TheList 7215

The List 7215

Good Sunday morning June 22. It is clear and sunny and 58 right now and going to go to 78 today.

The strike on Iran was an amazing thing pulled off by the USA.  You have probably heard all about it so I do not have anything about it here this morning.  

We had one of my daughter's cats die this morning so things are not very happy here.

Warm regards,

skip

HAGD

 

Make it a GREAT Day

 

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This day in Naval and Marine Corps History (thanks to NHHC)

Go here to see the director's corner for all 91  H-Grams . .

Here is a link to the NHHC website: https://www.history.navy.mil/.  

June 22

1807  Frigate USS Chesapeake, commanded by James Barron, is stopped by British frigate HMS Leopard after killing several of her crew and take Royal Navy deserters. Barron is court-martialed for not having his ship prepared to fight.

1884  USS Thetis, USS Alert, and USS Bear, under Cmdr. Winfield S. Schley, rescue Lt. Adolphus W. Greely and six of his exploring party from Cape Sabine, where they are marooned for three years.

1898  During the Spanish-American War, the Spanish destroyer Terror joins Isabel II in an attempt to torpedo USS Saint Paul, which fires at Terror, damaging the ship.

1943  USS Monaghan (DD 354) attacks the Japanese submarine (I 7) 10 miles south of Cape Hita. (I 7) runs aground, becoming irreparably damaged, 12 miles south-southeast of Kiska, Aleutian Islands.

1963  The nuclear-powered submarines USS Tecumseh (SSBN 628), USS Daniel Boone (SSBN 629), USS Flasher (SSN 613), and USS John Calhoun (SSBN 630) are all launched in one day, emphasizing the Navys accelerated nuclear-submarine construction program.

 

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THIS DAY IN WORLDHISTORY

 June 22

1377 Richard II, who is still a child, begins his reign, following the death of his grandfather, Edward III. His coronation takes place July 16.

1558 The French take the French town of Thionville from the English.

1772 Slavery is outlawed in England.

1807 British seamen board the USS Chesapeake, a provocation leading to the War of 1812.

1864 Confederate General A. P. Hill turns back a Federal flanking movement at the Weldon Railroad near Petersburg, Virginia.

1876 General Alfred Terry sends Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer to the Rosebud and Little Bighorn rivers to search for Indian villages.

1910 German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich announces a definitive cure for syphilis.

1911 King George V of England is crowned.

1915 Austro-German forces occupy Lemberg on the Eastern Front as the Russians retreat.

1925 France and Spain agree to join forces against Abd el Krim in Morocco.

1930 A son is born to Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

1933 Adolf Hitler bans political parties in Germany other than the Nazis.

1938 Joe Louis floors Max Schmeling in the first round of the heavyweight bout at Yankee Stadium.

1940 France and Germany sign an armistice at Compiegne, on terms dictated by the Nazis.

1941 Under the code-name Barbarossa, Germany invades the Soviet Union.

1942 A Japanese submarine shells Fort Stevens at the mouth of the Columbia River.

1944 President Franklin Roosevelt signs the "GI Bill of Rights" to provide broad benefits for veterans of the war.

1956 The battle for Algiers begins as three buildings in The Casbah are blown up.

1970 President Richard Nixon signs the 26th amendment, lowering the voting age to 18.

1973 Skylab astronauts splash down safely in the Pacific after a record 28 days in space

1980 The Soviet Union announces a partial withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan.

1981 Mark David Chapman pleads guilty to killing John Lennon.

1995 Nigeria's former military ruler Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo and his chief deputy are charged with conspiracy to overthrow Gen. Sani Abacha's military government.

 

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Rollingthunderremembered.com .

June 22

Thanks to Dan Heller and the Bear

 Links to all content can now be found right on the homepage http://www.rollingthunderremembered.com. If you scroll down from the banner and featured content you will find "Today in Rolling Thunder Remembered History" which highlights events in the Vietnam war that occurred on the date the page is visited. Below that are links to browse or search all content. You may search by keyword(s), date, or date range.

     An item of importance is the recent incorporation of Task Force Omega (TFO) MIA summaries. There is a link on the homepage and you can also visit directly via  https://www.rollingthunderremembered.com/task-force-omega/. There are 60 summaries posted thus far, with about 940 to go (not a typo—TFO has over 1,000 individual case files).

.

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 get what happened each day to the crew of the aircraft. ……Skip

For Sunday June 22

June 23:  https://www.vietnamairlosses.com/loss.php?id=167

 

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Thanks to Mike

This is in response to yesterday's note about the 787 crash

Skip, the item you published today is apparently a fake.  I cannot find any reference from any source of a preliminary accident report.  I did find  post on X that states it is a fake.

The report you posted talks about "torrential rainfall".  I went back and looked at the videos; in the one video showing the take-off from the left of the aircraft, which clearly shows the terrain along the runway, there is no evidence of water, let alone a major rain event.

 

Mike

 

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Thanks to Admiral Cox and NHHC

H-Gram 049: The Naval Battle of Okinawa—Victory

18 June 2020

Contents

Victory at Okinawa -----Finally after 92 days of ferocious and horrible fighting----

Lieutenant Commander George L. Street's Medal of Honor 75th Anniversary of World War II

 

This H-gram covers the Naval Battle of Okinawa from early June 1945, including the last two mass kamikaze attacks, Kikusui No. 9 and 10, through the end of the battle in late June. It also covers the Medal of Honor awards to Lieutenant Richard McCool, skipper of LCS(L)-122, and Lieutenant Commander George Street, skipper of submarine Tirante (SS-420).

 

Victory at Okinawa

 

The protracted and bloody Battle of Okinawa reached its final phase at the end of May 1945, as U.S. Marines captured the strategic point of Shuri Castle. However, the Japanese executed one more unexpected, well-ordered retreat to yet one more prepared line of defense at the southern end of Okinawa. The remainder of Japanese navy personnel on the island (from the naval base at Naha) retreated to the Oroku Peninsula, which the Marines cut off and then assaulted from the sea. U.S. Army units went head-to-head with the Japanese army, which now had no more room to retreat except into the sea. The Japanese navy units put up determined resistance, resulting in over 2,600 Marines dead and wounded, but in the end almost all the Japanese personnel were killed or committed suicide, including Rear Admiral Minoru Ota, commander of the Japanese naval forces on Okinawa. The weather turned foul, turning the battlefield into muck and mire for the last three weeks of some of the most vicious fighting in the entire campaign.

With the passage of Typhoon Viper (see H-gram 048), Japanese kamikaze attacks on U.S. and British naval forces resumed with mass kamikaze attack Kikusui No. 9, consisting of only 50 kamikaze aircraft, as suitable planes and pilots became increasingly hard to come by (although part of this was because the Japanese were husbanding and hiding large numbers of aircraft for the anticipated U.S. invasion of Japan).  Kikusui No. 9 was strung out from 3–7 June 1945 and accomplished relatively little.

 

On 6 June 1945, the destroyer minelayers J. William Ditter (DM-31) and Harry F. Bauer (DM-26) came under concerted kamikaze attack but shot down several kamikazes before J. William Ditter was badly damaged and Harry F. Bauer took a near miss, or so they thought. Harry F. Bauer was one of the lucky ships of the Okinawa campaign, having shot down 13 Japanese aircraft and being hit by a torpedo that didn't explode. As the damage on Harry F. Bauer was subsequently surveyed, it was discovered that she had been steaming for 17 days with an unexploded (but live, "three threads" from detonating) 550-pound bomb in one of her fuel tanks that had been released at the last second by the plane that almost hit her. The bomb was successfully de-armed. Harry F. Bauer was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for her numerous actions during the Okinawa campaign.

The destroyer William D. Porter (DD-579) was not so lucky. She had already acquired notoriety for having accidentally fired a live torpedo at the battleship Iowa (BB-61), aboard which was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, CNO Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, and most of the Joint Chiefs on their way to Allied conferences in Cairo and Tehran in 1943. Fortunately, Iowa had sufficient warning to avoid the torpedo. Subsequently, the story was told that when William D. Porter went into port or met other ships, she would be greeted with the signal "Don't shoot. We're Republicans."  She also became the subject of other stories of dubious veracity. However, on 10 June 1945, she shot down a kamikaze that crashed close aboard. Unfortunately, the plane's bomb detonated directly under the ship, which killed no one but inflicted mortal damage.

 

One of the vessels that assisted the stricken destroyer was LCS(L)-122, which was hit and badly damaged on the following day by a kamikaze. Her skipper, Lieutenant Richard McCool, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in saving his ship and is the namesake for the latest San Antonio–class amphibious transport, dock (LPD-29).

 

Even less lucky than William D. Porter was the destroyer Twiggs (DD-591) on 16 June, hit first by a torpedo and then by the plane that dropped it. Her forward magazine blew first and then her after magazine, and she went down with heavy loss of life (152 crewmen, including the commanding officer, Commander George Philip, who was awarded a posthumous Navy Cross). She was the last destroyer to be sunk before Japanese resistance on Okinawa ended.

 

On 18 June, the commander of U.S. forces ashore on Okinawa, U.S. Army Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, was killed by Japanese artillery—only three days before the end of organized Japanese resistance. Although it was obvious that Okinawa was lost, the Japanese launched one last massed kamikaze attack, Kikusui No. 10, consisting of only 45 kamikaze aircraft, on 21–22 June 1945. These attacks sank LSM-59 and Barry (APD-29), a fast transport previously badly damaged by kamikazes, stripped of anything valuable, decommissioned, and intended for use as a kamikaze decoy. A kamikaze also seriously damaged the Pearl Harbor–veteran seaplane tender Curtiss (AV-4) in the Kerama Retto anchorage. (Of note, famous actor Henry Fonda served aboard Curtiss as a combat intelligence officer, giving up the equivalent of a multimillion-dollar Hollywood income.)

 

On 22 June, LST-534 was hit by a kamikaze while she was beached. Technically, she sank, but she didn't go very far and would be raised, making LSM-59 the last commissioned ship sunk before the end of Japanese resistance on Okinawa.

In the meantime, Japanese frustrations with that country's Kaiten submarines continued in late June. I-36 survived multiple close calls, and a sacrificial launch of two Kaiten-manned suicide torpedoes probably saved her, but she achieved no hits on her mission. I-165 was even less lucky and was sunk with all hands on 27 June 1945 by a U.S. Navy PV-2 Harpoon aircraft.

 

By 22 June 1945, the commander of Japanese forces on Okinawa, Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, had committed suicide, and the enormously costly battle of Okinawa was officially over. Kamikaze attacks went into a lull until late July as both sides prepared for the invasion of Japan.

For more detail on the last three weeks of the Naval Battle of Okinawa, please see attachment H-049-1.

 

Lieutenant Commander George L. Street's Medal of Honor

 

On 14 April 1945, Lieutenant Commander George Street, on the first war patrol of Tirante (and his first war patrol in command of a submarine) boldly took Tirante into a harbor on the Korean Island of Jeju-do for a night surface attack on a small convoy (one transport and three escorts) at anchor. Street achieved surprise and sank the transport Juzan Maru. Illuminated by the explosions and fire of the transport, Tirante was pursued by the three Japanese escorts as she attempted to escape. Tirante then torpedoed and sank the escort ship Nomi, which blew up in a catastrophic explosion with heavy loss of life, and then torpedoed and sank escort ship CD-31. After reaching deep water, Tirante then survived a depth charge attack from the remaining escort. Street was awarded a Medal of Honor, and his Executive Officer, Lieutenant Edward L. "Ned" Beach, received a Navy Cross. Tirante was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation.

 

On 12 June 1945, during Tirante's second war patrol, Lieutenant Commander Street took Tirante into the harbor of Hashima, only seven miles from Nagasaki,  and sank the large merchant ship Hakuju Maru. He was awarded a Navy Cross for this exploit. For more on Lieutenant Commander Street and the Tirante, please see attachment H-049-1.

 

For more on the background for the invasion of Okinawa, please see H-Gram 044 and attachment H-044-1. See also H-grams 045, 046, and 048 for the Naval Battle of Okinawa in March through June 1945.

 

Sources for this H-gram include Naval History and Heritage Command Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS) for U.S. ships and "Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy" (http://combinedfleet.com) for Japanese ships. Additional sources are: History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 14, Victory in the Pacific, by Samuel Eliot Morison (Little, Brown and Co., 1960); Kamikaze: To Die for the Emperor, by Peter C. Smith (Pen and Sword Aviation, 2014); The Twilight Warriors, by Robert Gandt (Broadway Books, 2010); Kamikaze Attacks of World War II: A Complete History of Japanese Suicide Strikes on American Ships by Aircraft and Other Means, by Robin L. Reilly (McFarland & Company, 2010);  Desperate Sunset: Japan's Kamikazes Against Allied Ships, 1944–45, by Mike Yeo (Osprey, 2019); Anti-Suicide Action Summary, August 1945," COMINCH Document P-0011, 31 August 1945; The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific 1944¬–1945, by James D. Hornfisher (Bantam, 2016); Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II, by John Prados (Random House, 1995);  U.S. Navy Codebreakers, Linguists, and Intelligence Officers Against Japan, 1910–1941, by Steve E. Maffeo (Roman and Littlefield, 2016); Information at Sea: Shipboard Command and Control in the U.S. Navy from Mobile Bay to Okinawa, by Timothy S. Wolters (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013); Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945–1947, by D. M. Giangreco (Naval Institute Press, 2009); "Who Sank Destroyer DREXLER?" by Bill Gordon (kamikazeimages.net, May 2006).

 

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From the Archives

Thanks to Tom

Jim Flatley . . the Navy jock who landed a four-engined C-130 Hercules to a full stop on an aircraft carrier deck . .  said :

     "After a dozen Mediterranean deployments on flattops and ' air to air ' exercises with most friendly nations over 30 years I came to respect all of our Allies who flew fighters in their respective TACAIR communities.  I wasn't sure which I thought were the craziest.

 

Probably the Italians.

Then, along come's an F-86 Sabre fighter jock, re-trained in the Hercules

C-130 now inputs ' flesh ' to that conjecture.

    Over the decades, we've learned to squeeze more " crazy " performance of the C-130 Hercules than just barrel rolls .

thanks to the professionals like Phil ' Hands ' Handley who finessed its flight envelope ' hard ' so others who followed would have confidence to do the same.

Here's ' Hands' unusual C-130 story :

 " When in 1959 I graduated from F-86 upgrade training and was unceremoniously assigned to an airbase in France to fly the four-engined C-130A Hercules . .

 

I was ready to cut my heart out.

 

   Years later and far wiser, I realize how misguided my perceptions were at that time. Memories of the C-130 mission, the people, and the aircraft itself are indelibly etched in my mind's eye. It was my distinct privilege and honor to fly this classic bird, which will surely go into the history books as the greatest prop-driven cargo aircraft of all time.

   The following incident is but one example of many that changed my initial imprudent disappointment to a genuine and lasting admiration . . for this truly magnificent airplane.

     As I accumulated time in the Herc, my appreciation for its astonishing performance steadily increased. Not only was it brutally powerful.  But surprisingly maneuverable as well. Although not authorized, rolls in the C-130 were easily performed as long as the nose was well up before beginning the maneuver.

     Part of its mission capability was the "tactical pattern," which replicated the 360-degree overhead pattern flown by fighters. I particularly enjoyed landing out of this pattern and could consistently "roll it onto the numbers" in well under one minute, after the fighter pilot break over the landing runway's touch-down numbers.

 

     Other tactical maneuvers in its arsenal included the "assault takeoff and landing", both designed for operations from short, unprepared fields under combat conditions.

 

When these maneuvers were performed ' by the book ' they were impressive.

But when they were embellished through various techniques and light gross weights, they were outright spectacular. [ As a matter of fact, a certain VERTICAL TAKEOFF FOLLOWED BY A 200 FT. LANDING ROLL I demonstrated at a major air show, was enough to facilitate my immediate return to a fighter squadron. But that's another story.]

    The aircraft's positive G limit was easily sustained in the dense air below about 16,000 feet. And when combined with an incredibly low ' corner velocity ' [ the speed at which the aircraft is capable of making its quickest, tightest turn'] its turn radius was minuscule as compared with that of a much faster, but more heavily wing-loaded fighter.

    I was convinced that were I attacked by an enemy fighter, my best course of action would be to get as low as possible  to deny the attacking fighter the bottom half of vertical maneuvering room.  Then use the Herc's superior turning radius to cause the Sabre to " overshoot" the 4-engine Hercules during the fighter's attacking pursuit curve.

    My chance to test the theory came while cruising with only light cargo down an airway over the Mediterranean Sea, when an Italian F-86 jock apparently decided it would be fun to make mock gun passes on a " sitting duck."

 

    After watching a couple of his " curves of pursuit " from my left cockpit window, I asked and received clearance from Rome Control for a '

block ' of altitude from 15,000 to 22,000 feet.

    As the Italian rolled-in off his gunnery ' perch ' high and above me to the left, I began a left, descending turn toward him at full throttle to gain airspeed for a pull-up.

 

    By the time he reached mid-point down the slide and reversed into his curve of pursuit, I was still well below his altitude… But my nose was now above the horizon… his was still buried… and I was really beginning to " jam " him by an increasing tight left turn.

    In a vain attempt to stay on the inside of my turn, the Italian extended his speed brakes and pulled his power to idle.

Instantly, I pulled hard into him and angled up about 30 degrees.  The fighter pilot badly overshot to vulnerably flush to the outside of our turn.

I rotated the C-130 into a nose high 360 degree roll ' over the top.' Now inside the F-86 Sabre's turn, I pulled a hunter's ' lead '. . and fired the C-130's ' imaginary ' guns into his path.

 

    And for a brief, shining moment, the 4-engine ' Herc ' sat squarely at the F-86's ' Six '. . before he accelerated quickly away.

    As I climbed back up to 22M, the Italian repositioned a mile or so to our left, then slowly slid his Sabre into formation off our left wing.

 

    After removing his oxygen mask, he flashed a big Italian smile, gave us a ' thumbs up ' signal, then quickly rotated into a vertical Split-S . . to zoom down and away."

' Hands' Handley

Source : Adapted from his book : " Nickel On The Grass "

 

www.nickelonthegrass.net

 

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Thanks to Interesting Facts

Michael J. Fox's middle name doesn't start with "J."

Stage names are hardly uncommon in Hollywood, but false initials are rarer — if not unheard of. One exception: Michael J. Fox, whose middle name doesn't start with "J." The Back to the Future star's middle name is actually Andrew, but there was already a Michael A. Fox in the Screen Actors Guild when Fox wanted to join it. So why the "J"? The letter is an homage to Michael J. Pollard, a character actor Fox admires. Pollard had more than 100 acting credits to his name by the time he died in 2019, and received Academy Award, BAFTA, and Golden Globe nominations for his role as gas station attendant-turned-accomplice C.W. Moss in 1967's Bonnie and Clyde.

 

Fox wasn't originally cast in "Back to the Future."

 

John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, Ralph Macchio, and many others all auditioned for the role of Marty McFly, but Eric Stoltz was cast. It wasn't until six weeks into production that director Robert Zemeckis let Stoltz go, feeling he wasn't right for the part, and Fox got the role instead.

Some other stage names are so successful that most people don't realize they're stage names. Sir Elton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, for instance, while Jamie Foxx's real name is Eric Marlon Bishop, and Whoopi Goldberg's is Caryn Elaine Johnson. Fox, for his part, retired from acting in 2020. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1991 and announced his condition in 1998, before founding the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research in 2000. He remains devoted to finding a cure for the disease.

 

Numbers Don't Lie

 

Golden Globes won by Fox (out of 13 nominations)

4

Combined worldwide gross of the "Back to the Future" trilogy

$962 million

Fox's salary for the original "Back to the Future"

$250,000

Episodes of "Spin City" Fox starred in

103

 

 "Back to the Future" was almost named "Spaceman From Pluto."

 

Middle names date back to ancient Rome.

Well, kind of. Many Romans had three names, but their second name wasn't quite a middle name. They had a praenomen (personal name), nomen (family name), and cognomen, which indicated which branch of a family you were from. (For instance, Julius Caesar's full name was actually Gaius Julius Caesar.) There was also a hierarchical element to the Roman naming system, as women generally had only two names and enslaved people often had only one. Middle names as we know them today arose in the Middle Ages, a time when faithful Europeans struggled between giving their children a family name or the name of a saint. Eventually deciding that both would be preferable to one, they began the tradition of a child receiving a given name, baptismal name (saint's name), and surname. That custom eventually reached America along with the people who emigrated there, with secular middle names becoming more common over time

 

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Thanks to History Facts

 

Martin Van Buren was the first President born in the United States.

 

FAMOUS FIGURES

 

None of the United States Presidents in the first 61 years of the nation's existence were actually born in the country they led. The reason for this is simple enough: The first seven U.S. Presidents — George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson — were all born before 1776, and therefore before the United States was an independent nation. The first President who could actually claim to have been born a U.S. citizen was the country's eighth President, Martin Van Buren. Van Buren was born in 1782 in Kinderhook, New York, which also makes him the first native of the Empire State to be elected to the presidency.

 

Before becoming President in 1837, Van Buren served as Vice President under Andrew Jackson (who himself was born in 1767 in a territory disputed between the British colonies of North and South Carolina). Jackson's endorsement helped elevate Van Buren to the nation's highest office. However, his presidency was marked by a severe economic downturn, which sunk his bid for a second term. He was defeated in his campaign for reelection by William Henry Harrison, who was born in Virginia in 1773, making him the last U.S. President to come into the world a subject of the British Empire.

 

By the Numbers

 

U.S. Presidents born in New York

5

U.S. Vice Presidents who went on to become President

15

 

U.S. Presidents not born in the contiguous United States (Barack Obama was born in Hawaii)

1

U.S. Presidents born in Virginia, the most of any state

8

 

DID YOU KNOW?

 

English was Martin Van Buren's second language.

 

Martin Van Buren may have been the first President born in the United States, but his first language wasn't English — it was Dutch. His family's roots in Kinderhook, New York, extended back before the nation's founding, and even before New York was a British colony. Van Buren could trace his heritage to Dutch immigrants who settled in the Kinderhook area in 1631, when New York was known as New Netherland. Even after control of the colony passed from the Dutch to the English, Kinderhook remained an overwhelmingly Dutch community, and the young Van Buren grew up speaking the Dutch language until he learned English in school, and became fluent in his teens.

 

 

 

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 From the archives

5 Inventions That Came Out of the Great Depression

 

The Great Depression began in 1929 and lasted for an entire decade, affecting nearly every aspect of daily life for people all over the world — and hitting the United States especially hard. U.S. unemployment soared to nearly 25%, businesses shuttered, and families lost their life savings. Food became scarce in many communities, especially as a severe drought hit the Great Plains, leading to the agricultural disaster known as the Dust Bowl.

 

This difficult era also impacted innovation. Independent inventors found themselves with less funding, and many businesses shied away from risky initiatives, but big inventions also helped keep companies and innovators afloat during the hard times. Some inventions were successful specifically because of the economic downturn, such as the groundbreaking new adhesive that could repair just about anything. For others, success came in spite of the crisis. Here are five inventions that came out of the Great Depression that are still shaping our lives today.

 

Sliced Bread

A century ago, people had to bust out a bread knife whenever they wanted a sandwich or slice of toast. That changed in 1928, when a bread slicing and wrapping machine invented by Otto Rohwedder made its debut at a bakery in Chillicothe, Missouri. The machine proved to be so popular that Rohwedder had trouble keeping up with demand from other bakeries. After the Depression hit, economic realities forced him to sell his patent to a larger manufacturing company — but the story has a happy ending. The owners hired the inventor as the vice president and sales manager of a new division formed just for his machines. In 1930, Wonder Bread started advertising its own sliced bread, and, although Wonder Bread used its own machines, Rohwedder's bread-slicer sales exploded as the trend grew. By 1933, sliced bread accounted for 80% of all bread sales. The invention was so influential, it led to the phrase still used to praise new wonders today: "The best thing since sliced bread."

 

Nylon Stockings and Toothbrushes

Before the Depression, the DuPont chemical company had a "fundamental research" program — a team of scientists tasked with increasing scientific knowledge rather than developing specific projects. But with the economic downturn, the division became more focused. It was already working on synthetic textiles and had invented neoprene, although the material wasn't particularly useful at the time. They'd also worked with rayon, which didn't make a great substitute for silk, and was only partially manmade. Nylon was the first entirely synthetic fiber developed by DuPont that was actually useful — and its invention in 1937 was a very bright prospect after the agricultural woes of the era.Nylon started appearing in toothbrushes in 1938, and DuPont showed off its new fabric to the world as hosiery at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The first day nylon stockings became available to the public, around 800,000 pairs flew off the shelves. DuPont's Depression-era investment in fiber technology paid off; by 1937, 40% percent of its sales came from products that didn't exist before 1929, including freon, neoprene, and lucite.

 

Scotch Tape

Richard Drew, the inventor of Scotch tape, cut his teeth as an inventor by creating masking tape in his spare time. In his first job as a lab tech at 3M (known then as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing), he delivered sandpaper samples to auto manufacturers, and after hearing many an auto painter curse over their DIY masking solutions, he decided to design the perfect tape. He worked on it at 3M at first, but after he was scolded and told to get back to work, he continued the project at home. Drew eventually made his masking tape from crepe paper, cabinetmaker's glue, and glycerin in 1925, and got a big promotion.Another industrial problem came to his attention soon after: Bakeries had started using newly invented cellophane for packaging, but had nothing attractive to seal it with. So Drew started experimenting with a clear tape. The adhesives he used on the masking tape looked brown, so he had to invent a new type of adhesive to make sure the tape stayed clear. The result was a cellophane tape with adhesive made from oil, resins, and rubber. As the story goes, the name "Scotch tape" was inspired by an early version of Drew's masking tape, which had adhesive only on the edges, causing one auto painter to ask why Drew was so "Scotch" — a slang term for "cheap" at the expense of Scottish people. Scotch tape debuted in 1930, right at the start of the Great Depression, and as more and more households had to be thrifty and resourceful to survive, the product came along right in the nick of time. People used Scotch tape for everything from mending clothing to capping milk bottles — and even repairing cracked eggs.

 

Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies

In August 1930, amid the early days of the Great Depression, a Massachusetts chef named Ruth Wakefield took a major risk: She decided to chase her dream of opening an inn and restaurant. It was touch and go at first: In the Toll House Inn's first month, the money on hand dwindled to just $10, a little more than $180 today. But by the end of the year, the business had grown so popular it needed 12 employees to keep up with demand. By the end of the Depression, against all odds, Wakefield had to expand the inn to serve around 1,000 diners per day. Comfort food with complimentary second helpings along a busy road for auto travelers turned out to be a winning strategy.Wakefield is widely credited with inventing the chocolate chip cookie, after stumbling on a recipe that proved to be a hit with diners at the Toll House Inn. Originally served not as a stand-alone dish but as an accompaniment to ice cream, the cookie became the restaurant's most enduring creation, and Wakefield appeared in newspapers and radio shows to talk about the trendy treat. In its early days it was called the "Toll House cookie" or "chocolate crunch cookie"; the "chocolate chip cookie" name came around 1939 because the recipe called for literally chipping the chocolate off the bar.Speaking of chocolate chipping: After Nestle got Wakefield's permission to use the recipe, the cookie started appearing in ads, and it was so popular that it started influencing product development. Early on, Nestle released a semisweet chocolate bar scored into 160 pieces, and in 1940, the company debuted its "morsel" chips — the chocolate chips we know today.

 

Car Radios

In 1928, Paul Galvin co-founded a radio parts manufacturing company along with his brother, Joseph. When the Depression hit, households stopped buying noncritical items such as radios, so Galvin had to think fast to save his business. He noticed that car sales hadn't dipped — people had come to rely on their vehicles — and he figured that inventing a car radio could be a good bet. (Car radios had been attempted before by other companies, but were too cumbersome and expensive to be viable products.) After landing on a solid design at a price that would actually sell, Galvin and his team mounted the new radio on his car and drove all the way from Chicago to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to attend the 1930 Radio Manufacturers Association Convention. They didn't even get a booth; they just parked the car and cranked up the radio. It may seem counterintuitive that a luxury add-on would thrive during a time of extreme economic hardship, but the car radio took off. The team called their radio the Motorola, and their company eventually took the same name.

 

 

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This Day in U S Military History…….June 22

1940 – Port Security responsibilities are undertaken again for the first time since World War I when President Franklin Roosevelt invoked the Espionage Act of 1917. The Coast Guard was to govern anchorage and movement of all vessels in U.S. waters and to protect vessels, harbors, and inland or coastal waterways of the U.S. The Dangerous Cargo Act gave the Coast Guard jurisdiction over ships with high explosives and dangerous cargoes.

1941 – Operation Barbarossa, the German attack on the Soviet Union, begins. Despite the massive preparations spread over many months and the numerous indications Stalin receives from many sources, the Soviet forces are taken almost completely by surprise and lose very heavily in the first encounters. The Germans have assembled almost 140 of their own divisions, including 17 Panzer and 13 motorized divisions. These forces are organized in three army groups: Army Group North (Field Marshal Leeb), Army Group Center (Field Marshal Bock) and Army Group South (Field Marshal Rundstedt). Altogether, the Germans deploy over 3,000,000 men, 7100 guns, 3300 tanks, 625,000 horses and 2770 aircraft. The Red Army has 230 divisions (170 of which are in the west, 134 facing the Germans). The Soviet forces are organized into Northwest Front (Kuznetsov), West Front (Pavlov), Southwest Front (Kirpono) and South Front (Tyulenev). They include 24,000 tanks and 8000 aircraft. On the first day of the attack almost everything goes the German way. The attack begins at 0300 hours with advances on the ground and simultaneous air strikes. The Luftwaffe begins its operations very early in order to be over the Soviet bases exactly at zero hour. By noon the Soviet Air Force has lost around 1200 planes. The land battle is equally successful. The panzer spearhead Army Group North advances 40 miles during the day and Army Group Center captures most of the Bug River bridges intact. Army Group South forces based in Hungary and Romania do not attack during the day.

1942 – The first delivery of V-Mail was in 1942.

1942 – A Japanese submarine shelled Fort Stevens, Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia River.

1943 – Federal troops put down race-related rioting in Detroit that claimed more than 30 lives.

1944 – President Roosevelt signed the GI Bill of Rights, authorizing a broad package of benefits for World War II veterans.

1944 – After a preparatory air raid on Cherbourg, in which over 1000 tons of bombs are dropped, the divisions of the US 7th Corps (part of US 1st Army) begin assaulting the city of Cherbourg. There is heavy German resistance.

1944 – On Biak, American forces conduct a series of attacks which are believed to clear Japanese resistance in the west but experience renewed Japanese activity during the night. On the mainland, fighting continues near Aitape and Sarmi.

1944 – On Saipan, forces of the US 5th Amphibious Corps advance. The US 2nd Marine Division captures Mount Tipo Pole and fight for Mount Tapotchau. The US 4th Marine Division progresses east on the Kagman Peninsula.

1945 – On Okinawa, the battle ends. American forces have lost 12,500 dead and 35,500 wounded. The US navy has had 36 ships sunk and 368 damaged. In the air, the American forces have lost 763 planes. The Japanese losses include 120,000 military and 42,000 civilian dead. For the first time in the war, there are a relatively large number of Japanese prisoners: 10,755. American reports claim the Japanese have lost 7,830 planes.

1945 – American B-29 Superfortress bombers drop about 3000 tons of bombs on Japanese munitions plants in Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya and Okayama.

1953 – U.S. Air Force Colonel Robert P. Baldwin, commander of the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Group, became the 35th ace of the Korean War.

 

Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

 

None this Date.

 

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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for June 22

FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR June 22 THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY

1909: Wykoff, Church, and Partridge, a New York automobile sales concern, established America's airplane sales agency. (24)

1915: FIRST AERIAL FOREST PATROL. Jack Vilas flew Wisconsin State Forester E. M. Griffith over a forest fire. (24)

1924: At Anacostia, Lts F.W. Wead and J.D. Price flew a Curtiss CS-2 with a Wright T-3 Tornado engine to five world seaplane records: distance, 963 miles; duration, 13 hours 23 minutes 15 seconds; and speed, 73.41 MPH for 500 kilometers, 74.27 MPH for 1,000, and 74.17 MPH for 1,500 kilometers.

1943: Eighth Air Force bombed Germany's Ruhr industrial area for the first time, hitting the chemical works and synthetic rubber at Huls so severely that it could not resume full production for six months. (21)

1944: The 318 FG, Seventh Air Force, pioneered the use of napalm fire bombs during the 22-29 June fight for Saipan. (17) Operation FRANTIC. After the second FRANTIC raid, the Luftwaffe attacked the B-17s at Poltava, destroying 47 and damaging 19 more. (21)

1946: Two US AAF P-80s left Schenectady, N.Y., for Washington DC and Chicago to make the first airmail deliveries by jet. (24)

1951: The Martin P5M Marlin Flying Boat first flew.

1954: Company pilot Robert Rahn flew the Douglas A4D (A-4) Skyhawk for the first time at Edwards AFB. (20) 1956: Operation SIXTEEN TON. Through 15 September, the AFRES demonstrated its ability to carry out sustained operations for the first time. During the mission, Reserve aircrews flew 164 sorties to airlift 856,715 pounds of cargo to support long-range navigation stations for aircraft and vessels in the Caribbean. The mission fell under the operational control of Reserve airlift units from the CONAC's First, Tenth and Fourteenth Air Forces. Ultimately, 12 of the 13 Reserve C-46 and C-119 airlift wings participated. Daily, one to four aircraft left New York NAS for Miami IAP, Fla., where the 2585th Air Reserve Flying Center operated the traffic control center. From Miami, the planes either went to San Juan, Puerto Rico, or San Salvador Air Force Base, Bahamas. (AFRES News Service, 22 Jun 96)

1959: First operational Thor unit transferred to the 77 RAF SMS. (6)

1960: The Navy Research Laboratory launched the Transit II-A navigational satellite on a Thor-Able-Star with a GREB (Galactic Radiation and Beta) "piggyback" satellite. This was the first twin satellite launch. (24) A Thor missile completed its first confidence firing at Vandenberg AFB. (6)

1965: The initial F-X briefing called for a small, low cost, high performance aircraft capable of visual air-to-ground and air-to-air missions with an initial operating capability in the early 1970s. (30)

1967: The last naval transport squadron mission under the operational control of MAC took place. The mission marked the end of 19 years participation in the MATS and MAC by the Navy.

1980: Through 8 July, after a Vietnamese incursion into Thailand, the U. S. accelerated a shipment of military items to Thailand. MAC C-141s flew six short-notice missions from several US locations to deliver 127.8 tons of weapons and munitions to Bangkok. (18)

1982: After passing its Operational Readiness Inspection, the 50 TFW's 313 TFS became the first F-16 operationally ready squadron in USAFE. (4) The first KC-135R (number 61-0293) reengined with CFM-56 engines rolled out of the Boeing plant in Wichita, Kans. (1)

1983: The Air Force extended the B-1B test program to include ALCM carriage capability testing. (3)

1990: Northrop unveiled its twin-tail, twin-engined YF-23 Advanced Tactical Fighter in ceremonies at the Advanced Tactical Fighter Combined Test Force Facility at Edwards AFB. (20)

1994: Through 30 June, AMC dispatched 2 C-5s and 2 C-141s to move 50 armored vehicles from Rhein-Main AB to Entebbe Airport in Kampala, Uganda, for UN forces deploying to Rwanda. Another 3 C-141s airlifted a Tanker Airlift Control Element, equipment, and cargo for the operation. (16) (18)

1995: Air Force and Navy officials announced the purchase of a new aircraft trainer, the Beech Mk II, for the Joint Aircraft Training System (JPATS). Each service planned to procure 300 aircraft. The Air Force planned to use the new aircraft to replace its aging T-37s. (16)

2002. A 116 BW aircrew, Georgia ANG, flew the wing's last scheduled B-1 training flight. On 1 October

2002, the unit became the 116 ACW to fly E-8C Joint STARS (Surveillance Target Attack Radar System) missions. (32)

 

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