To All,
Well just back from then USS Midway and had a great time and the ship had a great turnout. Cowboy let me know we had a distribution problem so I am resending what I sent out early this morning.
Good Sunday Morning May 28, 2023.
I hope that you all have a great day. I am on my way to the USS Midway for the day to meet with my brothers. The weather is supposed to be cloudy most of the day. I hope that the ship gets a large turnout today and tomorrow. I have some of my students coming down with their families.
Regards,
Skip
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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.
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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
Skip… For The List for Sunday, 28 May 2023… Bear🇺��⚓️🐻
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (1965-1968)…
From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com post for 28 May 1968… "Memorial Day is a time for thinking of might have beens that never were. Of brave Americans who put their country before themselves. Without these heroes, America would not be America." ( Robert O'Neill, Navy Seal )
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 Interesting Facts
Smell is the sense most linked to memory.
It's likely that at some time in your life, a certain smell, whether the earthy aroma of freshly cut grass or the unmistakable fragrance of your grandparents' house, triggered a powerful and strangely detailed memory. Well, there's a biological reason for that. Unlike our four other best-known senses, whose electrical impulses are first sent to our thalamus before being sent to appropriate areas for memory, such as the hippocampus, our sense of smell takes a different route. Instead of being sent to the thalamus, scents go straight to the smell center known as the olfactory bulb. The fact that this bulb is directly connected to the hippocampus and the amygdala (which is responsible for emotional processing) is likely why smell evokes such powerful memories compared to our other senses. These memories can be extremely distinct, and they're often linked to our childhood, likely because they were first stored when we experienced the scent at a young age.
Most of our sense of taste comes from our sense of smell.
IT'S A FACT
Smell is by far the most important facet of taste. The gustatory nerve cells located in taste buds can only sense sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami (savory). Because smell accounts for 80% of taste, without it, humans would be limited to only those five basic tastes.
According to a 2017 study, a part of the olfactory bulb known as the piriform cortex is what allows certain smells to be deposited in our long-term memory, though this cortex requires other parts of the brain to pull this off. The olfactory bulb essentially consults our orbitofrontal cortex, an area of the brain responsible for higher-level taste and smell functions, about whether a smell should be stored in long-term memory.
Companies are very aware that smell can be a powerful reminder of memory and emotion, which is why some of them have even trademarked certain scents (yes, you can do that). Verizon, for example, owns the rights to its "flowery musk scent" used in its stores, and olfactive branding companies work with clients like Nike to leverage the power of smell. Because when it comes to unlocking human emotions and memories, it might be the strongest sense we have.
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Thanks to Brett
THE WEEKLY RUNDOWN
RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES THAT WILL SHAPE THE COMING WEEK
KEY DEVELOPMENTS WE'RE TRACKING
Turkey holds a presidential runoff. Turkish citizens will head back to the polls for a second round of voting in the presidential election on May 28. After winning the most votes in the first round held on May 14, incumbent candidate Recep Tayyip Erdogan is well-positioned to defeat his challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the run-off and secure another term. Erdogan's reelection would portend continuity on most policies, though a shift to more market-friendly economic and financial policies would also be expected, as his government tries to answer growing calls for more action toward shoring up the country's foreign currency reserves and defending the volatile lira currency.
Nigeria's new president takes office. Nigerian President-elect Bola Tinubu is scheduled to be inaugurated on May 29 in Abuja to begin what will likely be a term of policy continuity with outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari. Tinubu faced several legal challenges to his February election. But a widely anticipated May 26 Supreme Court ruling rejected the opposition People's Democratic Party's lawsuit, which contended that Vice President-elect Kashim Shettima's simultaneous nomination for the position of vice president and Borno Central Senatorial District seat violated Nigerian law and disqualified Tinubu. Even so, Tinubu will govern over a divided country, and grievances over power-sharing will likely complicate his mandate as he faces challenges ranging from an unsustainable fuel subsidy to rampant insecurity and waning foreign investment.
EU and U.S. officials discuss tech and trade policy. On May 30-31, EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis and EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager will meet with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in the Swedish city of Lulea for the fourth EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council (TTC) meeting. Following last week's G-7 meeting in which members pledged to de-risk their economic ties with China and cooperate against Beijing's economic coercion, the TTC summit will focus on strengthening transatlantic coordination to develop and deploy new tools aimed at coping with China's protectionist economic policies and practices. In particular, EU and U.S. officials are expected to discuss coordination on measures like screening outbound investments, as well as restricting exports of semiconductors and other sensitive technologies to China.
BRICS discusses enlargement. South Africa will host a meeting between the foreign ministers of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — known collectively as ''BRICS'' — in Cape Town on June 1, as well as a meeting between ''friends of BRICS'' foreign ministers from other non-Western nations on June 2. The enlargement of the bloc's membership will be at the top of the agenda at both meetings. 13 countries have formally applied to join the group, according to South African officials. Countries known to have expressed an interest in becoming a BRICS member include Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. An enlarged BRICS would increase its influence as a non-Western international forum and give more firepower to the bloc's various financial institutions, such as the New Development Bank. A bigger BRICS would also make it easier for non-Western countries to cooperate on issues of shared interest, like slowing the energy transition and reducing the U.S. dollar's dominance in global trade. But the addition of more counties with different priorities would increase the likelihood of internal disputes between its diverse members, limiting the bloc's cooperation on more strategic and security issues. U.S. debt ceiling talks enter crunch time. Negotiations between the White House and the House Republican leadership over lifting the U.S. debt ceiling are expected to conclude over the weekend. The U.S. Treasury has indicated it may be unable to meet all its obligations as early as June 1 unless both chambers of Congress agree to either raise or suspend the debt ceiling. While both U.S. President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have sent signals that an agreement will be reached, any compromise may yet run into opposition from Republican lawmakers, particularly those in the hard-right Freedom Caucus. A failure to pass the necessary legislation by June 1 would not immediately lead the United States to default on its debt, as federal government interest payments are not due until June 15. It would, however, spook markets and weigh on the U.S. economic outlook.
MOST READ ANALYSIS FROM THE WEEK
For Assad, Syria-Arab Normalization May Come With a Poisoned Chalice
After over a decade of brutal conflict, Syria's political model under Assad has devolved from a Soviet-inspired authoritarian system based on ideology and nationalism, to what is now effectively a feudal system where power is drawn from kinship, ethnicity and a carving up of the formal and informal economy by key Assad supporters. For Syria, the side effects of this shift have included a booming drug market, mass political violence, a vast outflow of refugees, and a government reliant on external states like Iran that want to use the country as a bastion of their influence rather than return it to its pre-war sovereignty. These are the very problems that Arab nations are hoping to address by restoring their ties with Syria and reducing its international isolation. But in doing so, they're also pressuring the Syrian government to undermine the very model that helped it survive the civil war, which will be a tough sell -- especially without sanctions relief.
In the EU, a New Push To Streamline Foreign Policy Decisions Emerges
Despite a new proposal to eliminate the use of unanimity to make the European Union's foreign policy more efficient, resistance from small member states means that the bloc is unlikely to introduce such a drastic change in the short to medium term. On May 22, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares announced that during his country's six-month presidency of the European Union (which begins on July 1), Madrid will promote a change of the bloc's voting rules on foreign policy, security and enlargement to use qualified majority voting instead of unanimity. Later on May 22, the governments of Poland and Hungary rejected the Spanish proposal and said they were in conversations with like-minded governments to preserve the use of unanimity.
After a Dry Spring, Northwest Africa Braces for Disruptive Crop Failures
As the summer harvest season begins in agriculture-dependent North Africa, severe drought will lead to crop failures that will increase risks of political uncertainty, social unrest and economic instability. Northwest Africa's Maghreb region, which includes Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, is among the most arid in the world. And amid a pre-existing drought, scarce rainfall in 2023 is exacerbating conditions like drained groundwater, lower water tables at regional dams, and an over-use of the scant available water resources. With summer harvests of cereal grain crops just beginning, this dry environment has led regional farmers and U.N. observers to forecast that crop yields will be poorer than expected. And since Maghreb is heavily dependent on agriculture, which accounts for roughly 12-13% of its countries' GDP, the impact of these poor harvests will be manifold.
By Banning U.S. Chipmaker Micron, China Hits Back at Western Tech Restrictions
China's ban on the U.S. chipmaker Micron signals Beijing's willingness to use more aggressive legal tools against Western technology companies in response to the United States and its allies' expanding export restrictions, which will only further compel foreign firms in the sector to reduce their exposure and sales to China. Following an investigation that appears to have lasted less than two months, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) announced on May 21 that it would ban China's critical infrastructure operators from using chips produced by U.S. semiconductor manufacturer Micron. According to the CAC, Micron's products had ''serious network security risks'' that ''pose significant security risks to China's critical information infrastructure supply chain, affecting China's national security.'' The restrictions are narrower than the blanket ban some had feared, and Micron's memory chips are primarily used in consumer electronics devices (such as smartphones and laptops). But Chinese technology companies seeking to maintain high or receive increased political support from Beijing will likely still phase out Micron's memory chips. By contrast, electronics assemblers based in China installing Micron's chips in products exported abroad may not be as affected.
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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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo
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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From the Archives
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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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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Thanks to Shadow
It's Memorial Day …
Folks,
For the last few decades, I have posted the attachment at the end of this, without comment. But this year, I am compelled to add something. As those of us who served in hard times get older, we can't help but reflect on our past and the meaning of this day hits home. As John Verdi wrote decades ago… "Not only do we (as Shakespeare wrote) owe God a death… those of us who took the Soldiers Oath, owe our country a death as well. St. Augustine explicitly acknowledged this 16 centuries ago". John went on to point out that Augustine also poured his scorn upon an emperor (read that politician) who officiated but did not govern... and on the false courtiers, who filled his headquarters with vanity and lies (read that as the main stream media).
Never in my life has those words rung so true to me; than they do in todays America. When I think of the lives lost and senseless sacrifice of patriots who willingly served what had been the greatest nation on earth… is being wasted by marplots and evil people who know no limits of deceit and mendacity in the pursuit of unfettered power! They are the new totalitarians! We are at a tipping point in history. We are finally in the hands of despots, liars and criminals. Evil people! They have corrupted our military, our Department of Justice, The FBI, The CIA and in many cases our judiciary. We are suffering a pandemic of violent crime in all our major cities. They insist we fawn on the unnatural amongst us. They try to pit us against one another, claiming systemic racism. Truth, I have traveled the world over and in no other country in the world do minorities enjoy the freedoms and opportunity as they do in this country. Stop it! Instead of instilling a sense of purpose that any ethnicity can make it through hard work and a good education; they have created a subculture of hopelessness and excuses… and I might add, resulting in culture of violence run amok in their own communities. The answer for them is the same as for my generation that came from less than wealthy families. As my father said to me… "Look, your only way out is through hard work and a good education… don't expect anybody to give you a damn thing… you have to earn it"!
And you want to know the one institution in this nation that manifested this opportunity to those willing to follow those principals… it was the home of patriots… our military! We were the last true bastion of opportunity, we were the last true meritocracy in this society. Do the hard work, compete and serve, you will be promoted and rewarded. Our patriotic society was full of men and women who came from humble beginnings and succeeded! It didn't matter what color you were, how much money your daddy had… what religion you embraced or if you came from the so called wrong side of the tracks. The opportunity was there… and it paid off for so many of us. There was no politician or talking head in the media telling us we didn't have a chance, no matter how hard we worked. We had obvious examples all around us it was not true… the opportunity was there for all of us.
Gonna end this before I get mad, but encourage everyone of you… when you hear talking heads and politicians promoting the falsehood that certain segments of society have no chance. Call it for what it is… a damn lie. The answer for all of us is what my father said to me… "Your way out is through hard work and a good education"… simple as that.
Take this day and keep the memories of those who made the ultimate sacrifice through service to our nation in your minds and hearts. As long as we remember them… they live. Honor them with your thoughts and prayers and say thanks. I have included my thoughts of one such man below and a few comments about our times.
One last thought… our patriots, our military... never start wars... Politicians do… think about that!
All the Best, Shadow
POST SCRIPT ON MCANNALLY
It's Memorial Day… so I guess its appropriate that I get around to writing a post script to
my little article about something a dear friend, instructor and role model… passed on to
me that later may have saved my life and that of my backseater… it saved an airplane for
sure. I was delighted that Flying had selected my article for publication. But the results of
this last month have made me realize I should have written something else.
Last month, one of their artists, Barry Ross, called to ask for some pictures he could use
to go with the layout drawing he was assigned to do for the piece. I should have known
what would follow, but I didn't. Due to a recent move and with most of my memorabilia
still packed, I sent out a request to some of my former squadron mates for pictures of
John McAnnally and the airplanes we flew. That request opened a floodgate of memories,
not just for me, but for so many who knew him. What I did not mention in the article, was
that the man who saved my life, John McAnnally, was lost in an F-4 accident a number of
years later.
For almost a solid month, not a day went by without some other little memory or
anecdote about John being emailed to me. And if I were less than honest… I wouldn't
admit that I cried once again… for a friends memory and untimely death. I know for a
fact that others did as well.
I absolutely wept when I read Chuck "Shogun" Hoelle's account of "Hook" Denton
calling him and saying; "I want you to do the toughest thing you will probably ever have
to do in your life. I want you to do the JAG manual investigation on John McAnnally's
crash".
Shogun went on to give a snapshot of the investigation in the manner of a true
professional. It pulled no punches, laid out the facts and was extremely painstaking and
thorough… Shogun then went on to say he cried almost every night for about two weeks,
doing what he had to do… and he concluded his message with this; "OK, am going to
bed now with tears in my eyes… probably won't sleep tonight… just like 28 years ago.
Hook was right; toughest thing I've ever done in 64 years of life. Sorry, Shogun sends".
And then there were the laughs… John had one of those "special" personalities…
mischievous and almost boyish… and at times irreverent… yet he was a consummate
professional in his work as an officer and aviator. John was the "Training and Schedules
Officer" at the time and it was demanding job. He had to keep the pipeline flowing with
new pilots and RIO's… to support the war effort and at the same time juggle an ever
changing availability of instructors. This guy had a cold… this one's wife was having a
baby… that one had to go to the pistol range… etc, etc. It could drive the best of us crazy.
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