27 OCTOBER 1948 THE BERLIN AIRLIFT After the surrender of the Axis, the major Allied powers occupied Germany’s territory under a divided arrangement. Then shortly, France, England, the US, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg began working to rebuild the tattered German Read More
9 SEPTEMBER 1965 STOCKDALE SHOOT-DOWN The cockpit clock in his A-4 Skyhawk read 1210 as he pushed over toward a line of railroad cars at 400 knots. Bad weather over Vinh, North Vietnam, had forced a diversion to this familiar secondary Read More
3 JULY 1951 KOELSCH AND NEAL John K. Koelsch was English, born in London and educated at the Choate School. In 1940 he joined the Royal Air Force and fought in the Blitz. He came to the United States in 1942 Read More
12 MAY 1944 ADVENTURES OF A NAVY BLIMP The years between the World Wars saw the development of lighter-than-air zeppelins and blimps, initially useful in the civilian common carrier industry by virtue of their sustained cruising capabilities. These same cruising and Read More
3-4 APRIL 1933 ADMIRAL MOFFETT AND AKRON RADM William A. Moffett was one of our most energetic and determined Naval aviators, whose particular interest was the rigid-framed lighter-than-air (LTA) ship. Moffett faced an uphill battle however, as zeppelins were widely thought Read More
27 JANUARY-3 FEBRUARY 1943 DAISY CHAIN RESCUE In 1941, months before Pearl Harbor, American freighters crossing the North Atlantic were being torpedoed by German U-boats as Hitler tried to starve England into submission. By May, President Franklin Roosevelt declared an “Unlimited Read More
6 JULY 1960 PROJECT VIGILANT On 16 May 1960, in response to the Soviet shoot-down of Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 spyplane, Premier Nikita Khrushchev pounded his shoe on a United Nations lectern vowing, “We will bury you!” The USSR was now Read More
21 JUNE-21 JULY 1921 BILLY MITCHELL’S COUP As an early advocate of air power, one of Army Air Service BGEN William “Billy” Mitchell’s loud proclamations was the invincibility of his aircraft over any Navy ship. His assertion was one of several Read More
4 JUNE 1942 THE SACRIFICE OF VT-8 Torpedo Squadron 8 (VT-8) from HORNET (CV-8) flew an early version of the TBD Devastator. A three-seater, behind the pilot a navigator/radioman sat ahead of a rear-most gunner operating the only defensive weapon, a Read More