On This Day in History

1955: The first Boeing B-52B Stratofortress, the first operational version of the B-52, (serial number 52-8711) enters operational service with SAC at Castle AFB and the 93rd Bomb Wing.

  1994: A 60th Airlift Wing C-5 from Travis AFB flies a 34-ton Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine to Chernobyl, Ukraine. There medical specialists use the machine to treat victims of the 1986 nuclear reactor

1996: Terrorists bomb Khobar Towers near King Abdul-Aziz AB, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Air Force personnel and injuring 300 others. It is the worst terrorist attack against American military personnel since the 1983 bombing of

  1996: Exercise MARCOT ’96. SECAF Sheila E. Widnall flies on one of three B-52s from the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot AFB. Widnall and her crew take off from Andrews AFB on an eight-hour

1944: MEDAL OF HONOR. 2Lt David R. Kingsley, 97th Bombardment Group, Fifteenth Air Force, receives a Medal of Honor for putting his own parachute on his wounded tail-gunner (whose chute had been damaged). Kingsley thereby

  1982: The first KC-135R (number 61-0293) re-engined with CFM-56 engines rolls out of the Boeing plant in Wichita.

1998: The C-32, military version of the Boeing 757-200 extended range aircraft, is selected along with the C-37A to replace the aging fleet of C-137 aircraft. By using commercial, off-the-shelf acquisition practices, a new record

1965: The 1st Air Commando Squadron, 34th Tactical Group, Bien Hoa AB receives the Presidential Unit Citation. This is the first USAF unit so honored since the Korean War.

1993: At Minot AFB, Lt Col Patricia Fornes becomes the 740th Missile Squadron commander. She is the first woman to command a combat missile unit. Her father, Lt Col Glenn L. Fornes, also commanded the

  1936: Seversky Aircraft Company receives a contract to build P-35s for the Army. It was the Army’s first single-seat fighter with a closed cockpit and retractable landing gear.