Today in US military history: Comdr Roberts sails flying boat to Hawaii, & the first battle of WWII

1925: As Cmdr. John Rodgers attempts a long-distance flight from California to Hawaii, his PN-9 flying boat runs out of fuel several hundred miles short of the goal. Rogers' four-man crew turns the airplane into a sailboat, and despite not having any food and very limited water, sails the remaining 450 miles to the island of Kauai. Although the plane did not reach its intended target, Rogers' flight still sets a record for flying a seaplane 1,992 miles non-stop.

1939: Three waves of Luftwaffe Ju 87 B "Stuka" dive bombers cross Germany's border with Poland at 4:40 a.m., destroying most of the defenseless town of Wieluń. The sneak attack is the first combat action of Germany's invasion, which was preceded by a series of false flag operations intended to bolster support for a military campaign against its neighbor - launching what will become the deadliest conflict in human history.

That same day, Gen. Omar Bradley, Gen. John J. Pershing's aide-de-camp during World War I, is promoted to Chief of Staff. Marshall will oversee the greatest military buildup in American military history, labelled by Winston Churchill as the "organizer of victory."

1942: 357 men and five officers of the 6th Naval Construction Battalion arrives in Guadalcanal, the first combat deployment of the legendary "Seabees."

1974: A SR-71 "Blackbird" flown by Air Force Maj. James V. Sullivan streaks from New York to London in 1 hour and 55 minutes, setting a record that still stands today. Despite having to slow down to take on fuel from a specially modified KC-135 tanker, the reconnaissance plane still averages a blistering Mach 2.27.

It's incredible that Roberts and his crew were able to Macguyver their plane into a functioning "sailboat" and were able to make it to their destination without food or much water. Equally hard to fathom why McMaster, who commanded the 2005 Battle of Tal Afar, is still working for the Trump administration when he seems to have made it his mission to oppose everything the president campaigned on.

How could they not mention the Battle of Westerplatte on the same day? It was the first battle in the Invasion of Poland and marked the start of the Second World War in Europe. Beginning on September 1, 1939, German naval forces and soldiers and Danzig police assaulted the Polish Military Transit Depot (Wojskowa Składnica Tranzytowa, or WST) on the peninsula of Westerplatte, in the harbour of the Free City of Danzig. The Poles held out for seven days in the face of a heavy attack that included dive bomber attacks. The defense of Westerplatte served as an inspiration for the Polish Army and people in the face of successful German advances elsewhere, and today is still regarded as a symbol of resistance to the invasion.

POF Fact: My grandparents and great grandparents lived in the Langfuhr district only 3 miles from Westerplatte (now Wrzeszcz in Gdansk, Poland).

There's a monument in Westerplatte to the heroic Poles who fought the (real) Nazis there.

The Poles have not become stupid enough to try to tear down their monuments and statues. Maybe it's time to move back to the ancestral homeland. ;>)

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