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
25 APRIL 1914 1ST OPERATIONAL SORTIE Though the Navy and Marine Corps had been experimenting with the new-fangled flying machines of the early 20th century, their operational role was still being defined. Aerial reconnaissance seemed a logical task, as such technology Read More
15 FEBRUARY 1918 ENS ALBERT STURTEVANT In the early months of 1917 the United States was still officially neutral in the three-year-old World War that gripped most of Europe. But attacks by German U-boats on American merchant ships were continuing. All Read More
23-27 JANUARY 1929 FLEET PROBLEM IX Between the World Wars, US military planners began to imagine the Pacific as a direction from which a future enemy might emerge. They listed Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Alaska, and the Panama Canal as potential Read More
100th ANNIVERSARY 5 NOVEMBER 1923 AIRPLANE ON A SUBMARINE Several 20th century navies experimented with the deployment of aircraft from a submarine, but the Japanese are perhaps the best remembered. They successfully operated combat aircraft from their I-class submarines–famously launching Read More
100th ANNIVERSARY 10 OCTOBER 1923 USS SHENANDOAH COMMISSIONING The need to see beyond the horizon prompted militarists of the American Civil War to experiment with manned observation balloons. From these humble beginnings military lighter-than-air (LTA) technology approached its zenith in Read More
2 SEPTEMBER 1944 PILOT DOWN! By September of 1944 the Allied advance across the Pacific reached the Bonin Islands, an 1800-mile-long chain that includes Iwo Jima. At 0715 this morning, a squadron of Grumman TBF Avengers took off from USS SAN Read More
18 JUNE 1942 LTJG RALPH RICH With Hitler’s 1 September 1939 invasion of Poland, the citizenry of the United States remained divided over whether or not we should become involved. However, enlistments in our military went up as men prepared Read More