TheList 6962

The List 6962     TGB

To All,

Good

Friday Morning September 27, 2024. Heavy fog this morning. I am looking forward to joining my F-8 Crusader brothers for our 33rd Last Annual Crusader Ball  LACB 33 today here in San Diego.

Regards,

skip

Make it a good Day

 

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Thanks to 1440

I hope all of our readers that are in its path stay safe today …..skip

 

Helene Hits Florida

Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida last night as a Category 4 storm, bringing 140 mph winds to the state's northwest coast. Over 600,000 homes and businesses have already lost power. See live updates here.

 

One of the biggest concerns for Hurricane Helene is storm surge (see 101), which analysts say could reach as high as 15 to 20 feet. Another is the storm's size; at 420 miles wide, it is among the largest storms to hit the US in recent years. As of this writing, 61 of Florida's 67 counties are under a state of emergency, with hurricane and flash flood warnings extending to parts of Georgia and North Carolina.

 

The last time the US was hit with a Category 4 storm was Hurricane Ian in 2022, which killed 150 people when it made landfall on a similar trajectory a few hundred miles south in Fort Myers. Almost 2,500 people were rescued by emergency crews.

 

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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/.   Go here to see the director's corner for all 83 H-Grams 

Today in Naval and Marine Corps History Thanks to NHHC

.

September 27

 

1860  A landing party of Marines are put ashore at Panama from the sloop-of-war, USS St. Mary's, during an insurrection. The Marines capture the railroad station in an attempt to establish order.

1863  During the Civil War, the steamer USS Clyde seizes the Confederate schooner Amaranth near the Florida Keys.

1941  SS Patrick Henry, the first U.S. Liberty ship, is launched by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at Baltimore, Md. Numerous other vessels are launched on that day, known as "Liberty Fleet Day."

1942  The freighter, SS Stephen Hopkins, engages the German auxiliary cruiser, Stier, and supply ship, Tannenfels, in a surface gunnery action in the central South Atlantic. Stier sinks SS Stephen Hopkins but the German raider sinks after having receiving heavy damage by SS Stephen Hopkins naval armed guard, Lt. j.g. Kenneth M. Willett. For his actions, Willett posthumously receives the Navy Cross.

1942  While leading a group of landing craft during the Guadalcanal Campaign, Signalman 1st Class Douglas A. Munro, USCG, participates in the evacuation of the First Battalion, Seventh Marines from Matanikau River, Guadalcanal. Using his boat as a shield between the Japanese and the Marines, he enables the operation to proceed successfully, but is killed by enemy gunfire. For his "extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry", Munro is posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

1944  USS Apogon (SS-308) sinks the Japanese cargo ship Hachirogata Maru in the Sea of Okhotsk off Shimushir Island. Also on this date, USS Plaice (SS-390) sinks Japanese Coast Defense Vessel No.10, 100 miles north-northwest of Amami-O-Shima.

1955  A P2V-5 Neptune patrol plane of Early Warning Squadron 4 is lost with nine crew members and two journalists while tracking Hurricane Janet over the Caribbean Sea.

1986 USS Chicago (SSN 721) is commissioned at Norfolk, VA. The Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarine is the fourth U.S. Navy ship to be named after the Windy City of Illinois, and is ideally suited for covert surveillance, intelligence gathering and special forces missions.

 

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Today in World History

September 27

1540 The Society of Jesus, a religious order under Ignatius Loyola, is approved by the Pope.

1669 The island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea falls to the Ottoman Turks after a 21-year siege.

1791 Jews in France are granted French citizenship.

1864 Confederate guerrilla Bloody Bill Anderson and his henchmen, including a teenage Jesse James, massacre 20 unarmed Union soldiers at Centralia, Missouri. The event becomes known as the Centralia Massacre.

1869 Wild Bill Hickok, sheriff of Hays City, Kan., shoots down Samuel Strawhim, a drunken teamster causing trouble.

1916 Constance of Greece declares war on Bulgaria.

1918 President Woodrow Wilson opens his fourth Liberty Loan campaign to support men and machines for World War I.

1920 Eight Chicago White Sox players are charged with fixing the 1919 World Series.

1939 Germany occupies Warsaw as Poland falls to Germany and the Soviet Union.

1942 Australian forces defeat the Japanese on New Guinea in the South Pacific.

1944 Thousands of British troops are killed as German forces rebuff their massive effort to capture the Arnhem Bridge across the Rhine River in Holland.

1950 U.S. Army and Marine troops liberate Seoul, South Korea.

1956 The U.S. Air Force Bell X-2, the world's fastest and highest-flying plane, crashes, killing the test pilot.

1964 The Warren Commission, investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, issues its report, stating its conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman.

1979 US Congress approves Department of Education as the 13th agency in the US Cabinet.

1983 Sukhumi massacre: Abkhaz separatist forces and their allies commit widespread atrocities against the civilian population in the USSR state of Georgia.

1996 The Taliban capture Afghanistan's capital city, Kabul.

2003 European Space Agency launches SMART-1 satellite to orbit the moon.

2007 NASA launches Dawn probe to explore and study the two larges objects of the asteroid belt, Vesta and Ceres.

2008 Zhai Zhigang becomes the first Chinese to walk in space; he was part of the Shenzhou 7 crew.

 

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ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED Thanks to the Bear … Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻

OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (1965-1968)…

Thanks to the Bear

I have provided access to archive entries covering Commando Hunt operations for the period November 1968 through mid-September 1969. These posts are permanently available at the following link.

https://www.rollingthunderremembered.com/commando-hunt-post-list/

 

(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. .Micro is the one also that goes into the archives and finds these inputs and sends them to me for incorporation in the List. It is a lot of work and our thanks goes out to him for his effort.

From Vietnam Air Losses site for "for 26 September  

26-Sep:  https://www.vietnamairlosses.com/loss.php?id=3020

 Vietnam Air Losses

Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady's work at:  https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.

 

This is a list of all Helicopter Pilots Who Died in the Vietnam War . Listed by last name and has other info 

https://www.vhpa.org/KIA/KIAINDEX.HTM

 

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.

Thanks to YP for our F-8 Crusader Brothers. Today is the day of our 33rd LACB (Last Annual Crusader Balll

 

Here yar!

Bye de bye, two former VF-201 drivers were OINC's of the Andrews photo det:  Budd Flagg and Cary Carson.

RIP Both,

VR, YP

 

Begin forwarded message:

Chet,

Found an email from WAY BACK between Rick Morgan and meself aboot Crusader loss rates, thot I'd share it.

YP

 

Begin forwarded message:

 

From: Jack Woodul

Subject: Re: F-8 Loss rates

Date: January 21, 2017 at 10:20:25 AM MST

To: Morgan Rick

Interesting stats, Rick:

 

I ended up with some 1200 hours in various models: A,B,K, most in the H model.  I must stress that I did this in the Reserves, and I ended up with some 65 carrier landings, all on big decks except initial CARQUAL on Oriskany.  Importantly, no nights.  I ought to count the number of hops that were .5 hours—ACM hops in burner almost the whole time, land with something less than 1000# JP(these were the most fun!)

I consider the Real Crusader pilots those who flew nights off 27 Charlie carriers.  As I've pointed out many times, my friend Carnac, two tour VF-24 off Hancock, said they would have four ramp strikes per cruise, two fatalities.  These were night events, usually coming back from such biggie missions as BARCAP.  Hook to ramp clearance for a three wire was ten feet!

 

I think the aggressive ego mindset of the community toward ACM led to lots of on the edge competitive flying, which led to a number of hiney busting I personally know about.  The Crusader had the same problem as the Thud, etc, when a hit that took out the two flight control hydraulic system pressures that dropping the RAT (hydraulic and electric power) couldn't solve.  A VN fix came late that would lock the UHT's from failing full nose down, and run the rudder from the utility hydraulic system, which normally did landing gear and such.  That being intact as well allowed a pilot some control to get farther away from gomer. (I sent a short account of this phenomenon recently to some of the usual suspects).

 

I never had a truly serious maintenance problem that a short field arrestment couldn't solve.  There were a host of small things to assume wouldn't work, like TACAN and UHF, and you never launched on a cross country without an ONC or Texico road map in case you couldn't get radar vectors from your friendly ATC.

 

I loved the airplane, being naturally loud and dumb, and the only near things were caused by myself.  Flown fast, it came alive and was a joy to maneuver; slow flying was a hoss of different character, becoming good friends with Mr. Rudder and no lateral stick.  At carrier landing speeds, One needed wot was called "Hemorhoidal Sense"—if you had not moved the throttle in the last second or so while on final, you needed to move it. Among the many things a Landing Signal Officer watched during the approach was the puffs of smoke coming out of the tailpipe.  Due to the raised wing (or lowered fusilage!), you could be sailing along fine, you thought, be decelling, and the plane would squat and fall out of the sky.  Not nice.  If you flew the airplane a la Air Farce at a comfortable 150 knots, it was easy peasy.

 

I haven't even addressed the Landing problems of the BLC blessed J model, which nicely slowed the final approach speed, and it worked fine in trials back around cold Pax River.  In hot and humid WESTPAC, there were lots of cases where full throttle would not halt a sinking ball.  There was something developed as an emergency stay-away-from-the-ramp maneuver called the "Pulse Wave Off."  Going low in close called for rotating up to the shudder, then easing the nose over some.  Some squadrons limited the amount of 20 mike mike they carried or number of missiles to have a little more gas for max trap weight.

 

Besides the "Hudn Hudn! Where are the MIGS?" patch, J-Bird drivers wore one that said, "In God We Trust—We Need Thrust!"

 

So it went.

YP

 

Skip,

 

PS

I know the Fleet finally got the J-Bird probs sorted out (somewhat?), but by that time, my Reserve Squadron had percussively sublimated up to the F-4N, a tired old F-4B with a shiny new coat of paint.  As a card carrying member of the single seat Mafia, I'll hesh mah mouf lest I be stoned by the Fantoomery.

YP

 

 

On Jan 21, 2017, at 9:32 AM, Rick Morgan  wrote:

 

I've always wondered about the high loss rate the Crusader had.  Over the last few months I've gone through an internet source (Million Monkey Theater) that lists the disposition of every F-8 and came up with the following numbers-

Seems the overall attrition rate was 54%;  This is USN/USMC only and doesn't include French or Philippine, and is heavily influenced by the two versions that didn't see combat, the A and B.

The second graph covers only the four versions (and SLEP types) that went to Vietnam and now you're talking a 75% airframe loss rate.

This, of course, also needs to be considered against length of service, which was, easily, the longest of any other VF type of that period.

Don't have data on hand on  VIGIS- suspect they're over 50% though. (Boom?)

Some comparable '50s fighters work out at F3H 30%, F4D-40%, F11F-55%, F7U- 31%.  And all of these have significant "yeah butts" to ponder- no combat,  the Tiger's numbers are impacted by long TRACOM and Blue Angel service; the Cutlass lost one third of production in less than four years.

What I don't have, of course, is the hours flown, which would tell you a whole lot more-

I will point out that the aircraft we now have seem to be running in the middle 20% area, but they're flying in the fleet for 30 some odd years.  Yeah- we're a lot safer now.

Rick

 

                                             Built       Ops loss               DEA        TOTAL   PCTG

F8U-1    F-8A                     318        113        0             113        38%

F8U-1E  F-8B       L             130        46           0             46           35%

F8U-2    F-8C       K             187        101        8             109        58%

F8U-2N F-8D       H            152        72           10           82           53%

F8U-2NE              F-8E       J              286        160        44           204        71%

F8U-1P  RF-8A    G            144        88           20           108        75%

                                             1217                                    662        54%

DEA- Direct Enemy Action 

                                            

               THOSE THAT WENT INTO COMBAT

Tot    loss

C             187        109       

D            152        82          

E             286        204       

R             144        108       

               769        503        75%

 

 

On Sep 24, 2024, at 12:10 AM, Chet Blum <luscombe1941@gmail.com> wrote:

 

hi Jack ... start off this email chain with some dialog with "the Man" ... checked on Wikipedia which says the US Navy delivered 1,219 Crusaders ... wow ... I did not realize that .. just think how much "tougher" those F-8's could have been ... if they just had some of the better avionics and missiles ... the US Navy would have been able to clean the sky of "them" pesky MIG's the North Vietnamese had ... and if they would have given you the M-61 Vulcan cannon instead of those "pieces of shit" Colt Mk. 12 - 20mm cannons that jammed every time you tried to use them in the dogfights ...

 

this kind of discussion could also be applied to the USAF F-105 Thunderchiefs ... just image if they could have delivered bombs like the Israelis are doing with their F-15's these days ... in 90 days there would have not been a target left to bomb in North Vietnam ...

Vought F-8 Crusader   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_F-8_Crusader

During June 1953, Vought received an initial order to produce three XF8U-1 prototypes of its design. On 25 March 1955, the first prototype performed its maiden flight. Flight testing proved the aircraft to be relatively problem-free. On 21 August 1956, U.S. Navy pilot R.W. Windsor attained a top speed of 1,015 mph; in doing so, the F-8 became the first jet fighter in American service to reach 1,000 mph.[5]

Withdrawal from frontline operations

 A section of VFP-206 RF-8G Crusaders in late 1986 when they were last F-8s in U.S. Naval service.

LTV built and delivered the 1,219th (and last) US Navy Crusader to VF-124 at NAS Miramar on 3 September 1964.[1] The last active duty US Navy Crusader fighter variants were retired from VF-191 and VF-194 aboard Oriskany in 1976 after almost two decades of service, setting a first for a Navy fighter.[citation needed]

The photo reconnaissance variant continued to serve in the active duty Navy for yet another 11 years, with VFP-63 flying RF-8Gs up to 1982, and with the Naval Reserve flying their RF-8Gs in two squadrons (VFP-206 and VFP-306) at Naval Air Facility Washington / Andrews AFB until the disestablishment of VFP-306 in 1984 and VFP-206 on 29 March 1987 when the last operational Crusader was turned over to the National Air and Space Museum.[48]

 

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Amazing bit of history

Thanks to Strayburst

In 1842, at age 33, Abraham Lincoln sent two letters to the local Springfield newspaper, criticizing a political opponent. Calling the man, among other things, a fool and a liar, he signed the letters "Rebecca." Lincoln was courting young Mary Todd at the time, and she was aware of Lincoln's letters. Thinking such a thing to be great fun, Mary began sending her own "Rebecca" letters to the paper, poking fun at the man mercilessly and ridiculing him for being unmarried. In due course the man felt things had gone too far and he stormed into the newspaper office demanding to know if Abraham Lincoln was the author of the letters. When told that the letters had indeed come from Lincoln, the man challenged Lincoln to a duel.

The man Lincoln had been prodding was not a man to be trifled with. James Shields was a fiery-tempered Irishman, who was serving as the Illinois state auditor. He would go on to serve as a general in the Mexican American War (where he was twice wounded) and is the only man in American history to have been elected to the U.S. Senate from three different states. His challenge put Lincoln in a bind. He couldn't admit to writing the letters Mary Todd had sent, but to pass the blame to a young woman would make him appear to be a coward. So, he reluctantly accepted Shields' challenge.

As the challenged party, Lincoln got to choose the weapons and set the rules for the duel. Duels were normally fought with pistols, but Lincoln knew that he would likely be killed if he fought Shields with pistols. So instead, he chose broadswords as the weapons, and he set rules that assured he would win the fight. Under Lincoln's rules, he and Shields were to stand on opposite sides of a board, ten feet from each other. If either man stepped closer than that, the penalty was death. Being seven inches taller than Shields, Lincoln's rules assured that he would be able to reach Shields with his sword, but that Shields would be unable to touch Lincoln. While Lincoln's conditions were unsporting, he was within his rights to set them.

Shields saw of course that Lincoln had set conditions designed to make it impossible for Lincoln to lose the fight. But Shields was no coward and on the morning of the duel he arrived ready to go forward, whatever the consequences.

As was the norm in such affairs, the men the combatants had chosen as "seconds" tried to negotiate an honorable resolution before the duel began. Exactly why Shields relented is unclear. By some accounts, while the seconds were negotiating Lincoln reached up and lopped off a large branch of a tree in a single swipe, convincing Shields that he ought to compromise. By other accounts, Lincoln's second intimated to Shields's man that Lincoln had been forced into the duel to protect the honor of a young lady, causing Shields to be satisfied with a toned-down apology. Whatever the reason, Lincoln agreed to admit writing the first letter, adding that he never intended to harm Shields's character, a sort-of apology that Shields accepted. The duel was called off before Lincoln's long arms had to go into action.

Lincoln later told a confidant that he felt confident he could have disarmed Shields, and that he no intention of killing him. He found the whole episode profoundly embarrassing and for the rest of his life refused to discuss it. When asked by an army officer years later if the rumor that he had once nearly dueled James Shields was true, Lincoln replied that he would not deny it, but that if the officer wished to remain his friend, he would never speak of it again.

Lincoln and Shields patched up their differences and had a cordial relationship afterwards. During the Civil War, Shields was a general in the Federal army and his commander in chief was the man he once nearly fought with broadswords on an island in the Mississippi.

Abraham Lincoln and James Shields met on Bloody Island, Missouri on the morning of September 22, 1842, one hundred eighty years ago , to fight a duel, which fortunately was averted.

 

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Thanks to Brett

Geopolitical Futures:

Keeping the future in focus

https://geopoliticalfutures.com

Daily Memo: The Paradox of Israel's Hezbollah Campaign

Airstrikes will undermine Iran, but they will also imperil Israel's strategic environment.

By Kamran Bokhari

Sep 26, 2024

Over the past few days, Israel's air force has conducted hundreds of airstrikes against Hezbollah positions in Lebanon. Nearly 600 Lebanese residents, including 94 women and 35 children, were killed on Sept. 23 alone, while some 2,000 were wounded and tens of thousands were displaced. This follows the Israeli intelligence operation last week in which the Mossad intelligence agency detonated thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies carried by members of Hezbollah. Some 40 people died in that attack, while another 3,000 were wounded.

Until recently, Israel felt as though it was under attack from every direction. Since it launched its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza last year, it has been targeted by Hezbollah from Lebanon, by the Houthis from Yemen, and by Shiite militias from Syria and Iraq, leading Israel to believe the Oct. 7 attack was merely part of a broader Iranian plan against it.

And yet Israel was reluctant to expand its assault. Hezbollah – Iran's most powerful Arab ally, and one with geographic proximity to Israel's border – posed the biggest challenge. The group's attacks, which started on Oct. 8, uprooted at least 60,000 Israelis from their homes in the north. Israel Defense Forces would occasionally respond, but its focus remained on Gaza. There was a concern that if Israel responded too strongly it would lead to war with Hezbollah's patron, Iran. The Israeli strategy, then, was to keep Hezbollah off balance by targeting specific group leaders.

 

(click to enlarge)

Meanwhile, it employed a similar strategy against Iran, keying in on command and control facilities of the Quds Force, the overseas operations arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Hitting the patron, Israel assumed, would be an effective preemptive measure. This led to Israeli airstrikes on the Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, which killed half a dozen senior Quds Force commanders. That attack forced Iran to get directly involved – something it didn't want to do since doing so would expose its military limitations.

Those limitations were indeed laid bare on April 13, when Iran fired 300 missiles and drones against Israel but caused minimal damage. The incident erased many of the fears Israel had over an all-out regional war against Iran, whose conventional military capabilities were proved weak. (This is, after all, a primary reason Iran employs so many regional proxies.)

The intensity and frequency of Israeli attacks against Iran and its proxies have since picked up. On July 30, it eliminated Hezbollah's military chief near Beirut. The next day, it killed Hamas' leader in Tehran, where he had traveled to for the inauguration of recently elected president Masoud Pezeshkian. A few months later came the operation that weaponized pagers and walkie-talkies and the subsequent barrage of airstrikes. Israel continues to target Hezbollah military leaders, intelligence directorates, missile launch sites and weapons depots. The goal is not just to get Hezbollah to cease its attacks but to seriously degrade Hezbollah militarily and thus politically.

As of the time of writing, Israel has called up two reserve brigades for a possible ground incursion into southern Lebanon. That is not something Israel wants to do, given the nearly 20-year war it fought starting in 1982 that resulted in its own withdrawal. (This is to say nothing of the 2006 war in which Israel failed to impose defeat on Hezbollah.) But it is certainly something that Hezbollah would welcome strategically considering that it has ample experience as a guerilla and insurgent force. An Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon would, moreover, give Hezbollah an opportunity to re-brandish its bona fides as a resistance group, a reputation that has taken a serious beating from the large-scale assault that it is under.

There's a paradox inherent to Israel's air offensive: Though it exposes a major weakness in Iran's otherwise successful regional strategy, it also makes Israel's strategic environment more fragile. And it will only become more so if the international community puts more pressure on Israel to cease hostilities.

Iran and Hezbollah may have been caught off guard by the technological sophistication of last week's pager attacks, but they have long been aware of Israeli firepower, and still neither is backing down. This suggests they believe they can endure Israeli retaliation long enough for the international community to tell Israel enough is enough. The question is: Can Israel compel Hezbollah and Iran to blink before the situation escalates?

 

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 Thanks to Interesting Facts

6 Lesser-Known Firsts in Women's History

 

Women have contributed to almost every facet of life, from sports and science to art and politics. While some female role models are starting to get more recognition, we still tend to gloss over history's supporting female characters — women who broke their own glass ceilings while serving others, smashing records, and pursuing personal passions. Here are a few stories you may have missed in history class.

 

1 of 6

First Known Female Postmaster in Colonial America

Mary Katharine Goddard was among the first female publishers in the U.S., a socially precarious venture for a colonial woman during the country's fight for independence. Working with her mother, Sarah, and brother, William, Mary Katharine founded multiple publications starting in the 1760s. William frequently traveled between cities to establish new papers, leaving the bulk of news collecting and printing to his sister. In 1774, he appointed Mary Katharine to run The Maryland Journal while he focused on other pursuits (such as lobbying for a national postal service) and served time in debtor's prison. During the height of the Revolutionary War, Mary Katharine made a name for herself with fiery anti-British editorials. In 1775, she was appointed Baltimore's first postmaster — likely the first woman to hold such a position in colonial America — and in 1777, Congress commissioned her to print copies of the Declaration of Independence. (Surviving copies feature her printer's mark at the bottom.) Despite her success, however, Mary Katharine was pushed out of both roles at the war's end. In 1784, William rescinded her title as publisher, creating a lifelong rift between the siblings. Not long after, she was also removed from her postmaster job on the basis of sex. She wrote to George Washington asking to be reinstated, but the President passed her complaint to the postmaster general, who left her plea unanswered.

 

2 of 6

First Woman Surgeon and Female Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker was the second U.S. woman to receive a medical degree (following Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell), but she became known as the country's first female surgeon. Following her medical school graduation in 1855, Walker went into practice with her husband and fellow doctor Albert Miller, though the Civil War would change the course of her career. Despite having a medical degree, Walker was denied work as a military surgeon in the Union Army because she was a woman. Instead, she volunteered at field hospitals in Washington, D.C., and Virginia until 1863, when Tennessee accepted her medical credentials and designated her as the Army's first female surgeon. Walker's proximity to battlefields put her at risk — in 1864, she was captured by Confederate troops and spent four months at the notoriously brutal Castle Thunder prison, where she suffered injuries that plagued her for the rest of her life. At the war's end, Walker was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for Meritorious Service, an honor that Congress revoked in 1917 on the grounds that her medical work was not directly on the front lines. She refused to return the award for the remaining two years of her life and was posthumously re-awarded the medal in 1977. More than 100 years later, Walker remains the only woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

 

3 of 6

First Female TV Game Show Host

Actress Arlene Francis found her footing in entertainment as a radio host, but it was a TV first that catapulted her career to new heights. In 1949, Francis became the first woman to host a television game show in the United States. On Blind Date, a show Francis originally hosted over radio airwaves, male contestants competed for an all-expenses-paid outing with women hidden behind a wall, the obvious catch being that they couldn't see their prospective dates and had to answer a litany of questions with the goal of being picked. Francis hosted the show for three years before moving on to films and Broadway stages, but her best-known role was a 25-year stint as a panelist on What's My Line?, another TV game show.

 

4 of 6

First Native American Woman to Argue a Supreme Court Case

Lyda Conley's legacy was preserving that of her ancestors — specifically their final resting place. Conley acted as a staunch (and armed) defender of the Wyandot National Burying Ground, a Kansas cemetery at risk of sale and destruction some 60 years after its creation. The cemetery was established in 1843 following typhoid and measles outbreaks that took hundreds of Wyandot lives; the loss was a particular blow to an Indigenous community that was forcibly relocated thanks to broken treaties with the U.S. government and the cruel Indian Removal Act of 1830. In 1890, Kansas senators introduced legislation to sell the burial ground; although it failed, the effort encouraged Lyda Conley to attend law school to defend the very cemetery in which her own parents, siblings, and grandparents were interred. Conley was admitted to the Missouri Bar in 1902, and within four years put her legal skills to work as the federal government moved to sell the cemetery. Conley and her sister Lena began a legal and physical siege for its protection, building an armed watch station called Fort Conley on the grounds and warning, "woe be to the man that first attempts to steal a body." In 1910, her legal fight made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where she became the first Native American woman (and third woman ever) to argue a case before the judges. While the court ruled against her, years of media coverage about the cemetery worked in her favor. In 1913, the Kansas Senate passed legislation protecting the cemetery, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2017.

 

5 of 6

First Woman to Break the Sound Barrier

Aviator Jacqueline Cochran set more than 73 flight records during her lifetime, most for altitude and speed. In 1953, she also snagged the title for first woman to break the sound barrier. Her success was a product of her determination, which may have been honed during a difficult childhood; raised in Florida by a family with modest means, Cochran began working in a cotton mill at just six years old. At 10, she struck out on her own, working in salons for several years before launching her own cosmetics company in the mid-1930s. Around this time, in 1932, Cochran pursued her pilot's license with the goal of more easily reaching cross-country clients and business partners. Instead, she found a new passion that led her to compete in air racing, where she began setting speed records. When World War II started a few years later, she shifted her focus again to find ways to put her talents to practical use. In 1941, Cochran recruited two dozen female pilots for the Air Transport Auxiliary, a World War II program that utilized civilian pilots to transport military planes. That same year, she became the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic Ocean. And by late 1943, she was commander of the Women's Air Force Service Pilots. Cochran continued flying after the war, with a renewed focus on speed; her reputation gained her access to military jets that helped her break records — including the sound barrier feat.

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First Woman to Win Three Track-and-Field Olympic Gold Medals in a Single Year

No one would have guessed that Wilma Rudolph would be known as the fastest runner in the world by age 20 — most doctors believed she'd never even walk as an adult. After contracting scarlet fever, pneumonia, and polio when she was young, Rudolph lost much of her mobility, then slowly recovered with the help of leg braces she wore for several years. By the time she was nine years old, the determined future athlete had regained her ability to walk and began playing basketball; in high school, she was scouted by coaches for her speed on the court. One of those coaches invited Rudolph to train at Tennessee State University, where she refined her high-speed sprinting skills. She and her track teammates made two trips to the Olympics — first in 1956, when she was still in high school, and again in 1960. It was at the 1960 Games in Rome that Rudolph claimed three gold medals in track-and-field: one each in the 100-meter and 200-meter races, and another in the 4x100-meter relay. She became the first U.S. woman to do so at a single Olympics, simultaneously breaking three world records for speed. Rudolph retired from sports two years later but took up coaching and became a goodwill ambassador to French West Africa. Her Olympic achievements helped pave the way for the Black female athletes who would eventually break her records.

 

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. Thanks to YP

Subject: Re: The Battle of Sydney 1955

 

In one of the highly orchestrated BQM-34 drone Sidewinder shoots in the Puerto Rican operating area (they really didn't want you to kill it, just practice shooting at it and barely miss, then pop the chute and recover the drone), The game was to delay the winder leaving the rails call and bag the drone before the controllers could crank on the G's for a miss—you got a neato plaque for bagging one!  Well, one of them got wounded and stupid and proceded to overhead PR, where it circled until it ran outta gas, then destroyed some vegetation in the crash.  Oh, woe!  Big To Do by the same activists trying to save Vieques.

Frabb 'em.  You had to take some losses in an operation like that.

YP

On Jul 20, 2023, at 9:11 AM, Mark Morgan <rangermk@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Yeah, but the F-89s did a damn fine job littering the Antelope Valley with 2.75s!  MK

On Thursday, July 20, 2023 at 10:07:13 AM CDT, Crow 6b <crow6b@gmail.com> wrote:

An entertaining, 15 minute story about an incident in 1955 where an Auster light aircraft got airborne without a pilot, flew over Sydney and then defied multiple attempts by RAAF aircraft ,a BREN-gun armed Whiraway, two Sabres and a pair of Meteors to shoot it down. It took a section of RAN Sea Furies to finally put it into the Pacific Ocean.

Of course I had no idea Whiraways were still in use this late!

It rings of the familiar "Battle of Van Nuys" where ADC interceptors couldn't shoot down an errant aircraft in another story.

 

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This Day in U S Military History

27 September

1939 – 140,000 Polish troops are taken prisoner by the German invaders as Warsaw surrenders to the superior mechanized forces of Hitler's army. The Poles fought bravely, but were able to hold on for only 26 days. On the heels of its victory, the Germans began a systematic program of terror, murder, and cruelty, executing members of Poland's middle and upper classes: Doctors, teachers, priests, landowners, and businessmen were rounded up and killed. The Nazis had given this operation the benign-sounding name "Extraordinary Pacification Action." The Roman Catholic Church, too, was targeted, because it was a possible source of dissent and counterinsurgency. In one west Poland church diocese alone, 214 priests were shot. And hundreds of thousands more Poles were driven from their homes and relocated east, as Germans settled in the vacated areas. This was all part of a Hitler master plan. Back in August, Hitler warned his own officers that he was preparing Poland for that "which would not be to the taste of German generals"–including the rounding up of Polish Jews into ghettos, a prelude to their liquidation. All roads were pointing to Auschwitz.

1956 – USAF Captain Milburn G. Apt becomes the first man to exceed Mach 3 while flying the Bell X-2. Shortly thereafter, the craft goes out of control and Captain Apt is killed.

1959 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev concluded his visit to the United States. During the visit he debated with Richard Nixon. He also saw the filming of Can Can and found the dance immoral. Bassetts produced 50 tubs of borscht sorbet in honor of Premier Nikita Khrushchev's visit to Philadelphia.

The train that took Khrushchev north from Los Angles where he did not get to go to Disneyland went right through Vandenberg AFB. The Air Force had Atlas Missiles on all the sites that could be seen from the train and the train was escorted by Helicopters. The joke around the base was that the only way to get those  Missiles off the ground was with Dynamite.   Skip

 

Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

 

BOYNE, THOMAS

Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company C, 9th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Mimbres Mountains, N. Mex., 29 May 1879; at Cuchillo Negro River near Ojo Caliente, N. Mex., 27 September 1879. Entered service at:——. Birth: Prince Georges County, Md. Date of issue: 6 January 1882. Citation: Bravery in action.

 

PAINE, ADAM

Rank and organization: Private, Indian Scouts. Place and date: Canyon Blanco tributary of the Red River, Tex., 26-27 September 1874. Entered service at: Fort Duncan, Texas. Birth: Florida. Date of issue: 13 October 1875. Citation: Rendered invaluable service to Col. R. S. Mackenzie, 4th U.S. Cavalry, during this engagement.

 

*BAESEL, ALBERT E.

Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, 148th Infantry, 37th Division. Place and date: Near Ivoiry, France, 27 September 1918. Entered service at: Berea, Ohio. Born: 1892, Berea, Ohio. G.O. No.: 43, W.D., 1922. Citation: Upon hearing that a squad leader of his platoon had been severely wounded while attempting to capture an enemy machinegun nest about 200 yards in advance of the assault line and somewhat to the right, 2d Lt. Baesel requested permission to go to the rescue of the wounded corporal. After thrice repeating his request and permission having been reluctantly given, due to the heavy artillery, rifle, and machinegun fire, and heavy deluge of gas in which the company was at the time, accompanied by a volunteer, he worked his way forward, and reaching the wounded man, placed him upon his shoulders and was instantly killed by enemy fire.

 

BRONSON, DEMING

Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Company H, 364th Infantry, 91st Division. Place and date: Near Eclisfontaine, France, 26-27 September 1918. Entered service at: Seattle, Wash. Born: 8 July 1894, Rhinelander, Wis. G.O. No.: 12 W.D., 1929. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy. On the morning of 26 September, during the advance of the 364th Infantry, 1st Lt. Bronson was struck by an exploding enemy handgrenade, receiving deep cuts on his face and the back of his head. He nevertheless participated in the action which resulted in the capture of an enemy dugout from which a great number of prisoners were taken. This was effected with difficulty and under extremely hazardous conditions because it was necessary to advance without the advantage of cover and, from an exposed position, throw handgrenades and phosphorous bombs to compel the enemy to surrender. On the afternoon of the same day he was painfully wounded in the left arm by an enemy rifle bullet, and after receiving first aid treatment he was directed to the rear. Disregarding these instructions, 1st Lt. Bronson remained on duty with his company through the night although suffering from severe pain and shock. On the morning of 27 September, his regiment resumed its attack, the object being the village of Eclisfontaine. Company H, to which 1st Lt. Bronson was assigned, was left in support of the attacking line, Company E being in the line. He gallantly joined that company in spite of his wounds and engaged with it in the capture of the village. After the capture he remained with Company E and participated with it in the capture of an enemy machinegun, he himself killing the enemy gunner. Shortly after this encounter the company was compelled to retire due to the heavy enemy artillery barrage. During this retirement 1st Lt. Bronson, who was the last man to leave the advanced position, was again wounded in both arms by an enemy high-explosive shell. He was then assisted to cover by another officer who applied first aid. Although bleeding profusely and faint from the loss of blood, 1st Lt. Bronson remained with the survivors of the company throughout the night of the second day, refusing to go to the rear for treatment. His conspicuous gallantry and spirit of self-sacrifice were a source of great inspiration to the members of the entire command.

 

*TURNER, WILLIAM B.

Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army 105th Infantry, 27th Division. Place and date: Near Ronssoy, France, 27 September 1918. Entered service at: Garden City, N.Y. Birth: Boston, Mass. G.O. No.: 81, W.D., 1919. Citation: He led a small group of men to the attack, under terrific artillery and machinegun fire, after they had become separated from the rest of the company in the darkness. Single-handed he rushed an enemy machinegun which had suddenly opened fire on his group and killed the crew with his pistol. He then pressed forward to another machinegun post 25 yards away and had killed 1 gunner himself by the time the remainder of his detachment arrived and put the gun out of action. With the utmost bravery he continued to lead his men over 3 lines of hostile trenches, cleaning up each one as they advanced, regardless of the fact that he had been wounded 3 times, and killed several of the enemy in hand-to-hand encounters. After his pistol ammunition was exhausted, this gallant officer seized the rifle of a dead soldier, bayoneted several members of a machinegun crew, and shot the other. Upon reaching the fourth-line trench, which was his objective, 1st Lt. Turner captured it with the 9 men remaining in his group and resisted a hostile counterattack until he was finally surrounded and killed.

 

WAALER, REIDAR

Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company A, 105th Machine-Gun Battalion, 27th Division. Place and date: Near Ronssoy, France, 27 September 1918. Entered service at: New York, N.Y. Birth: Norway. G.O. No.. 5, W.D., 1920. Citation: In the face of heavy artillery and machinegun fire, he crawled forward to a burning British tank, in which some of the crew were imprisoned, and succeeded in rescuing 2 men. Although the tank was then burning fiercely and contained ammunition which was likely to explode at any time, this soldier immediately returned to the tank and, entering it, made a search for the other occupants, remaining until he satisfied himself that there were no more living men in the tank.

 

FIELDS, JAMES H.

Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, 10th Armored Infantry, 4th Armored Division. Place and date: Rechicourt, France, 27 September 1944. Entered service at: Houston, Tex. Birth: Caddo, Tex. G.O. No.: 13, 27 February 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty, at Rechicourt, France. On 27 September 1944, during a sharp action with the enemy infantry and tank forces, 1st Lt. Fields personally led his platoon in a counterattack on the enemy position. Although his platoon had been seriously depleted, the zeal and fervor of his leadership was such as to inspire his small force to accomplish their mission in the face of overwhelming enemy opposition. Seeing that 1 of the men had been wounded, he left his slit trench and with complete disregard for his personal safety attended the wounded man and administered first aid. While returning to his slit trench he was seriously wounded by a shell burst, the fragments of which cut through his face and head, tearing his teeth, gums, and nasal passage. Although rendered speechless by his wounds, 1st Lt. Fields refused to be evacuated and continued to lead his platoon by the use of hand signals. On 1 occasion, when 2 enemy machineguns had a portion of his unit under deadly crossfire, he left his hole, wounded as he was, ran to a light machinegun, whose crew had been knocked out, picked up the gun, and fired it from his hip with such deadly accuracy that both the enemy gun positions were silenced. His action so impressed his men that they found new courage to take up the fire fight, increasing their firepower, and exposing themselves more than ever to harass the enemy with additional bazooka and machinegun fire. Only when his objective had been taken and the enemy scattered did 1st Lt. Fields consent to be evacuated to the battalion command post. At this point he refused to move further back until he had explained to his battalion commander by drawing on paper the position of his men and the disposition of the enemy forces. The dauntless and gallant heroism displayed by 1st Lt. Fields were largely responsible for the repulse of the enemy forces and contributed in a large measure to the successful capture of his battalion objective during this action. His eagerness and determination to close with the enemy and to destroy him was an inspiration to the entire command, and are in the highest traditions of the U.S. Armed Forces.

 

*MUNRO, DOUGLAS ALBERT

Rank and organization: Signalman First Class, U.S. Coast Guard Born: 11 October 1919, Vancouver, British Columbia. Accredited to Washington. Citation: For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry m action above and beyond the call of duty as Petty Officer in Charge of a group of 24 Higgins boats, engaged in the evacuation of a battalion of marines trapped by enemy Japanese forces at Point Cruz Guadalcanal, on 27 September 1942. After making preliminary plans for the evacuation of nearly 500 beleaguered marines, Munro, under constant strafing by enemy machineguns on the island, and at great risk of his life, daringly led 5 of his small craft toward the shore. As he closed the beach, he signaled the others to land, and then in order to draw the enemy's fire and protect the heavily loaded boats, he valiantly placed his craft with its 2 small guns as a shield between the beachhead and the Japanese. When the perilous task of evacuation was nearly completed, Munro was instantly killed by enemy fire, but his crew, 2 of whom were wounded, carried on until the last boat had loaded and cleared the beach. By his outstanding leadership, expert planning, and dauntless devotion to duty, he and his courageous comrades undoubtedly saved the lives of many who otherwise would have perished. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

 

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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for September 27,  FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY

 

27 September

 

1922: Dr. Albert Hoyt Taylor and Leo C. Young of the Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory at Anacostia made the first radar observations in the US. (24)

1938: The CAA issued the first airplane instructor's license to Arthur J. Banks in Atlanta, Ga. (24)

1943: Eighth Air Force B-17s attacked targets in Emden with nearly 1,000 tons of bombs, the heaviest assault on a single target to date in World War II. A P-47 fighter escort with belly tanks also set a distance record by flying more than 600 miles on the mission. (4) (24)

1951: KOREAN WAR/Operation PELICAN. A C-124 Globemaster II made its first flight from Japan to Korea, carrying 30,000 pounds of aircraft parts to Kimpo Airfield. The flight demonstrated the potential use of a very large transport for operations in a combat theater. (21) (28)

1952: KOREAN WAR. At night, three B-26s flew in the central sector loudspeaker sorties totaling three and one-half hours, an unusually high amount of broadcast time. (28)

1956: Dropped by a B-50 bomber over the Mojave Desert, Capt Milburn G. Apt flew the rocketpowered Bell X-2 to a speed record of 2,094 MPH. The flight ended tragically when the X-2 crashed, killing Capt Apt. (3) (9)

1962: Construction on the last Minuteman I (Model A) facilities ended at Malmstrom AFB. (6)

1963: The last Thor missile from Britain reached the US. (6)

1970: Operation FIG HILL. Through 28 October, the USAF flew the Army's 32d Mobile Surgical Hospital from Germany and the USAF's 48th Air Transportable Hospital from England to wartorn Jordan. The 240 personnel and 186 tons of equipment supplied were carried to the area in 25 sorties flown in two days. (16) (21)

1978: Exercise REFORGER. During this exercise the MAC commander, General William G. Moore, landed a C-130 on an 8,000-foot stretch of unopened German autobahn. This was a first. (16)

1991: President George H. W. Bush terminated SAC's alert force operation, which started operating in October 1957. This action heralded in an end to the Cold War. (16) (26) When a mutiny of soldiers, joined by rebellious civilians in Kinshasha, Zaire, threatened the lives of foreigners, MAC units helped to evacuate more than 1,000 people. (26)

1999: SR-71A (tail no. 61-7980/NASA 844) made the next-to-last flight of the Mach 3 plane above Edwards AFB. NASA Dryden Flight Research Center crewmembers Rogers Smith and Marta Bohn-Meyer flew the Blackbird to Mach 2.70 and 64,000 feet with the dorsal flight test fixture from the Linear Aerospike SR-71 Experiment (LASRE) as its payload. (3)

 

GREAT AIRCRAFT: The Sikorsky H-53

(Reprinted from USAF: A Complete Chronology, 2006, written by the late John F. "Joe" Guilmartin Jr.)

 It is unlikely that the Air Force would have procured a large, high-performance helicopter were it not for the demands of the air war against North Vietnam. The stimulus was the need to rescue airmen downed deep within enemy territory. When the Rolling Thunder campaign began in March of 1965 the primary Air Force rescue helicopter was the Kaman HH 43B with limited speed, range and payload that rendered it useless for long range combat rescue. Something better was needed and the Sikorsky H 53, being developed for the Marine Corps as a heavy lift helicopter, was the obvious choice. In the interim, the Air Force procured a modified version of the smaller Sikorsky H-3. The result was the HH-3E, fitted with an external hydraulic rescue hoist; jettisonable auxiliary fuel tanks; armor protection for crew members, engines, gearboxes and critical flight control components; a full radio communications suite; a Doppler radar navigation system; and, later, a retractable probe for air-to-air refueling. The HH 3E entered combat in October 1965 and proved highly successful but was power-limited. 

The H-53 was designed in response to a 1961 Marine Corps request which evolved from the piston-engine HR2S, the product of 1946 requirement for a helicopter with a massive 5,000-pound payload. The H-53 inherited the HR2S's drive train and tail rotor and a main rotor with the same 72-foot diameter, but with six blades instead of five. The key difference was the replacement of the HR2S's R-2800 piston engines with General Electric T-64 turbines, yielding enormous dividends in speed, payload, and reliability.

The HH-53 received the same equipment as the HH 3 plus radar homing and warning gear as well as extra armor. In addition, the H-53's power margin permitted an armament of three Gatling-type, electrically driven, six-barreled 7.62 mm mini-guns that were mounted in the crew door and left forward cabin window and on the cargo ramp. Additionally, a second pararescueman was added to the crew. The firepower and extra pararescueman added significantly to the HH-53's combat rescue capabilities. The first two HH 53Bs, an interim design with the external fuel tanks supported by external struts, reached Udorn, Thailand, in August 1967 and six more were delivered prior to the arrival of the first HH-53C in September 1969. Tactical Air Command subsequently procured the CH-53C for special operations, but without aerial refueling or the ramp mini-gun. The Air Force ultimately bought forty-four H-53s.

The H-53 was an extraordinarily capable machine, making some of the most spectacular combat rescues of the Vietnam War and serving with distinction in the special operations role over Northern Laos and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Perhaps the most dramatic HH 53 mission of the war was the November 1970 Son Tay Raid. In a largely overlooked commitment, ten Air Force CH-53s and two HH-53s flying from the USS Midway provided some twenty percent of helicopter airlift for the April 1975 Saigon evacuation. Air Force CH and HH-53s took Marines to and from their objectives in the May 1975 SS Mayaguez/Koh Tang operation. By 1972, HH-53s were being fitted with a limited night recovery system that was expanded into a full night/adverse weather capability with the Pave Low modification, incorporating a forward-looking infrared system and terrain avoidance radar.

 

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