On This Day in History

  1945: On the Japanese-held island of Corregidor in Manila Bay, C-47s drop 2,065 paratroopers to support an American amphibious landing aimed at capturing the harbor of Manila.

1944: Twelfth Air Force sends 254 B-17 and B-25 bombers to attack and destroy the Abbey of Monte Cassino, Italy. The US Fifth Army took the ruins on 18 May, allowing the US Fifth and

1989:  In its first launch, the McDonnell-Douglas Delta II space booster lifts the first operational NAVSTAR Block II GPS satellite into orbit.

  1977: Jimmy Carter becomes the first President to fly in the E-4A National Emergency Airborne Command Post in a flight from Andrews AFB, MD to Robins AFB, GA.

1952: KOREAN WAR/MEDAL OF HONOR. While leading a flight of 3 F-86s, Maj George A. Davis, Jr., engages 12 enemy MiG-15s, shooting down two. He is shot down and killed by a Mig-15. For engaging

1945: The Yalta Conference between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin ends.

      1918: The Army changes its aircraft insignia from the white star to concentric circles of red and blue around white.  

1944: By February 1944, the “Luftwaffe Stomp” had become a popular combat maneuver for US fighter pilots to evade the enemy. It involves stalling the aircraft and turning it at the same time to come

  1943: Col Philip Cochran leads five P-51s on the first air commando attack on Japanese forces in the Chinese-Burma-India theater.

  1962: FIRST USAF LOSS IN VIETNAM/Operation RANCH HAND. The first USAF aircraft loss in South Vietnam occurs when a C-123 crashes while spraying defoliant on a Viet Cong ambush site. The crew of three