This Day in Air and Space History

1944:    Operation MARKET GARDEN. 1,546 allied planes and 478 gliders carry 35,000 troops for an airborne assault between Eindhoven and Arnhem in Holland to secure the Rhine. MARKET GARDEN was the basis for the movie

  2005:    Travis AFB places the restored C-141A Starlifter (tail number 63-8088), nicknamed the Golden Bear, on permanent static display. It was the USAF’s first operational C-141A, the first to carry wounded troops from Vietnam

1943:    The 52nd Troop Carrier Wing uses 80+ troop transports to drop 1,200 paratroopers on Italy’s Salerno Beach, with no losses of planes or men.  The drop takes place within Allied lines and helps stem

1918:    Thru 15 Sep Colonel William “Billy” Mitchell leads 1,481 planes in the St. Mihiel offensive, the greatest air battle of World War I.  

    2001: President George W. Bush initiates a war on terrorism and homeland-defense efforts with combat air patrols within the US under operations NOBLE EAGLE and ENDURING FREEDOM.    

  1942:    The Secretary of War forms the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, under the leadership of Nancy Harkness Love. In October, female pilots begin ferrying aircraft from production sites to airfields in the US.

  1972:    To become the USAF’s Vietnam War leading ace, Capt Charles B. DeBellevue, flying as a weapon systems officer in a 555 TFS F-4, shoots down his fifth and sixth enemy plane. He became

  942:    The VIII Bomber Command loses its first aircraft in combat when two B-17s fail to return from a strike on the Avions Potez aircraft plant at Meaulte, France.

1923:    Army bombing tests off Cape Hatteras, NC sink the condemned naval vessels USS New Jersey and USS Virginia, proving the vulnerability of Naval vessels to aerial attack.

  1922:    Lt James H. Doolittle completes the 1st transcontinental flight in one day in a rebuilt DH-4B with Liberty 400 HP engines, 2,163 miles in 21 hours, 20 minutes. He makes one refueling stop