Posted on 07/20/2017 5:43:05 AM PDT by fugazi
1944: As Adolf Hitler meets with officials at his "Wolf's Lair" headquarters in East Prussia, a suitcase bomb planted by Col. Claus von Stauffenberg detonates, killing three German officers and wounding the Führer. Stauffenberg and several fellow "Operation Valkyrie" conspirators are shot by firing squad within 24 hours, and the Gestapo will arrest and execute several thousand Germans (some having no connection to the plot whatsoever) in coming months.
In the Marianas Islands, Naval Underwater Demolition Teams (the predecessor to today's SEAL Teams) destroy obstacles on the beaches of Guam as aircraft and warships bombard enemy positions in preparation of the invasion.
1945: As the Manhattan Project scientists put the finishing touches on the atomic bomb, Army Air Force B-29 "Superfortress" crews begin flying multiple small-scale bombing raids against Japan, so the defenders would become accustomed to the sight of individual bombers.
1960: The ballistic missile submarine USS George Washington (SSBN-598) conducts the first submerged launch of a Polaris missile. The missile hits the target over 1,000 miles away. The nuclear-tipped Polaris is capable of accurately delivering three 200 kiloton warheads 2,500 nautical miles downrange.
1969: Apollo 11 Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong – a U.S. Naval aviator who flew multiple combat missions over Korea, and was once shot down – takes "one small step," becoming the first human in history to walk on the surface of the moon.
Armstrong, who serves as Apollo 11 mission commander, is
(Excerpt) Read more at victoryinstitute.net ...
We’ve walked the deck of the Mighty Missouri, parked at Pearl.
I’d like to see the Iowa now that a proper place has been found.
July 22, 1940 - Bantam submits its bid to the US Government complete with blue prints, and a legend was born. The completed hand built prototype was driven from Butler, PA to Maryland for testing on September 21.
The Jeep was built in five days? I had to look it up myself, but it’s true. I’ll have to start buying whatever coffee Probst was drinking.
Interesting tidbit, and one that I did not realize until recently, Neil Armstrong was a civilian when he joined the space program. Such a humble man. Sort of the anti-John Glenn.
Two years to the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 and where are we now? We started but now we are f**ted as our Astronauts pay for taxi rides to the ISS at the Russian’s convenience. This is more like a failed policy than a confident ‘go for launch’! Our BEST choices are the private efforts of Musk, Allen and Bezos BUT NASA has become far too PC where human space flight is concerned.
It is very instructive how effective the social justice warriors (aka civil rights leaders) were in decrying money spent in space versus in the ghettos! By Apollo 14, there were significant demonstration events at the launches. Now, in today’s US Budgets, we see the dollars versus pennies showing the victors of that battle.
What is left an unknowable is how the diminished perception of a capable America (USofA) in the brave new frontier of space has equally diminished that perception both internationally and domestically on all fronts. The ability to use an EBT Card at the local grocer hardly compares with planning and accomplishing a Moon Landing!
Another trivia point is that the US military took delivery of the first production Jeeps on November 30, 1941, one week and a day prior to the Pearl Harbor attack.
Even though the “Jeep” was designed by Bantam, they only manufactured about 4 thousand of the vehicles. Willys Overland and Ford Motor company produced hundreds of thousands of them. Bantam did produce the T-3 trailer for Jeeps.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.