To All
Good Tuesday Morning January 23 , 2024. Well the rain came all day yesterday and I had to hook up the pump to keep the pool from over flowing. The bobcat came about 0300 but I was warm and dry in my bed. A bunch of new students showed up last night so we are up to 95 for the three classes. I hope you all have a great week.
I had two crashes on the computer this morning and one that threatened me with dire consequences if I shut it down. So I shut it down and had to rebuild some things that got lost in the shuffle sorry for the late send
I think that hackers like horse thieves should be hung.
Regards
Skip
HAGD
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This day in Naval and Marine Corps History (thanks to NHHC)
Here is a link to the NHHC website: https://www.history.navy.mil/
This day in Naval and Marine Corps History
January 23
1854—The sloop-of-war Germantown captures the slaver R.P. Brown off Porto Praya.
1943—Submarine Guardfish (SS 217) sinks the Japanese destroyer Hakaze off New Ireland.
1945—Three US Navy destroyer escorts, Corbesier (DE 438), Conklin (DE 439) and Raby (DE 698) sink the Japanese submarine I-48 off Yap Island, Caroline Islands.
1960—The Bathyscaph "Trieste" descends on a nine-hour journey seven miles to the deepest part of the world's oceans, Challenger Deep, located at the southern end of the Mariana Trench.
1968—USS Pueblo (AGER 2) is seized by North Korean forces in Sea of Japan. The crew is released on Dec. 23, 1968.
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This Day in World History
January 23
1901 A great fire ravages Montreal, resulting in $2.5 million in property lost.
1913 The "Young Turks" revolt because they are angered by the concessions made at the London peace talks.
1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt enters the presidential race.
1948 The Soviets refuse UN entry into North Korea to administer elections.
1949 The Communist Chinese forces begin their advance on Nanking.
1950 Jerusalem becomes the official capital of Israel.
1951 President Truman creates the Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights, to monitor the anti-Communist campaign.
1969 NASA unveils moon-landing craft.
1973 President Richard Nixon claims that Vietnam peace has been reached in Paris and that the POWs would be home in 60 days.
1977 Alex Haley's Roots begins a record-breaking eight-night broadcast on ABC.
1981 Under international pressure, opposition leader Kim Dae Jung's death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment in Seoul.
1986 U.S. begins maneuvers off the Libyan coast.
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OPERATION COMMANDO HUNT Thanks to the Bear
Skip… For The List for the week beginning Monday, 22 January 2024 and ending Sunday, 28 January 2024… Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻
OPERATION COMMANDO HUNT (1968-1972)…
From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com post of 14 April 2019… 35th President attends his 1st meeting with his National Security Advisor and Staff…
Thanks to Micro
To remind folks that these are from the Vietnam Air Losses site that Micro put together. You click on the url below and can read what happened each day to the aircraft and its crew. ……Skip
This must have been exciting for the Marine pilot
From Vietnam Air Losses site for "Tuesday 23 January
23: https://www.vietnamairlosses.com/loss.php?id=1567
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.
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
MOAA - Wall of Faces Now Includes Photos of All Servicemembers Killed in the Vietnam War
(This site was sent by a friend . The site works, find anyone you knew in "search" feature. https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/ )
Wall of Faces Now Includes Photos of All Service members Killed in the Vietnam War
By: Kipp Hanley
AUGUST 15, 2022
Check this out
Thanks to the Bear
Skip… For your information and consideration.. RTR Webmaster Dan Heller has updated the Links List attached to the RTR website with a dozen Vietnam air war sites that might interest regulars of The List… Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻… See…
https://www.rollingthunderremembered.com/new-links/
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Thanks to Brett
Geopolitical Futures:
Keeping the future in focus
https://geopoliticalfutures.com
Daily Memo: The Middle East as a Powder Keg
The region is seeing escalations on multiple fronts.
By: Hilal Khashan
Jan 23, 2024
In response to the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to change the Middle East. An Israeli army spokesman confirmed that Israel is willing to act anywhere in the Middle East to achieve its security interests. There are no indications of a resolution on the horizon, as the situation in Gaza will probably linger for the foreseeable future. But Israel remains determined to oust Hamas and replace it with symbolic Palestinian rule.
With the U.S. presidential election approaching, this will likely have to wait until next year. But it is no exaggeration to say that the future of the Middle East rests mainly on the future of Gaza. The Palestinian issue is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the region's crises, but all neighboring countries and regional and international powers realize that solving the region's many issues depends on a comprehensive answer to the Palestinian question. Resolving the region's issues – the wars in Syria and Yemen, the crisis in Iraq, the collapse of the Lebanese state and Iran's pursuit of regional hegemony – will be on hold pending resolution of the conflict in Gaza. Addressing economic stagnation in moderate countries such as Egypt and Jordan and spurring ambitious development projects in the Gulf states, namely Saudi Arabia, also hinge on the outcome of the Israel-Hamas war.
Regional Military Escalation
As tensions rise in several areas of the region, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently warned that the Middle East is a powder keg about to explode. The U.S. is cautiously leading regional efforts to isolate Iran because of the subversive activities of proxies like the Houthis in Yemen and Shiite militias in Iraq. Earlier this month, Washington intervened militarily in the Red Sea to deter the Houthis from launching more missile and drone attacks against ships heading to the Israeli port of Eilat. The U.S. did not resort to the military option enthusiastically, knowing it might not wholly deter the Houthis. Despite the strikes, the Biden administration said it was not at war with the group.
Last month, an Israeli missile attack killed the top commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria. Israel also killed five IRGC officers in an airstrike in Damascus last week, the same day that Iran launched air defense drills. Also last week, the IRGC attacked targets in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan region, and Idlib, northwest Syria, with long-range ballistic missiles. It then launched strikes against a separatist group called Jaish al-Adl inside Pakistani territory – prompting the Iraqi foreign minister to say that Iran bombed friendly countries because it could not strike Israel. Iran's attack was in response to bombings claimed by the Islamic State in the southeastern city of Kerman and an attack in the town of Rask in Sistan and Baluchistan province, claimed by Jaish al-Adl.
The Iranian strikes came amid internal criticism regarding the regime's lack of direct response to Israel's actions. It appears that one of the goals of the IRGC attacks was to confirm that Iran's policy of strategic patience and avoiding full-scale involvement in military conflict does not mean weakness. The strikes also attest to the regime's isolation and empty threats that disillusioned many of its Shiite supporters in the region. Iran could have ordered its proxies to avenge the attacks that targeted the Iranian heartland. But it chose instead to send a message to Israel and the U.S. that their firepower would not deter its regional ambitions. Tehran realizes that the Middle East is undergoing fundamental changes and wants to ensure they do not compromise its regional interests.
Ultimately, however, Iran's attacks against U.S. military bases in Iraq and Syria and the disruption of transit through the Red Sea are making noise without impacting the course of events. There are indications of cracks in Iran's so-called "axis of resistance" – which the U.S. perceives as positive indicators. Moderate Arab countries are now pinning their hopes on peacemaking as the ultimate solution to the region's crises and economic difficulties.
Peak Iranian Influence
Iran's recent actions mark the culmination of years of expansion for Tehran. Former U.S. President Barack Obama's reluctance to intervene in the Syrian conflict in 2011, his announcement of the U.S. intention to withdraw from Iraq that same year, and his conclusion of a nuclear deal with Tehran in 2015 indicated to Iran that it could prevail in the Middle East. Even the administration of his successor Donald Trump, which adopted a hardline approach toward Tehran and helped Israel emerge from its regional isolation by concluding the Abraham Accords in 2020, did little to demonstrate that the U.S. presence in the Middle East would continue to dominate.
But fomenting regional tensions does not benefit Iran anymore. The current escalation weakens its regional allies and puts them out of service in pursuit of its broader interests. Tehran's proxies have exceeded their ability to support its influence. The U.S. has called on the Houthis to stop obstructing navigation in the Red Sea, and whether or not they comply, the result will be the same: The Houthis will no longer serve Iran's regional project. Hezbollah, which decided to modestly support Hamas after its October attack, also missed the point that Israel would escalate the military situation in the north and turn the fighting into a war of attrition. It looks as if military escalation will continue until Iran accepts that it is an ordinary country, not a regional superpower.
No Solutions on the Horizon
It does not seem that this year will lead to political breakthroughs in the Middle East, as the fallout of Hamas' attack is still unfolding. Though Arab countries and Israel are intent on making peace, progress is slow given the regional situation and the complexity of the political issues standing in their way.
Talks on resolving the Palestinian issue began from the first moment of the war, reviving the peace process that had stalled for decades. Discussions focused on the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas war and how to ensure a sustainable peace that could end the region's conflicts. U.S. President Joe Biden realizes that the final year of his term in office may give him a historic opportunity to achieve peace in the Middle East. But this goal, which has preoccupied every American president for more than seven decades, is unlikely to be achieved this year. Israel will not undertake fundamental changes while the fighting continues. The composition of the Israeli government and Iran's regional proxies make peace an enormously challenging endeavor. Nevertheless, Arab leaders – specifically those in Saudi Arabia who believe success of the NEOM megaproject hinges on close cooperation with Israel – welcome regional integration with a focus on security and economics. They also want to corner Iran by neutralizing its regional proxies.
Saudi Arabia has made normalization with Israel contingent on establishing a Palestinian state, which Israel still opposes. Though Netanyahu reportedly told Biden in a call that he did not oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state if it is demilitarized, Netanyahu soon thereafter publicly reiterated his rejection of the establishment of such an entity. In response to Israel's opposition to statehood, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Arab countries are not keen to rebuild Gaza only to have it leveled again in a few years. Officials in the U.S. State Department have argued that Israel will have to make tough choices to ensure Arab states are willing to participate in the process.
The Middle East is inching toward formulating a major regional deal that includes stopping the war in Gaza, establishing an inclusive government there that does not exclude Hamas as a political movement, and ensuring long-term stability. The package will not necessarily lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state but will allow Saudi Arabia and other Arab and Islamic countries to save face and continue to pursue normalization with Israel. Israel will accept a clearly defined path for Palestinian political rights, without specifying the nature of these rights in advance, as a precondition for normalizing relations.
American diplomats have said that Netanyahu, regardless of his defiant populist rhetoric, will have to face the regional reality. If his government fails to make concessions, it alone will have to deal with the chaos in Gaza. The Biden administration thinks Netanyahu's shaky political situation at home requires him to heed U.S. pressure. Biden, whose own approval ratings are declining, is bracing himself for an uphill battle against a surging Donald Trump, his likely Republican presidential challenger. He wants to reassure critics within his party that he understands Palestinian grievances and is not giving Israel the green light for unrestricted war. His administration believes there is a path to comprehensive peace in the region, but it has yet to crystallize its starting point.
Any peace process will probably have to wait until the military escalation subsides and Iran's regional goals are curbed. For Saudi Arabia, stopping Iran and ensuring unimpeded maritime traffic are more important than Israel's willingness to make concessions to the Palestinians. Last week, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan reiterated his country's willingness to recognize Israel pending resolution of the Palestinian issue. Biden also recently announced that Saudi Arabia and Israel are on the verge of reaching a peace deal. For the Saudis, encouraging beneficial interaction between Middle Eastern states is one way to prevent the powder keg from exploding, at least for now.
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Thanks toBrett
https://victorhanson.com/2024-americas-year-of-living-dangerously/
2024—America's Year of Living Dangerously
January 22, 2024
Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Lame-duck presidencies, especially in the last six months of their final term, in general can offer opportunities for America's enemies to take advantage of a perceived vacuum as one government transitions to the next.
But these normal changeover months are especially dangerous when a perceived weak or appeasing lame-duck president is likely to be replaced by a strong deterrent successor that will likely serve as a corrective to his disastrous policies.
James Buchannan (1857-1861), a northern but pro-South president, was a particularly anemic chief executive. He had done little if anything to try to deal with the growing rift between North and South, especially the furor over the Dred Scott decision and Bloody Kansas. Even when warned, Buchannan did little to beef up the U.S. Army or increase its weapon stockpiles to deter any potential secessionist state.
After Buchannan declined to run for a second term, the South understood that the abolitionist and anti-slavery Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln might well be elected in 1860—given the North/South split within the Democratic Party. And they understood that President Lincoln might well use force to stop secession.
Therefore, in the waning days of the Buchannan administration, after Lincoln's victory, seven southern states seceded during the presidential transition, a confused North reacted little, more would follow, and a terrible Civil War became inevitable.
During the waning days of the crippled second term of Richard Nixon in summer 1974, communist North Vietnam saw a once deterrent president fatally weakened by Watergate. It was encouraged by a renewed antiwar movement, a likely soon anti-war Congress, and the next president, Gerald Ford—a probable caretaker soon to be replaced by an anti-war Democrat. And so in late 1974 and 1975, the communists renounced ignored peace accords, judged correctly that the directionless US would not help South Vietnam stop a massive invasion from the North, and thereby won the 12-year-long war.
As the Jimmy Carter administration began to wind down and as it was increasingly judged as weak abroad, the new theocratic revolutionary government in Iran stormed the U.S. embassy and took hostages in November 1979. Throughout the next year, Tehran systematically humiliated the U.S., mocked an impotent Carter administration, and rebuffed all U.S. efforts to secure the return of the hostages.
The Soviet Union as well saw the dying and still inert Carter term as ripe for exploitation and so invaded Afghanistan a month later, in December 1979. It too concluded that there would be a year of continued timidity in Washington before a likely remedy from a Republican president—in this case, Ronald Reagan, who had declared his candidacy a little over a week after Iran took hostages with clear promises to restore U.S. deterrence abroad.
We are now once again entering one of these dangerous moments, compounded by a weakening of the armed forces. During Biden's tenure, the U.S. military has suffered historic shortfalls in recruitment, the disastrous humiliation in Afghanistan, a new DEI commissariat that wars on meritocratic promotions and assignments, the politicization of generals and admirals, the hyped but otherwise inane effort to root out mythical white supremacists and "domestic terrorist" bogeymen from the ranks, and the expulsion of some of our best soldiers for their reluctance to be vaccinated, many of them having developed natural immunity from prior infection.
The Pentagon is short on ships and planes. U.S. weapons stocks are dangerously low, drained by the abandonment of billions of dollars of equipment to the Taliban, the resupply efforts to Ukraine and Israel, the failure of the Biden administration to fund the restocking of our munitions and to ramp up resupply production—and a $35 trillion national debt fed by $2 trillion annual deficits.
Add eight million illegal aliens who pranced over a nonexistent southern border, nearly uninhabitable big-city downtowns, an epidemic of violent crime, and a president who resuscitates mostly to blast half the country as "semi-fascists" and "ultra-MAGA" extremists.
Add it all up, and the world abroad agrees America is in a strange, self-inflicted decline and will not or cannot defend its interests, or for that matter itself.
In particular, both enemies and neutrals have accordingly drawn a number of self-interested conclusions about the waning Biden administration and what may follow:
1. That Joe Biden, to their apparent delight, has in the last three years reversed the Trump deterrence policies and thus has green-lit their aggressions.
2. That given the ensuing chaos, they have further agreed that Biden's growing unpopularity with the American people makes it likely that both he and his appeasement policies will be gone by January 2024.
3. That Donald Trump may well return to office. That would mean a much worse deal for Russia, China, Iran, and its terrorist satellites, and thus recognition that 2024 is a brief window of opportunity for aggression.
Putin remembers that Trump blasted 200 Russian mercenaries in Syria, got out of a bad missile deal with Moscow, upped sanctions on Russian oligarchs, flooded the world with cheap oil, destroying Russian oil export profits, sold once-canceled offensive weapons to Ukraine, and warned what would happen if Putin invaded Ukraine. Of the last four administrations, Trump's was the only one that saw no Russian cross-border invasions.
China remembers that Trump slapped tariffs on its mercantilist market economy, accused China of birthing the COVID virus at its Wuhan virology lab, increased military spending, forced NATO to spend another $100 billion on munitions, and jawboned more alliance members into upping their military contributions. Beijing knew that to send a spy balloon across the continental United States between 2017-21 would have meant its destruction the minute it entered U.S. airspace. China did not serially threaten Taiwan during the Trump era—and may believe that this year could be the last chance in a decade to confront Taiwan.
Iran has concluded two things about 2024: 1) they do not wish to see another Trump presidency on the horizon that took out its top-ranking terrorist-general Qasem Soleimani, slapped sanctions on its oil, yanked the U.S. out of the flawed Iran Deal, declared the Iranian Houthi satellites a foreign terrorist organization, cut off all aid to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, moved the U.S. closer to Israel, and warned Hezbollah of consequences should it start a war with Israel; and 2) that the present Biden abdication will likely be short-lived and thus now may be the time to take advantage of a currently directionless global superpower that either will not or cannot deter Iranian aggression.
So what should we expect in 2024? Lacking a strong U.S. patron and sponsor, Israel will be subject to more international calls to leave Gaza, to negotiate with Hamas, and to give up the idea it can "destroy" Hamas.
Hezbollah will likely up its daily barrage of missiles into Israel.
Iran will become more overt in supplying Russia, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis with weapons.
China will increase its threats to Taiwan and weigh carefully the costs-to-benefits of attacking the island.
The common denominator? All our enemies are right now calculating how best to use their gift of the next 12 months from a non-compos-mentis president and his neo-socialist team that either believes the U.S. is at fault for much of the world's pathologies or is too terrified to do anything about them.
In sum, adversaries believe there is a rare window of opportunity in which the U.S. uncharacteristically does nothing to deter its enemies, back its allies, or win over neutrals. And over the next year, we can only pray they are mistaken.
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Thanks to Carl
The Mystique of Multiple Carburetor
(I had a new white 1965 GTO Tri-Power, called "White Lightning"! A legendary muscle car, never refused a drag race challenge and very seldom lost! Payment seriously depleted my savings for college and took a part-time job. BUT, it was more than worth it! The most fun car I have owned!) Carl
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From the archives…..This was an exceptional shot with the outline of the U2 in the balloon
Thanks to Carl
A U-2 spy plane pilot took a selfie with the Chinese spy balloon
That's one hell of a shot!
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I always liked these
Thanks to Mike
Some things to ponder as we age …………………
The inventor of the treadmill died at the age of 54
The inventor of gymnastics died at the age of 57
The world bodybuilding champion died at the age of 41
The best soccer player in the world, Maradona, died at the age of 60
And then ...
KFC inventor died at 94
Inventor of Nutella brand died at the age of 88
Cigarette maker Winston died at the age of 102
The inventor of opium died at the age of 116 in an earthquake
Hennessy cognac, Irish inventor died at 98
How did doctors come to the conclusion that exercise prolongs life?
The rabbit is always jumping, but it lives for only 2 years.
The turtle that doesn't exercise at all, lives 400 years.
So …
Have a drink ..
Take a nap ...
And IF you wake up, have bacon and eggs. . !
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These are from the archives and always provide a bit of entertainment
Thanks to Dr. Rich and James
Responses Awards...
NUMBER 1:
Now We Know Why He Was a General -----
In an interview, General Norman Schwarzkopf was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness toward the people who have harboured and abetted the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11attacks on America.
His answer was classic Schwarzkopf.
The General said,"I believe that forgiving them is God's function.. OUR job is to arrange the meeting."
NUMBER 2:
Dana Perino (FOX News) describing an interview she recently had with a Navy SEAL. After discussing all the countries that he had been sent to, she asked if they had to learn several languages?
"Oh, no ma'am. We don't go there to talk."
NUMBER 3:
Conversation overheard on the VHF Guard (emergency) frequency 121.5 MHz while flying from Europe to Dubai .
Iranian Air Defense Site: 'Unknown aircraft, you are in Iranian airspace. Identify yourself.'
Aircraft: 'This is a United States aircraft. I am in Iraqi airspace.'
Air Defense Site: 'You are in Iranian airspace. If you do not depart our airspace, we will launch interceptor aircraft!'
Aircraft:'This is a United States Marine Corps FA-18 Fighter. Send 'em up, I'll wait!'
Air Defense Site: (... Total silence)
NUMBER 4:
If you ever testify in court, you might wish you could have been as sharp as this policeman. He was being cross-examined by a defense attorney during a felony trial. The lawyer was trying to undermine the police officer's credibility...
Q: 'Officer --- did you see my client fleeing the scene?'
A: 'No, sir. But I subsequently observed a person matching the description of the offender, running several blocks away.'
Q: 'Officer, who provided this description?'
A: 'The officer who responded to the scene.'
Q: 'A fellow officer provided the description of this so-called offender. Do you trust your fellow officers?'
A: 'Yes, sir. With my life.'
Q: 'With your life? Let me ask you this then officer. Do you have a room where you change your clothes in preparation for your daily duties?'
A: 'Yes sir, we do!'
Q: 'And do you have a locker in the room?'
A: 'Yes, sir, I do.'
Q: 'And do you have a lock on your locker?'
A: 'Yes, sir.'
Q: 'Now, why is it, officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your life, you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with these same officers?'
A: 'You see, sir, we share the building with the court complex, and sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room.'
The courtroom EXPLODED with laughter, and a prompt recess was called.
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This Day in U S Military History January 22
He did make some mighty fine weapons..skip
1855 –John Moses Browning, sometimes referred to as the "father of modern firearms," is born in Ogden, Utah. Many of the guns manufactured by companies whose names evoke the history of the American West-Winchester, Colt, Remington, and Savage-were actually based on John Browning's designs. The son of a talented gunsmith, John Browning began experimenting with his own gun designs as a young man. When he was 24 years old, he received his first patent, for a rifle that Winchester manufactured as its Single Shot Model 1885. Impressed by the young man's inventiveness, Winchester asked Browning if he could design a lever-action-repeating shotgun. Browning could and did, but his efforts convinced him that a pump-action mechanism would work better, and he patented his first pump model shotgun in 1888. Fundamentally, all of Browning's manually-operated repeating rifle and shotgun designs were aimed at improving one thing: the speed and reliability with which gun users could fire multiple rounds-whether shooting at game birds or other people. Lever and pump actions allowed the operator to fire a round, operate the lever or pump to quickly eject the spent shell, insert a new cartridge, and then fire again in seconds. By the late 1880s, Browning had perfected the manual repeating weapon; to make guns that fired any faster, he would somehow have to eliminate the need for slow human beings to actually work the mechanisms. But what force could replace that of the operator moving a lever or pump? Browning discovered the answer during a local shooting competition when he noticed that reeds between a man firing and his target were violently blown aside by gases escaping from the gun muzzle. He decided to try using the force of that escaping gas to automatically work the repeating mechanism. Browning began experimenting with his idea in 1889. Three years later, he received a patent for the first crude fully automatic weapon that captured the gases at the muzzle and used them to power a mechanism that automatically reloaded the next bullet. In subsequent years, Browning refined his automatic weapon design. When U.S. soldiers went to Europe during WWI, many of them carried Browning Automatic Rifles, as well as Browning's deadly machine guns. During a career spanning more than five decades, Browning's guns went from being the classic weapons of the American West to deadly tools of world war carnage. Amazingly, since Browning's death in 1926, there have been no further fundamental changes in the modern firearm industry.
1951 – Thirty-three F-84s of the U.S. Air Force's 27th Fighter-Escort Wing engaged 30 MiG-15s in a dogfight over the skies of Sinuiju. In less than a minute Captains Allen McGuire and William Slaughter each destroyed a MiG while First Lieutenant Jacob Kratt scored two kills, the first double MiG kill of the war.
1953 – The U.S. Air Force's 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing flew the last F-51 Mustang mission of the war.
1960 – The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to 10,911 meters (35,797 ft) in the Pacific Ocean. Trieste is a Swiss-designed, Italian-built deep-diving research bathyscaphe, which with her crew of two reached a record maximum depth of about 10,911 metres (35,797 ft), in the deepest known part of the Earth's oceans, the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench near Guam in the Pacific. On 23 January 1960, Jacques Piccard (son of the boat's designer Auguste Piccard) and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh achieved the goal of Project Nekton. Trieste was the first manned vessel to have reached the bottom of the Challenger Deep.
1968 – The U.S. intelligence-gathering ship Pueblo is seized by North Korean naval vessels and charged with spying and violating North Korean territorial waters. Negotiations to free the 83-man crew of the U.S. ship dragged on for nearly a year, damaging the credibility of and confidence in the foreign policy of President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration. The capture of the ship and internment of its crew by North Korea was loudly protested by the Johnson administration. The U.S. government vehemently denied that North Korea's territorial waters had been violated and argued the ship was merely performing routine intelligence gathering duties in the Sea of Japan. Some U.S. officials, including Johnson himself, were convinced that the seizure was part of a larger communist-bloc offensive, since exactly one week later, communist forces in South Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive, the largest attack of the Vietnam War. Despite this, however, the Johnson administration took a restrained stance toward the incident. Fully occupied with the Tet Offensive, Johnson resorted to quieter diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in North Korea. In December 1968, the commander of the Pueblo, Capt. Lloyd Bucher, grudgingly signed a confession indicating that his ship was spying on North Korea prior to its capture. With this propaganda victory in hand, the North Koreans turned the crew and captain (including one crewman who had died) over to the United States. The Pueblo incident was a blow to the Johnson administration's credibility, as the president seemed powerless to free the captured crew and ship. Combined with the public's perception–in the wake of the Tet Offensive–that the Vietnam War was being lost, the Pueblo incident resulted in a serious faltering of Johnson's popularity with the American people. The crewmen's reports about their horrific treatment at the hands of the North Koreans during their 11 months in captivity further incensed American citizens, many of whom believed that Johnson should have taken more aggressive action to free the captive Americans.
1973 – President Nixon announces that Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the chief North Vietnamese negotiator, have initialled a peace agreement in Paris "to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia." Kissinger and Tho had been conducting secret negotiations since 1969. After the South Vietnamese had blunted the massive North Vietnamese invasion launched in the spring of 1972, Kissinger and the North Vietnamese had finally made some progress on reaching a negotiated end to the war. However, a recalcitrant South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu had inserted several demands into to the negotiations that caused the North Vietnamese negotiators to walk out of the talks with Kissinger on December 13. President Nixon issued an ultimatum to Hanoi to send its representatives back to the conference table within 72 hours "or else." The North Vietnamese rejected Nixon's demand and the president ordered Operation Linebacker II, a full-scale air campaign against the Hanoi area. This operation was the most concentrated air offensive of the war. During the 11 days of the attack, 700 B-52 sorties and more than 1,000 fighter-bomber sorties dropped roughly 20,000 tons of bombs, mostly over the densely populated area between Hanoi and Haiphong. On December 28, after 11 days of intensive bombing, the North Vietnamese agreed to return to the talks. When the negotiators met again in early January, they quickly worked out a settlement. Under the terms of the agreement, which became known as the Paris Peace Accords, a cease-fire would begin at 8 a.m., January 28, Saigon time (7 p.m., January 27, Eastern Standard Time). In addition, all prisoners of war were to be released within 60 days and in turn, all U.S. and other foreign troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam within 60 days. With respect to the political situation in South Vietnam, the Accords called for a National Council of Reconciliation and Concord, with representatives from both South Vietnamese sides (Saigon and the National Liberation Front) to oversee negotiations and organize elections for a new government. The actual document was entitled "An Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam" and it was formally signed on January 27.
1991 – After some 12,000 sorties in the Gulf War, General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said allied forces had achieved air superiority, and would focus air fire on Iraqi ground forces around Kuwait.Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
2013 – The United States Armed Forces overturns its ban on women serving in combat, reversing a 1994 rule, and potentially clearing the way for women to serve in front-line units and elite commando forces.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions taken This Day
DEMPSEY, JOHN
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1848, Ireland. Accredited to: Massachusetts. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Kearsarge at Shanghai, China, 23 January 1875. Displaying gallant conduct, Dempsey jumped overboard from the Kearsarge and rescued from drowning one of the crew of that vessel.
MOORE, FRANCIS
Rank and organization: Boatswain's Mate, U.S. Navy. Born: 1858 New York. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 326, 18 October 1884. Citation: For jumping overboard from the U.S. Training Ship Portsmouth, at the Washington Navy Yard, 23 January 1882, and endeavoring to rescue Thomas Duncan, carpenter and calker, who had fallen overboard.
FOSS, JOSEPH JACOB
Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Marine Fighting Squadron 121, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. Place and date: Over Guadalcanal, 9 October to 19 November 1942, 15 and 23 January 1943. Entered service at: South Dakota. Born: 17 April 1 915, Sioux Falls, S. Dak. Citation: For outstanding heroism and courage above and beyond the call of duty as executive officer of Marine Fighting Squadron 121, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, at Guadalcanal. Engaging in almost daily combat with the enemy from 9 October to 19 November 1942, Capt. Foss personally shot down 23 Japanese planes and damaged others so severely that their destruction was extremely probable. In addition, during this period, he successfully led a large number of escort missions, skillfully covering reconnaissance, bombing, and photographic planes as well as surface craft. On 15 January 1943, he added 3 more enemy planes to his already brilliant successes for a record of aerial combat achievement unsurpassed in this war. Boldly searching out an approaching enemy force on 25 January, Capt. Foss led his 8 F-4F Marine planes and 4 Army P-38's into action and, undaunted by tremendously superior numbers, intercepted and struck with such force that 4 Japanese fighters were shot down and the bombers were turned back without releasing a single bomb. His remarkable flying skill, inspiring leadership, and indomitable fighting spirit were distinctive factors in the defense of strategic American positions on Guadalcanal.
ORESKO, NICHOLAS
Rank and organization: Master Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company C, 302d Infantry, 94th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Tettington, Germany, 23 January 1945. Entered service at: Bayonne, N.J. Birth: Bayonne, N.J. G.O. No.: 95, 30 October 1945. Citation: M/Sgt. Oresko was a platoon leader with Company C, in an attack against strong enemy positions. Deadly automatic fire from the flanks pinned down his unit. Realizing that a machinegun in a nearby bunker must be eliminated, he swiftly worked ahead alone, braving bullets which struck about him, until close enough to throw a grenade into the German position. He rushed the bunker and, with pointblank rifle fire, killed all the hostile occupants who survived the grenade blast. Another machinegun opened up on him, knocking him down and seriously wounding him in the hip. Refusing to withdraw from the battle, he placed himself at the head of his platoon to continue the assault. As withering machinegun and rifle fire swept the area, he struck out alone in advance of his men to a second bunker. With a grenade, he crippled the dug-in machinegun defending this position and then wiped out the troops manning it with his rifle, completing his second self-imposed, 1-man attack. Although weak from loss of blood, he refused to be evacuated until assured the mission was successfully accomplished. Through quick thinking, indomitable courage, and unswerving devotion to the attack in the face of bitter resistance and while wounded, M /Sgt. Oresko killed 12 Germans, prevented a delay in the assault, and made it possible for Company C to obtain its objective with minimum casualties.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for January 23, FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
23 January
1918: The first American military balloon ascension in the American Expeditionary Force took place at the American Balloon School, Cuperly, Marne, France. (24)
1929: Through 27 January, the aircraft carriers USS Lexington and USS Saratoga participated in fleet exercises for the first time. (20)
1940: In the first American test to see if a complete unit could be moved by air, the 7th Bombardment Group from Hamilton Field, Calif., used 38 bombers to transport a battalion of 65th Coast Artillery troops 500 miles. (24)
1949: Operation SNOWBOUND (also HAYLIFT). The USAF aided snowbound western ranchers by dropping 25,000 pounds of feed to sheep and cattle. Over the next four weeks, Military Air Transport Service C-82s and Air Rescue Service SC-47s also dropped 525 cases of "C" rations, 20,000 pounds of food, and 10,000 pounds of coal to area residents. (2) (24)
1951: The USAF activated Project MX-1593, successor to MX-774 for the Atlas prototype, in a contract with Convair. Since 1947, when the Air Force cancelled the Atlas to pursue Snark and Navaho missiles, Convair had financed its own limited research on ballistic missiles. (24) KOREAN WAR. Far East Air Forces tasked 33 F-84s from Taegu to attack Sinuiju, which provoked a furious 30-minute air battle with MiG-15s from across the Yalu. The F-84s shot down three MiGs, the highest daily USAF aerial victory total in the month. While 46 F-80s suppressed antiaircraft artillery around Pyongyang, 21 B-29s bombed enemy airfields there. (28)
1961: The last Atlas-D launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., was a success. Altogether, there were 35 completely successful launches, eight partial successes, and six failures in the program. (6)
1963: Turkey announced plans to phase out one squadron of Jupiter missiles. (6)
1964: The USAF launched a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile from an underground silo at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on a 5,000-mile flight down the Pacific Missile Range. (5)
1975: An Air Force directive specified that early DoD space shuttle missions would be planned and controlled by a National Air and Space Administration team in NASA facilities. (5)
1981: Two 6594th Test Group helicopters performed a para rescue-assisted hoist pickup of an injured seaman from a merchant vessel 240 nautical miles west of Honolulu. (26)
2002: A 305th Air Mobility Wing KC-10 from McGuire AFB, N. J., arrived at Dulles International Airport, DC, with John Walker Lindh, a 20-year-old American accused of joining Al Qaeda and fighting in Afghanistan against US forces. A US Park Police helicopter took Lindh from the KC-10 flight to a detention facility in northern Virginia. On 24 January in Alexandria, Va., he was charged with conspiring to kill Americans. A C-17 flew Lindh from Kandahar to Incirlik AB for transfer to the KC-10. (22)
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