button and
nothing happened I pushed the other and the gear started up. As soon as I
felt it coming up and I cleared the fence at the edge of the German field,
I took it down a little lower and headed for home.
"All I wanted to do was clear the ground by about six inches, and there
was only one throttle position for me . . . full forward!
"As I headed for home, I pushed one of the other three buttons, and the
flaps came part way down. I pushed the button next to it, and they came up
again. So I knew how to get the flaps down. But that was all I knew.
"I can't make heads or tails out of any of the instruments. None. I can't
even figure how to change the prop pitch. But I don't sweat that, because
props are full forward when you shut down anyway and it was running fine."
This time, it was German cows that were buzzed, although, as he streaked
across fields and through the trees only a few feet off the ground, that
was not the intent. At something over 350 miles an hour below tree-top
level, he was trying to be a difficult target as he crossed the lines. But
he wasn't difficult enough.
"There was no doubt when I crossed the lines because every SOB and his
brother who had a .50-caliber machine gun shot at me. It was all over the
place, and I had no idea which way to go. I didn't do much dodging because
I was just as likely to fly into bullets as around them."
When he hopped over the last row of trees and found himself crossing his
own airfield, he pulled up hard to set up for landing. His mind was on
flying the airplane. "I pitched up, pulled the throttle back and punched
the buttons I knew would put the gear and flaps down. I felt the flaps
come down but the gear wasn't doing anything. I came around and pitched up
again, still punching the button. Nothing was happening and I was really
frustrated." He had been so intent on figuring out his airplane problems,
he forgot he was putting on a very tempting show for the ground crew.
"As I started up the last time, I saw our air defense guys ripping the
tarps off the quad .50s that ringed our field. I hadn't noticed the
machine guns before. But I was sure noticing them right then.
"I roared around in as tight a pattern as I could fly and chopped the
throttle. I slid to a halt on the runway and it was a nice belly job, if I
say so myself."
His antics over the runway had drawn quite a crowd, and the airplane had
barely stopped sliding before there were MPs up on the wings trying to
drag him out of the airplane by his arms. They didn't realize he was still
strapped in.
"I started throwing some good Anglo-Saxon swear words at them, and they
let loose while I tried to get the seat belt undone, but my hands wouldn't
work and I couldn't do it. Then they started pulling on me again because
they still weren't convinced I was an American.
"I was yelling and hollering. Then, suddenly, they let go, and a face
drops down into the cockpit in front of mine. It was my Group Commander:
George R. Bickel.
"Bickel said, 'Carr, where in the hell have you been, and what have you
been doing now?'Â"
Bruce Carr was home and entered the record books as the only pilot known
to leave on a mission flying a Mustang and return flying a Focke-Wulf. For
several days after the ordeal, he had trouble eating and sleeping, but
when things again fell into place, he took some of the other pilots out to
show them the airplane and how it worked. One of them pointed out a small
handle under the glare shield that he hadn't noticed before. When he
pulled it, the landing gear unlocked and fell out. The handle was a
separate, mechanical uplock. At least, he had figured out the important
things.
Carr finished the war with 14 aerial victories on 172 missions, including
three bailouts because of ground fire. He stayed in the service,
eventually flying 51 missions in Korea in F-86s and 286 in Vietnam, flying
F-100s.
That's an amazing 509 combat missions and doesn't include many others
during Viet Nam in other aircraft types.
There is a profile into which almost every one of the breed fits, and it
is the charter within that profile that makes the pilot a fighter pilot .
. not the other way around. And make no mistake about it; Colonel Bruce
Carr was definitely a fighter pilot.
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Thanks to Mugs….If I had heard the doodle doodle sound from the RAW gear in my ears while I was reading this article this morning I may have barrel rolled out of my chair. In fact a right after I returned from the Midway cruise I was out on a test hop off San Clemente and had by habit turned all the gear on in including the RAW gear and got a doodle doodle in my head set and pulled on the stick and stomped on the rudder to try and see the missile when I remembered I was home and picked up a destroyer at the south end of the island below me and he was playing with his gear. Got my heart rate up.
Dodging SAMs-In An AC-130!
Difficult to believe they survived. Hard enough to do in a fighter. Especially at night and not hit the ground.
Dodging SAMs—In An AC-130!
BY HENRY ZEYBEL
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This Day in U S Military History…….May 28
1918 – US forces undertake their first attack of World War I on the second day of the German offensive along the River Aisne. The fighting centers on the village of Cantigny to the east of Montdidier on the Somme River sector t the north. Elements of the US 1st Division under General Robert Lee Bullard are pitched against the German Eighteenth Army lead by General Oskar von Hutier. Bullard's troops capture Cantigny, taking 200 prisoners and block a series of German counterattacks over the following days.
1942 – The rest of the Japanese forces directed at Midway set out. Admiral Yamamato, commanding the operation overall, believes that, if the plan to invade the island succeeds, the American fleet can be forced into a decisive engagement and that their defeat will force a truce before American production can swamp the Japanese war effort.
1942 – Task Force 16 sails from Oahu for Midway with the carriers Enterprise and Hornet and escorts. Admiral Fletcher's Task Force 17 follows after miraculously quick repairs to the Yorktown.
1944 – Allied forces continue the Italian offensive. The Canadian 1st Corps captures Ceprano. There is heavy fighting all along the front. However, other than rearguards from the German 14th Panzer Corps and the 51st Mountain Corps, German forces are retiring to the Caesar Line because of the threat to their rear posed by the US 6th Corps at Anzio.
1944 – Bombers of the US 8th Air Force attack Leuna and Magdeburg.
1944 – On Biak Island, the US 41st Infantry Division begins to expand its beachhead. There is heavy fighting near the village of Mokmer, where an airfield is located, and the American battalion pulls back.
1944 – General MacArthur announces that, strategically, the campaign for New Guinea has been won although there is still some hard fighting to be done.
1945 – William Joyce ("Lord Haw Haw") is captured in Flensburg. He is a British fascist who became a radio propagandist for the Nazis during the war.
1945 – Admiral Halsey, commanding US 3rd Fleet, takes command of American naval forces operating against targets in Japan; US Task Force 58 is assigned to US 3rd Fleet, becoming TF38.
1945 – More than 100 Japanese planes are shot down near Okinawa. This is the last major effort against the Allied naval forces surrounding the island. One American destroyer is sunk in the otherwise unsuccessful air strikes.
1984 – On Memorial Day the only American Unknown Soldier from the Vietnam War is laid to rest at ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC, attended by 250,000, including members of Congress and the international diplomatic community, and Vietnam veterans in fatigues. President Reagan, named honorary next-of-kin, delivers the eulogy at the hero's funeral, and urges greater efforts to locate the more than 2,400 service members still missing. The remains were unearthed in 1998 for DNA testing and possible identification. They were later identified as those of Air Force First Lieutenant Michael J. Blassie, and were sent to St. Louis for hometown burial.
1987 – Matthias Rust, a 19-year-old amateur pilot from West Germany, takes off from Helsinki, Finland, travels through more than 400 miles of Soviet airspace, and lands his small Cessna aircraft in Red Square by the Kremlin. The event proved to be an immense embarrassment to the Soviet government and military. Rust, described by his mother as a "quiet young man…with a passion for flying," apparently had no political or social agenda when he took off from the international airport in Helsinki and headed for Moscow. He entered Soviet airspace, but was either undetected or ignored as he pushed farther and farther into the Soviet Union. Early on the morning of May 28, 1987, he arrived over Moscow, circled Red Square a few times, and then landed just a few hundred yards from the Kremlin. Curious onlookers and tourists, many believing that Rust was part of an air show, immediately surrounded him. Very quickly, however, Rust was arrested and whisked away. He was tried for violating Soviet airspace and sentenced to prison. He served 18 months before being released. The repercussions in the Soviet Union were immediate. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sacked his minister of defense, and the entire Russian military was humiliated by Rust's flight into Moscow. U.S. officials had a field day with the event–one American diplomat in the Soviet Union joked, "Maybe we should build a bunch of Cessnas." Soviet officials were less amused. Four years earlier, the Soviets had been harshly criticized for shooting down a Korean Airlines passenger jet that veered into Russian airspace. Now, the Soviets were laughingstocks for not being able to stop one teenager's "invasion" of the country. One Russian spokesperson bluntly declared, "You criticize us for shooting down a plane, and now you criticize us for not shooting down a plane."
2001 – The US and China tentatively agreed that the US spy plane on Hainan Island would be dismantled and possibly flown home aboard a giant Antonov-124 transport.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
CHRISTIANCY, JAMES I.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, Company D, 9th Michigan Cavalry. Place and date: At Hawes Shops, Va., 28 May 1864. Entered service at: Monroe County, Mich. Birth: Monroe County, Mich. Date of issue: 10 October 1892. Citation: While acting as aide, voluntarily led a part of the line into the fight, and was twice wounded.
STOREY, JOHN H. R.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company F, 109th Pennsylvania Infantry. Place and date: At Dallas, Ga., 28 May 1864. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Philadelphia, Pa. Date of issue: 29 August 1896. Citation: While bringing in a wounded comrade, under a destructive fire, he was himself wounded in the right leg, which was amputated on the same day.
JOHNSON, PETER
Rank and organization: Fireman First Class, U.S. Navy. Born: 29 December 1857, Sumerland, England. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 167, 27 August 1904. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Vixen on the night of 28 May 1898. Following the explosion of the lower front manhole gasket of boiler A of the vessel, Johnson displayed great coolness and self-possession in entering the fireroom.
MAHONEY, GEORGE
Rank and organization: Fireman First Class, U.S. Navy. Born: 15 January 1865, Worcester, Mass. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 167, 27 August 1904. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Vixen on the night of 28 May 1898. Following the explosion of the lower front manhole gasket of boiler A of that vessel, Mahoney displayed great coolness and self-possession in entering the fireroom.
SHANAHAN, PATRICK
Rank and organization: Chief Boatswain's Mate, U.S. Navy. Born: 6 November 1867, Ireland. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 534, 29 November 1899. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Alliance, 28 May 1899. Displaying heroism, Shanahan rescued William Steven, quartermaster, first class, from drowning.
DAVILA, RUDOLPH B.
Staff Sergeant Rudolph B. Davila distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action, on 28 May 1944, near Artena, Italy. During the offensive which broke through the German mountain strongholds surrounding the Anzio beachhead, Staff Sergeant Davila risked death to provide heavy weapons support for a beleaguered rifle company. Caught on an exposed hillside by heavy, grazing fire from a well-entrenched German force, his machine gunners were reluctant to risk putting their guns into action. Crawling fifty yards to the nearest machine gun, Staff Sergeant Davila set it up alone and opened fire on the enemy. In order to observe the effect of his fire, Sergeant Davila fired from the kneeling position, ignoring the enemy fire that struck the tripod and passed between his legs. Ordering a gunner to take over, he crawled forward to a vantage point and directed the firefight with hand and arm signals until both hostile machine guns were silenced. Bringing his three remaining machine guns into action, he drove the enemy to a reserve position two hundred yards to the rear. When he received a painful wound in the leg, he dashed to a burned tank and, despite the crash of bullets on the hull, engaged a second enemy force from the tank's turret. Dismounting, he advanced 130 yards in short rushes, crawled 20 yards and charged into an enemy-held house to eliminate the defending force of five with a hand grenade and rifle fire. Climbing to the attic, he straddled a large shell hole in the wall and opened fire on the enemy. Although the walls of the house were crumbling, he continued to fire until he had destroyed two more machine guns. His intrepid actions brought desperately needed heavy weapons support to a hard-pressed rifle company and silenced four machine gunners, which forced the enemy to abandon their prepared positions. Staff Sergeant Davila's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the United States Army.
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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/.
May 23, 1988
The Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey, the world's first production tilt-rotor aircraft, is rolled out at Bell Helicopter Textron's plant in Arlington, Tex.
May 24, 1918
United States Army Air Service is organized.
May 25, 1927
AAC Lt. James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle flies the first successful outside loop. Doolittle is Founder Number 107.
May 26, 2010
USAF's X-51A unmanned hypersonic air vehicle makes first flight, flying further on its own power than any other scramjet in history. A B-52 mothership carried aloft the Boeing-built X-51, which flew at Mach 5 for about 200 seconds before program officials terminated the flight.
May 27, 1958
The first flight of the McDonnell XF4H-1 (F-4) Phantom II is made by company pilot Robert Little (who was wearing street shoes at the time) at the company's facility in St. Louis, Mo.
May 28, 1956
Company pilot Pete Girard makes the first flight of the Ryan X-13 Vertijet Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) research aircraft in hover mode at Edwards AFB, Calif. He had also made the type's first conventional flight on Dec. 10, 1955.
May 29, 1952
The first combat use of air-to-air refueling of Air Force fighter airplanes takes place as 12 Republic F-84E Thunderjets flown by pilots from the 159th Fighter-Bomber Squadron are topped off on their way back from a bomb run against targets at Sariwon, North Korea. The F-84s are based at Itazuke AB, Japan. By July 4, three more of these Operation Rightside missions will be flown.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for May 28, 2021 FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
28 May
1913: Lts Thomas DeWitt Milling and William C. Sherman set two-man duration and distance records of 4 hours 22 minutes and 220 miles from Texas City to San Antonio. (24)
1914: Glenn Curtiss flew the redesigned and rebuilt Langley airplane, with its original engine, off the water for 150 feet at Hammondsport. (24)
1940: Dr. Robert H. Goddard offered his research data, patents, and facilities to the military at a meeting with representatives of Army Ordnance, the Army Air Corps, and the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics. The representatives were interested in using rockets for aircraft assisted takeoffs. (6)
1941: In Newark, a spin-proof private plane, designed for General Aircraft Company, demonstrated. (24)
1952: Operation HIGH TIDE. Through 29 May, the ANG's 116 FBW participated in this operation to conduct the first air refueling under combat conditions. After launching missions from Japan and attacking targets near Sariwon, N. Korea, the 116th's F-84 fighter-bombers were refueled by KB-29 tankers on their way back to Misawa AB. (32)
1958: Test pilot Capt Robert F. Titus became the first military pilot to accomplish a zero-length launch of a F-100 Super Sabre at Edwards AFB. (3)
1959: A Rhesus monkey, Able, and a squirrel monkey, Miss Baker, were the first primates to be launched and recovered successfully from space. They were recovered after their nose cone hit in the Atlantic Ocean near Antigua Island. They flew to 300 miles in altitude on a PGM-19 Jupiter missile launched from Cape Canaveral. (16) (24)
1962: SAC received the last GAM-72A Quail missile from McDonnell Aircraft Company. (6) (12)
1963: Cape Canaveral launched the first Minuteman equipped with retro-rockets. The project tried to increase the separation distance between the third stage and reentry vehicle. (6)
1964: A Saturn VI carried the first Apollo command and service module mockups into orbit from Cape Kennedy.
1968: The Cessna Aircraft Plant at Wichita, Kans., rolled out the first A-37B attack aircraft. (16) Exercise Cold Mass II: MAC's Twenty-First and Twenty-Second Air Forces put 36 C-141s and 3 C-130s in the air to form the largest C-141 combat airdrop formation to date. (16)
1995: To commemorate the World War II Hump Airlift, a C-17 Globemaster III and KC-10 Extender flew over the Himalayan Mountains from Calcutta, India, to Kunming, China. (16)
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