Good Monday morning January 16, 2023.
I hope that you all had a great weekend. We have been having an epic rain fall the last few days. It rained all night again and I have had to go out this morning to dig a small trench to drain our side yard and make sure the pool is being drained as it is less than a half inch from over flowing again. I have two pumps running to try to get ahead of the pool overflowing into the house. Looking for the ark plans just in case.
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First some admin items
From P'nuts
San Diego Ready Room Meeting this week, Thursday 19 January 2023 at Casa Machado Mexican Restaurant located at Montgomery Field off Aero Drive, 3750 John J. Montgomery Dr. 1700-1900.
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SKIP,
Thanks to Jay Bee
It is with an extremely heavy heart that I write to inform the Bubbas and all other readers of The List that former Silver King Lcdr Gordy Williamson has gone west. Willy and I lived together at Saufley Field while in Primary Pilot Training in 1963 and four other times of several months each over the next twenty years. We've been in constant, high-frequency e-mail and text-touch ever since his retirement in 1983 until about December 10, 2022. After several attempts to reach him I sent an eyeball-scalding e-mail demanding that he check-in. One of our pals did a google-search and found an obituary telling of Gordy's last cat-shot on December 17th. He was found on the floor of his apartment by a local police officer doing a wellness check. No known cause of death given. His daughter is having a local celebration of life for the local friends in Mitchell, S.D. in February, and another for his navy and other distant friends later, probably in the June. That one will be in Sturgis, S.D. where his cremains will be interred, with a proper NAVY fighter-pilot Celebration of Life to follow. As plans are finalized I will forward them.
Nickels, please...
Jaybee
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From Kurt
Does anyone know the status of the F-14 monument in San Diego and are there any openings.
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This week on Friday 20 January we have two important reminders. Unfortunately they are at the same time.
"The funeral and Celebration of life for Steve " Gunner'Gunn
and the Navy Cross Presentation for Royce Williams. It has been suggested that the wearing of flight Jackets to Royce's ceremony would be a great thing for him.
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This day in Naval and Marine Corps History
January 16
1815—Benjamin Crowninshield takes office as the fifth Secretary of the Navy, serving until Sept. 30, 1818. He implements the Board of Commissioners administrative system and the building of several ships. He also oversees strategy and naval policy for the brief, and very successful war with Algiers in 1815.
1840—During the Exploring Expedition, USS Vincennes, commanded by Lt. Charles Wilkes, becomes the first U.S. Navy ship to reach the Antarctic Continent.
1893—The class protected cruiser Boston lands Marines at Honolulu, HI, to protect American lives and property after the deposition of Queen Liliuokalani and the formation of a provisional government, under the influence of American residents.
1930—USS Lexington (CV 2) completes a 30-day period in which it furnishes electricity to Tacoma, WA, in an emergency arising from a drought that causes a water shortage and hydro-electric power is not available in the Puget Sound area.
1944—TBF aircraft from Composite Squadron Thirteen (VC-13) of carrier Guadalcanal (CVE 60) sink U-544 north-west of the Azores.
1945—USS Otter (DE 210), USS Hubbard (DE 211), USS Hayter (DE 212) and USS Varian (DE 798) sink German submarine U 248 north-northeast of the Azores.
1971—Amphibious command ship USS Mount Whitney (LCC 20) is commissioned.
1991—Operation Desert Storm begins to liberate Kuwait from Iraq. After three months, Iraq requests a cease fire, which is formalized by the United Nations in April.
2010—Littoral combat ship USS Independence (LCS 2), the lead ship of its class, is commissioned at Mobile, AL.
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Today in History January 16
1547 Ivan IV crowns himself the new Czar of Russia in Assumption Cathedral in Moscow.
1786 The Council of Virginia guarantees religious freedom.
1847 John C. Fremont, the famed "Pathfinder" of Western exploration, is appointed governor of California.
1865 General William T. Sherman begins a march through the Carolinas.
1900 The U.S. Senate recognizes the Anglo-German Treaty of 1899 by which the UK renounced its rights to the Samoan Islands.
1909 One of Ernest Shackleton's polar exploration teams reaches the Magnetic South Pole.
1914 Maxim Gorky is authorized to return to Russia after an eight year exile for political dissidence.
1920 The League of Nations holds its first meeting in Paris.
1920 Allies lift the blockade on trade with Russia.
1939 Franklin D. Roosevelt asks for an extension of the Social Security Act to include more women and children.
1940 Hitler cancels an attack in the West due to bad weather and the capture of German attack plans in Belgium.
1942 Japan's advance into Burma begins.
1944 Eisenhower assumes supreme command of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.
1945 The U.S. First and Third armies link up at Houffalize, effectively ending the Battle of the Bulge.
1956 The Egyptian government makes Islam the state religion.
1965 Eighteen are arrested in Mississippi for the murder of three civil rights workers.
1975 The Irish Republican Army calls an end to a 25-day cease fire in Belfast.
1979 The Shah leaves Iran.
1991 The Persian Gulf War begins. The massive U.S.-led offensive against Iraq -- Operation Desert Storm -- ends on February 28, 1991, when President George Bush declares a cease-fire, and Iraq pledges to honor future coalition and U.N. peace terms.
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ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED Thanks to the Bear
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (1965-1968)…
Skip… For The List for Monday, 16 January 2023… Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (1965-1968)
From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com post for 16 January 1968… A busy, violent and costly day of war in the skies of North Vietnam…
This following work accounts for every fixed wing loss of the Vietnam War and you can use it to read more about the losses in The Bear's Daily account. Even better it allows you to add your updated information to the work to update for history…skip
Vietnam Air Losses
Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady's work at: https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.
This is a list of all Helicopter Pilots Who Died in the Vietnam War . Listed by last name and has other info https://www.vhpa.org/KIA/KIAINDEX.HTM
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Thanks to Al
Monday Morning Humor—Documents No matter which side you are on, this is not our finest hour. In positions I've been in, if I was to take classified material home, I would have been reprimanded, fined, fired, or put in prison or all of the aforementioned. Yet, our comedians had a field day with these events.
"I have to imagine this FBI raid is extremely time-sensitive. I mean, it's a horrible time of year to go to Florida."--Unknown
"Donald Trump had kept the documents hoping to come across KFC's secret blend of 11 herbs and spices."—Jimmy Fallon
"I've been trying to understand how he could possibly think he had the right to take all those documents to his house. It's weird that a person who barely reads would even want documents. It's like finding out your dog collects stamps."—Jimmy Kimmel
"Entrusting Donald Trump with our national secrets is like asking R. Kelly to babysit."—Lamorne Morris
"So she's a brand-new judge, who was hand-picked by the guy doing the crimes to preside over the jurisdiction that includes the place where he was committing the crimes. That's like if the head ref of the Super Bowl was Tom Brady's dad."—Stephen Colbert
"It's alarming when you realize how much of our national security relies on old men keeping track of loose pages,"—Jimmy Kimmel
"Kudos to his team for being able to find anything in an old man's garage. We're done with the box labeled takeout menus 1985 to 1997. Let's take a break and get started on those baby food jars full of screws."—Stephen Colbert
"Today Obama was like 'Nothing to worry about. If Joe had access, it wasn't important. Don't worry about it.'"—Jimmy Fallon
"Which is more dangerous? Joe Biden having classified documents in his garage, or Joe Biden having the keys to a Corvette?"—Jimmy Kimmel
"For the MAGA crowd, this is like Christmas and the McRib coming back at the same time,"—Jimmy Kimmel
"I'm not saying Biden's getting worried, but he just texted Rudy Giuliani."—Jimmy Fallon
"... and he's had them a while because a lot of them had to do with the Louisiana Purchase,"—Seth Meyers
"So staffers for Joe Biden are now searching everywhere he could've possibly left documents — his knapsack, his pill organizer, under the arch at the 1904 World's Fair. They could be in a birthday card he sent to his grandkids next to a crisp two-dollar bill. No one knows."—Jimmy Kimmel
"I have a Corvette! Come on, it's in a locked garage. You'd think I'd leave my sweet cherry Vette out on the main drag where some street thugs could scuff it with their switchblades? No sirree. I keep that baby locked up tight in my garage. Sunday afternoons, I go in there and buff it with a handful of missile maps."—Stephen Colbert
"We need to get Joe Biden and Donald Trump in a cell together, have video cameras surveilling live on television 24 hours a day, we get Ryan Seacrest to host it, and we watch as they either tear each other apart or get along, and then maybe we will stop tearing each other apart and get along too,"—Jimmy Kimmel
America is "one episode of 'Storage Wars' away from finding out who killed J.F.K."—Jimmy Kimmel
"Just a thought—if the government doesn't want people reading those files, maybe they shouldn't label them 'top secret.' It's like a guy labeling a porn folder on his computer 'best porn.' Just call it 'banana bread recipe'—no one will open it."—Jimmy Fallon
Have a great week,
Al
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Thanks to Dan
Skip,
In the "Rolling Thunder", in "The List #6141, was an article concerning the continued expansion of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, by the NVA. I wasn't there at that moment, but in early 1971, immediately after Lam Son 719 (the invasion of Laos), I was based in Quang Tri, South Vietnam, flying AH-1G Cobra Attack Helicopters, for an Air Cavalry Unit in the 101st Airborne Division (2nd/17th Air Cav).
The U.S., and the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) had just finished the operation and were pulling all their units and equipment out of Laos. As they did so, they closed down all the bases from which they had staged their operations, in both Laos, and the Western portions of South Vietnam, South of the DMZ, and West of Quang Tri.
What became increasingly evident was that, as fast as we pulled back, the NVA moved forward, right behind us. The mission of my unit was to do daily reconnaissance of that area and attempt to stop the NVA from advancing.
QL9 was the main dirt road which went Westward from Dong Ha, S. Vietnam (just north of Quang Tri), then across Laos. The U.S. had attempted to destroy all the bridges and culverts, in Laos, and Western S. Vietnam, to prohibit movement by the NVA. However, as fast as we retreated, the NVA advanced. Looking at the hundreds of bridges and culverts that were being replaced by the NVA, there had to have been thousands of workers improving the road, no matter how much we bombed the area, or struck it with artillery.
Every day the road improvements advanced visibly, sometimes only a few hundred yards, but always advancing. The improvements included bridges and metal culverts. Very quickly, due to daily bombing and destruction of their bamboo bridges, the NVA began to build fords of the creeks and rivers, lining the river bottom roadway with large boulders, so that wheeled vehicles could pass over.
We were confident that most of the labor was accomplished by hand, but almost daily, it was evident that some of it had to have been done by bulldozer. So our focus was on finding, and destroying, the bulldozers. However, that was not so easily done. It was evident that the final work done by the NVA, every night, was to erase the bulldozer tracks in the dirt, then hide the bulldozer. THAT was driving us crazy....where the heck are the bulldozers? They couldn't have been driven many miles back deeper into Laos, so where were they?
All we could see, every morning, was that the road improvements had gone another few hundred yards into S. Vietnam, and that each day, at the furthest point of improvement, they had piled large boulders, in the middle of the road, for the next days improvements. It didn't matter how much damage was done by airstrikes and artillery to their work, each day. They just continued to inch along deeper into S. Vietnam.
However, finally the puzzle was solved. The NVA had been erasing all treadmarks from the bulldozers, then parking the bulldozers in the middle of the road and covering them with the very boulders they were using to line the fords on the bottom of the streams. Duh! I'm sure the NVA got a lot of laughs out of our weeks of trying to find their bulldozers. But, once we did, their road advancement came to a complete halt in that area, just inside S. Vietnam, just S/O Khe Sanh.
Dan Bresnahan
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Thanks to Mugs….I remember how it used to be up there and now it is a garbage dump….skip
Don't know who wrote this, as it's unsigned. But it's tragic what's happening to San Francisco and too many of our cities. No one in authority seems to care.
Mugs
Welcome to the city of a person called Nancy Pelosi and her egotistic nephew who was the mayor - Gavin Newsom. Watch the entire video - is this what America is going to become? This is really sad and is certainly not the city where my oldest daughter lived for over 15 years. Sent to me by an old friend whose husband flew with me in Vietnam, England and Germany
Appalling. Let's all move to SF, right? It used to be so lovely. Look what happens after half a century of progressive governance.
Glad we knew it as it was. Not how it is now.
We remember the glory days.
Wow, San Francisco used to be so beautiful.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/YJCWQR7GhlHe/
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Thanks to Tom
Folks-
View the Latest Edition of "This Week @NASA" (published Jan. 6, 2023)
I guess this is back on line again! No idea why it was gone …. Maybe the holidays? No clue!
I will keep sending as they are released and adding what I find that is of potential interest to the space-aware folks on distribution.
On a sad note Walt Cunningham died – 2 years ago I was at a mutual friend's house in his garage (man cave really!) drinking wine with Walt. He had just finished a C8 Corvette run from KSC to JSC for Motor Trend Magazine. Quite a guy, and a humble man. Funny, too. I realize how blessed I am to have been a part of this agency since the late 70's….the icons of the "first wave" are slowly fading to black, and that opportunity to share time together is slipping through our fingers. God Bless you, Walt, and GODSPEED!!!
Outside reading:
If we do not make it to the moon or Mars, HERE IS WHY:
Interesting…..collaborating with the American public??:
https://www.space.com/nasa-exoplanet-watch-project-citizen-science?utm_source=notification
Hi-lites of the recent Artemis 2 Mission (no crew – yet!):
https://www.space.com/nasa-artemis-1-moon-mission-highlights-reel?utm_source=notification
https://www.space.com/nasa-artemis-2-mission-2024-why-so-long?utm_source=notification
ENJOY!!!
Tom
PS: remember, to be removed from distribution just send email to that effect!
AGENCYWIDE MESSAGE TO ALL NASA EMPLOYEES
Points of Contact: Rebecca Sirmons, rebecca.h.sirmons@nasa.gov, and Andre Valentine, andre.valentine-1@nasa.gov, Office of Communications, NASA Headquarters
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
View the Latest Edition of "This Week @NASA" (published Jan. 6, 2023)
View the latest "This Week @NASA," produced by NASA Television, for features on agency news and activities. Stories in this program include:
• Artemis I Orion Spacecraft Returns to Kennedy Space Center
• Perseverance Rover Deposits First Sample on Mars Surface
• NASA Retires InSight Mars Lander Mission
• Apollo Astronaut Walter Cunningham Dies at 90
To watch this episode, click on the image below:
Watch the Video
To access this edition of "This Week @NASA," you may also visit:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=gIkA3YkZiH4&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE
--------------------------------------
This notice is being sent agencywide to all employees by NASA INC in the Office of Communications at NASA Headquarters.
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Thanks to Carl
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/01/ever_wonder_where_the_deep_state_came_from.html
January 16, 2023
Ever wonder where the 'deep state' came from?
By Monica Showalter
Name an assassination, and it nearly always has horrible, far-reaching, consequences.
Gavrilo Princip's assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand triggered World War I. Charlotte Corday's assassination of Jean-Paul Marat intensified the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. Fanny Kaplan's attempted assassination of V.I. Lenin in 1918, left him enfeebled for years, giving an opening to Stalin.
In the U.S., another such disaster with far-ranging consequences, according to Paul F. Petrick, writing for Issues & Insights this morning, was the 1881 assassination of President James Garfield, by Charles J. Guiteau, a disgruntled campaign worker.
Guiteau's evil act ushered in the dawn of the deep state.
Petrick writes:
Reformers led by Sen. George H. Pendleton, D-Ohio, sought to prevent future Guiteaus by eliminating Guiteau's motive for the killing, namely the "spoils system" whereby every presidential administration saturated the federal bureaucracy with party loyalists, a presidential prerogative that critics condemned as antithetical to good government.
Disgust with the spoils system reached a critical mass in the wake of Garfield's murder, prompting Congress to pass the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act.
While the new law introduced hiring via competitive examination and prohibited politically-motivated demotions and dismissals, it originally only applied to 10% of what was then a federal workforce of 130,000.
Nevertheless, Congress had planted the seed of civil service reform and like every seed, it contained the potential for growth. Specifically, that potential lay in a provision of the Pendleton Act that permitted the president to increase the number of federal employees subject to civil service protection.
Naturally, subsequent presidents sought to protect more and more of their appointees from being summarily replaced by their successors and now over 90% of the federal workforce, which has ballooned to 2.9 million employees, enjoys civil service protection.
From that, the Deep State emerged from the depths:
The Pendleton Act was conceived by reformers who disliked politics because they distrusted democracy. They designed structures that diluted the people's power and produced a federal bureaucracy insulated from presidential authority. This entrenched and unaccountable army of federal bureaucrats is what is colloquially known as the "Deep State."
The op-ed goes on to note that there are passages within the laws that can enable a president to reduce the deep state just as they can enable a president to entrench it further. Joe Biden, of course, is in that latter category, while President Trump is in the former, not only making large categories of these hacks fireable during his presidency, but now vowing to make these nasty deep-state hacks fireable again as part of his 2024 campaign pitch.
It's shocking to think that the deep state came as a consequence of a terrible 1881 assassination. And scarier still, a look at the assassins who did get away with murder in the U.S. of its presidents are such a familiar bunch -- John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated President Lincoln in 1865, was a disgruntled Democrat who hated Republicans and sympathized with the Confederacy. Garfield's 1881 assassin was a campaign worker who expected to be handed a government job. William McKinley's assassin in 1901 was a crazed Antifa-like anarchist. John F. Kennedy's assassin in 1963 was a Soviet sympathizer with some kind of relationship with the CIA. These types remain all around us. Garfield's assassination seemed particularly traumatic. As a little kid, I remember reading about Garfield's desperate attempt to recover following the attack, taking in sea air and other useless remedies of the pre-modern medicine era. A look at the number of the Old West counties being settled at the time, bearing the name "Garfield," attests to popular moves to memorialize him.
The reform, though, has proven worse than the crime it attempted to stomp out and President Trump is right in being on top of this matter and in wanting to get rid of it. Once again, Trump is right and ready to strike at the head of the snake.
Petrick's essay is simply terrific history, enlightening and concise, with an important call to action.
Read the whole thing here.
Dawn Of The Deep State: How James Garfield's Assassination Spawned This Monster
Paul F. Petrick
January 16, 2023
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This Day in U S Military History 16 January
1780 – The Battle of Cape St. Vincent took place off the southern coast of Portugal during the American War of Independence. A British fleet under Admiral Sir George Rodney defeated a Spanish squadron under Don Juan de Lángara. The battle is sometimes referred to as the Moonlight Battle because it was unusual for naval battles in the Age of Sail to take place at night. It was also the first major naval victory for the British over their European enemies in the war and proved the value of copper sheathing the hulls of warships. Admiral Rodney was escorting a fleet of supply ships to relieve the Spanish siege of Gibraltar with a fleet of about twenty ships of the line when he encountered Lángara's squadron south of Cape St. Vincent. When Lángara saw the size of the British fleet, he attempted to make for the safety of Cádiz, but the copper-sheathed British ships chased his fleet down. In a running battle that lasted from mid-afternoon until after midnight, the British captured four Spanish ships, including Lángara's flagship. Two other ships were also captured, but their final disposition is unclear; some Spanish sources indicate they were retaken by their Spanish crews, while Rodney's report indicates the ships were grounded and destroyed. After the battle Rodney successfully resupplied Gibraltar and Minorca before continuing on to the West Indies station. Lángara was released on parole, and was promoted to lieutenant general by King Carlos III.
1847 – A leader in the successful fight to wrest California away from Mexico, the explorer and mapmaker John C. Fremont briefly becomes governor of the newly won American territory. Still only in his early mid-30s at the time, Fremont had already won national acclaim for his leadership of two important explorations of the West with the military's Corps of Topographical Engineers. Shortly after the government published Fremont's meticulously accurate maps of the Far West, they became indispensable guides for the growing numbers of overland emigrants heading for California and Oregon. In 1845, though, the lines between military exploration and military conquest began to blur when President James Polk sent Captain Fremont and his men on a third "scientific" mission to explore the Rockies and Sierra Nevada-with 60 armed men accompanying them. Polk's ambition to take California from Mexico was no secret, and Fremont's expedition was clearly designed to place a military force near the region in case of war. When Mexico and the U.S. declared war in May 1846, Fremont and his men were in Oregon. Upon hearing the news, Fremont immediately headed south, calling his return "the first step in the conquest of California." When the Anglo-American population of California learned of Fremont's arrival, many of them began to rebel against their Mexican leaders. In June, a small band of American settlers seized Sonoma and raised a flag with a bear facing a five-pointed star-with this act, the revolutionaries declared the independent Republic of California. The Bear Flag Republic was short-lived. In August, Fremont and General Robert Stockton occupied Los Angeles. By January 1847, they had put down the small number of Californians determined to maintain a nation independent of the United States. With California now clearly in the U.S. hands, Stockton agreed to appoint Fremont as the territorial governor. However, a dispute broke out within the army over the legitimacy of Fremont's appointment, and the young captain's detractors accused him of mutiny, disobedience, and conduct prejudicial to military discipline. Recalled to Washington for a court martial, Fremont was found guilty of all three charges, and his appointment to take the position of governor was revoked. Though President Polk pardoned him and ordered him back to active duty in the army, Fremont was deeply embittered, and he resigned from the military and returned to California a private citizen. Although he never regained the governorship of California, the turmoil of Fremont's early political career did not harm his future prospects. In 1851, citizens of California elected him a senator, and became the territorial governor of Arizona in 1878. Today, however, Fremont's youthful accomplishments as an explorer and mapmaker are more celebrated than his subsequent political career.
1945 – In the Ardennes the US 1st and 3rd Armies link up at Houffalize. An Allied offensive aimed at eliminating the German bridgehead across the Rhine River, 8 miles north of Strasbourg, begins about 0200 hrs.
1952 – Knowing Korean requirements firsthand, General Earle E. Partridge, former Fifth Air Force Commander, put the full resources of the USAF Air Research and Development Command into searching for ways to increase the performance of the F-86 Sabre during this period. This top-priority effort led to the improved wing design "F" model that entered service with the 51st Wing in August 1952. The aircraft's operating altitude increased to 52,000 feet and its maximum speed went to Mach 1.05. In addition, the F-86F could make tighter turns at high altitudes.
1991 –At midnight in Iraq, the United Nations deadline for the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait expires, and the Pentagon prepares to commence offensive operations to forcibly eject Iraq from its five-month occupation of its oil-rich neighbor. At 4:30 p.m. EST, the first fighter aircraft were launched from Saudi Arabia and off U.S. and British aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf on bombing missions over Iraq. All evening, aircraft from the U.S.-led military coalition pounded targets in and around Baghdad as the world watched the events transpire in television footage transmitted live via satellite from Baghdad and elsewhere. At 7:00 p.m., Operation Desert Storm, the code-name for the massive U.S.-led offensive against Iraq, was formally announced at the White House. The operation was conducted by an international coalition under the command of U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf and featured forces from 32 nations, including Britain, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. During the next six weeks, the allied force engaged in a massive air war against Iraq's military and civil infrastructure, and encountered little effective resistance from the Iraqi air force or air defenses. Iraqi ground forces were helpless during this stage of the war, and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's only significant retaliatory measure was the launching of SCUD missile attacks against Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saddam hoped that the missile attacks would provoke Israel to enter the conflict, thus dissolving Arab support of the war. At the request of the United States, however, Israel remained out of the war. On February 24, a massive coalition ground offensive began, and Iraq's outdated and poorly supplied armed forces were rapidly overwhelmed. Kuwait was liberated in less than four days, and a majority of Iraq's armed forces surrendered, retreated into Iraq, or were destroyed. On February 28, President George Bush declared a cease-fire, and Iraq pledged to honor future coalition and U.N. peace terms. One hundred and twenty-five American soldiers were killed in the Persian Gulf War, with another 21 regarded as missing in action.
2014 – NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter finds the Beagle 2 spacecraft that disappeared in 2003 intact on the surface of Mars. An error had stopped the spacecraft's solar panels from working and communicating back to Earth.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
NEAHR, ZACHARIAH C.
Rank and organization: Private, Company K, 142d New York Infantry. Place and date: At Fort Fisher, N.C., 16 January 1865. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Canajoharie, N.Y. Date of issue: 11 September 1890. Citation: Voluntarily advanced with the head of the column and cut down the palisading.
CALUGAS, JOSE
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Battery B, 88th Field Artillery, Philippine Scouts. Place and date: At Culis, Bataan Province, Philippine Islands, 16 January 1942. Entered service at: Fort Stotsenburg, Philippine Islands. Born: 29 December 1907, Barrio Tagsing, Leon, Ploilo, Philippine Islands. G.O. No.: 10, 24 February 1942. Citation: The action for which the award was made took place near Culis, Bataan Province, Philippine Islands, on 16 January 1942. A battery gun position was bombed and shelled by the enemy until 1 gun was put out of commission and all the cannoneers were killed or wounded. Sgt. Calugas, a mess sergeant of another battery, voluntarily and without orders ran 1,000 yards across the shell-swept area to the gun position. There he organized a volunteer squad which placed the gun back in commission and fired effectively against the enemy, although the position remained under constant and heavy Japanese artillery fire.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for January 16, 2021 FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
16 January
1911: EARLY PHOTO RECONNAISSANCE. Walter Brookins flew a Wright plane at 2,000 feet through the San Bruno Hills, Calif., with Lt George E. M. Kelly (Infantry) as his passenger, in the first attempt to locate troops with photo reconnaissance. They were not successful because the troops hid in small groups in a wooded area. (24)
1913: Dr. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, the Civil War balloonist, died at Pasadena, Calif. (24)
1929: The Navy established a requirement for all heavier-than-air naval aviators and Navy and Marine Corps aviation pilots to receive training in night flying. (24)
1946: The U.S. Upper Atmospheric Research Panel is initiated. A panel of experts is selected to conduct tests on more than 60 captured German V-2 rockets. As a result of this project, other rocket programs spring up at Johns Hopkins University and the Naval Research Laboratory.
1951: Six Convair B-36s from the 7th Bombardment Wing at Carswell AFB, Tex., made their first appearance in Europe at Lakenheath, England, after a 7,000-mile flight. (1) The USAF directed the Air Materiel Command to set up a study with Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation (Convair) for an intercontinental rocket with a minimum range of 5,500 miles, minimum speed of Mach 6 over target, a circular error probable of 1,500 feet, and a nuclear warhead. This study led to the Atlas project (see 23 January 1951). (6)
1960: The National Air and Space Administration launched a 100-foot diameter balloon that inflated 250 miles above Wallops Island, Va. (24)
1965: Capt Joe H. Engle honored by the US Junior Chamber of Commerce as one of America's Top Ten Young Men of 1964 for his X-15 flights. (3)
1968: Crews from United States Air Forces in Europe and the Military Airlift Command delivered food and equipment to Sicilian earthquake victims over a six-day period. (16) (26)
1970: LAST B-58 HUSTLERS. The Strategic Air Command retired its last B-58 Hustlers. Two bombers from the 43rd Bombardment Wing at Little Rock AFB, Ark., and two from the 305th Bombardment Wing at Grissom AFB, Ind., flew to the aircraft storage facility at Davis Monthan AFB, Ariz. (1)
1971: Pacific Air Forces terminated all fixed-wing herbicide operations in Southeast Asia. (17)
1974: Through 19 January, the 48th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron evacuated 93 people from flooded areas near Pinehurst, Idaho. (16) (26)
1975: MACKAY TROPHY. Through 1 February, Majors Roger J. Smith, David W. Peterson, and William R. MacFarlane flew the F-15A Streak Eagle set eight time-to-climb records at Grand Forks AFB, N. Dak. On 1 February, Major Smith set a world record for time-to-climb by reaching 98,425 feet in 3 minutes 27.8 seconds. For these flights, the men earned the trophy. (21)
1981: From Corpus Christi, Tex., and Little Rock AFB, Ark., Military Airlift Command C-130s moved 500 tons of arms, ammunition, helicopters, and other material to San Salvador to support the Salvadoran government in its struggle against leftist guerrillas. This operation lasted through June. (2)
1987: A B-1B Lancer, flying with the combined test force at Edwards AFB, Calif., launched its first Short-Range Attack Missile over the Tonopah Test Range, Nev. (16) (26)
1991: Operation DESERT STORM. The 2d Bomb Wing launched B-52Gs at 0636 hours local time from Barksdale AFB, La., to the Iraqi combat zone, where they launched 35 cruise missiles on 17 January against targets in Iraq and returned to Barksdale. This flight, the longest bombing mission in history to date, started the war against Iraq. (20)
1997: An Air Force Reserve C-141 aircrew from the 446th Airlift Wing at McChord AFB, Wash., left Beijing with the remains of five Americans, who died on 13 August 1944 in a B-24J Liberator crash after bombing Japanese ships near Taiwan. Villagers searching the mountainous area for herbs discovered the crash in an extremely remote location of China's Guangxi Province. (22)
1998: After a devastating earthquake hit China's Northern Hebei Province, a C-17 left Kadena AB, Okinawa, for Beijing with 40 tons of relief supplies, consisting of blankets, sleeping bags, medical supplies, rations, and cold-weather clothing. (22)
2002: At the request of the Philippine government, the Department of Defense deployed US forces to train, advise, and assist Filipino troops in combating the indigenous Abu Sayyaf terrorist group. Through 30 September, the Air Mobility Command flew 78 missions to transport nearly 1,600 troops and more than 3,000 short tons of cargo to the Philippines. (22)
2003: The National Air and Space Administration launched the Space Shuttle Columbia on its multidisciplinary microgravity and Earth science research mission, STS-107. The seven-member crew died on 1 February, when the shuttle disintegrated while re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. Investigators later determined that a piece of foam broke off in launch and damaged the orbiter's thermal protection system on its left wing. The damage led to an extensive heat buildup and the shuttle's disintegration. The shuttle crew members were: Col Rick D. Husband, Commander; Lt CommanderWilliam C. McCool, Pilot; Capt David M. Brown (U. S. Navy), Mission Specialist; Kalpana Chawla, Mission Specialist; Lt Col Michael P. Anderson, Payload Commander; Commander Laurel B. Clark (U. S. Navy), Mission Specialist; and Ilan Ramon, Payload Specialist and a Reserve colonel in the Israeli Air Force. (3)
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