July 15, 1973
1973: LAST SEA COMBAT MISSION/VIETNAM SUMMARY. All US bombing in Cambodia ends after eight years of conventional operations. An A-7D from the 354th TFW flies the last combat mission. Altogether, USAF flies in the war […]
July 14, 1943
1943: Comiso Airfield is the first airfield recaptured in Sicily, by LT Gen Omar Bradley’s II Corps. Afterwards a German JU-88 lands amid US flak shots. The pilot climbs out, shakes his fist at the
July 13, 1921
1921: Brig Gen William “Billy” Mitchell’s Martin MB-2 and Handley Page bombers test the sinking of several ships off the Virginia Capes. The tests study the use of bombs on ships to suggest how ship
July 12, 1957
1957: USAF cancels the Navaho program. The Navaho provided technologies for other missiles: the Atlas and Thor used a modified Navaho booster, and the Hound Dog, Polaris, and Minuteman missiles used its inertial guidance system.
July 8, 1944
1944: Lt Col Clifford Heflin flies his C-47 on the first landing mission into France to rescue airmen who had parachuted behind enemy lines.
Jul 7, 1942
1942: Flying a Lockheed A-29 Hudson, Lt Harry J. Kane and crew of the 396th BMS attack and sink a German submarine (U-701) off Cherry Point NC to make the first sure “kill”
July 6, 1989
1989: President George H. W. Bush presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, to Gen James H. Doolittle (retired) at the White House. Doolittle is the only person to have received
July 5, 1944
1944: Harry Crosby, company pilot, flies the Northrop MX-324, the first US rocket-powered aircraft, for the first time at Harper Dry Lake, CA.
July 2, 1943
1943: Lt Charles Hall, 99th Fighter Squadron, becomes the first US African-American pilot to shoot down an Axis plane, a German Focke-Wulf 190 over Sicily.
July 1, 1941
1941: The Air Corps Ferrying Command (ACFC) sends its first air transport flights from Bolling Field to Scotland via Montreal and Newfoundland. Using modified B-24 Liberator bombers with seats in the bomb bay, the “Arnold