The FReeper Foxhole Reviews the Centennial of Flight 1903-2003 - December 19th, 2003

USAF ^ | various

[snippy_about_it]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.


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A Century of Military Aviation


“Nothing is impossible”



by Major Ruth Larson
U.S. Air Force Public Affairs

General Henry “Hap” Arnold, one of the giants of military aviation, received his flight training from the Wright brothers themselves and earned the 29th pilot’s license ever issued. Looking back, Arnold reflected, “More than anyone I have ever known … the Wright brothers gave a sense that nothing is impossible.”



“Nothing is impossible.” Those three words exemplify the history of military aviation. In the century since Kitty Hawk, military aviation has been the crucible for ingenuity and innovation. The quest to own the sky has forged an array of technological advances that have transformed the aviation community.



The airplane itself revolutionized the way wars were fought. For centuries, wars involved bloody battles of attrition, fought between massed ground forces. But Kitty Hawk forever changed modern warfare. With the advent of aircraft, military strategists suddenly saw the possibility of flying over the heads of those ground forces, bypassing their destructive power and selectively striking vital enemy targets. Aircraft allowed aerial forces to strike directly at the heart of a state’s power, destroying its industrial centers and its leaders’ ability to control their forces.

Aerial combat also forced the development of new weapons and tactics, designed to take advantage of the airplane’s unique military potential. Fortunately, at every step of the way, there were bold visionaries in uniform, willing to risk their lives in pursuit of “pushing the envelope” -- flying higher, farther, faster. Their individual achievements are etched on the pages of aviation history.

The early years

Early military aviation was a primitive affair. When Lt. Benjamin Foulois was selected to fly Army Aircraft No. 1 in December 1909, Army officials sent him to Texas with the instruction, “Take plenty of parts and teach yourself to fly.” Incredibly, he gained his basic flight skills in a series of letters with the Wright brothers – flying by correspondence course! He then tried his hand at flying the Army’s Wright A flyer. Foulois succeeded in making his first takeoff, solo flight, landing and crash, all in a single day. As the first military aviator, he went on to fly the first aerial reconnaissance flight, along the Rio Grande. He also was the first to fly an aircraft in combat, assisting General Pershing’s pursuit of the outlaw Pancho Villa in Mexico in August 1916.

When Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold began his flying career, pilots transmitted their reports of artillery targets by dropping a weighted card from the plane to artillery units waiting below – an awkward proposition at best. Arnold became the first to use radio transmissions to relay his observations back to ground units, vastly improving aerial communications. Later, he wrote a prophetic article in an infantry journal, outlining his vision for using aircraft for reconnaissance, aerial combat and supply transport. He was destined to help make that vision a reality in the Second World War.

World War I

World War I introduced a new breed of heroes to the world. These “knights of the air” wore leather jackets and silk scarves, and adopted a cocky, devil-may-care attitude that belied the dangers they faced in the air. It was aviation’s first true baptism of fire.


Knights of the Air

Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, a former racecar driver, was the undisputed king of aerial “dogfights” with enemy aircraft. The Army aviator became America’s “Ace of Aces,” downing a record 26 enemy planes. He also had a bird’s-eye view of the war’s dramatic end in November 1918. Rickenbacker, flying over the trenches as the Armistice was announced, saw troops on both sides of “No Man’s Land” tossing helmets in the air, throwing down their weapons and congratulating their former enemies pouring from opposing trenches.


Eddie Rickenbacker

Between the wars

The decades between the two world wars brought a series of aviation milestones, as flyers used wartime experiences to press for faster, more agile and more rugged aircraft. The era also gave rise some of the most influential military aviators ever to climb into a cockpit.

Jimmy Doolittle, who retired from the Air Force in 1959 as a three-star general, compiled an impressive list of aviation firsts early in his career. In 1922, for example, Doolittle was the first to cross the continental United States in a single day, flying 2,100 miles in just over 21 hours. In 1927, he was the first to perform an “outside loop,” a maneuver previously considered impossible.


Jimmy Doolittle

But Doolittle’s achievements also encompassed the scientific arena. In 1924, he was one of the first to earn a doctorate in aeronautics from M.I.T. He designed a device that showed pilots their plane’s orientation with respect to the horizon. He went on to pioneer the ability to fly “blind” – using instruments to indicate the plane’s altitude and orientation to the horizon. In 1929, Doolittle became the first aviator to take off, fly a fixed course, and land a plane using instruments alone. (For safety, another flyer went along on the flight.) His achievements have since helped generations of pilots fly in fog and the dark of night.

The first solo blind flight was made by Army Air Corps pilot Lt. Albert F. Hegenberger at Wright Field in May 1932. Hegenberger also pioneered techniques for flying the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. In 1927, Hegenberger and a colleague used dead reckoning and celestial navigation to make the first flight from California to Hawaii, in a Fokker TriMotor dubbed “Bird of Paradise.” A 1919 graduate of M.I.T with a degree in aeronautical engineering, Hegenberger developed a fully automatic instrument landing system. This system would eventually become standard equipment in both military and civilian aircraft and airports.


Lt. Albert F. Hegenberger

As the Navy’s chief test pilot, Alford J. Williams conceived and perfected the technique of vertical dive-bombing. In the years before World War II, Williams gave thousands of demonstrations of precision flying and the dive-bombing technique. These techniques were widely used by Navy and Marine pilots during World War II.


Alford J. Williams


Navy Rear Adm. Richard E. Byrd made a name for himself in the annals of polar exploration by apparently becoming the first to fly over both the North Pole (1926) and the South Pole (1929). However, even Byrd’s own pilot, Floyd Bennett, admitted that they had been well short of the North Pole when they turned back. Nevertheless, Byrd’s efforts paved the way for modern exploration of the poles and charting of trans-arctic air passenger routes.


Rear Adm. Byrd

World War II: Airpower goes global

America’s entry into the Second World War in December 1941 brought airpower to the forefront of military operations. Never before had aircraft been used in such numbers to unleash such powerful weapons.

Air operations were directed by many of the early aviation pioneers, now in charge of Allied air forces in Europe and the Pacific. Foremost among these was Gen. “Hap” Arnold. As chief of the Army Air Force in World War II, Arnold commanded a vast aerial armada. He organized and directed a series of strategic bombing offensives that destroyed the German and Japanese industrial base.

Likewise, Jimmy Doolittle had set dozens aviation records before the war, but his exploits in World War II were the stuff of legend. In April 1942, while the nation was still reeling from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Doolittle led a flight of 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers. Launched from the deck of the aircraft carrier Hornet, the Doolittle raiders bombed Tokyo and several other targets, the first U.S. counterattacks on the Japanese homeland. While the attacks may have had limited military value, they were unquestionably valuable in boosting American morale at a critical time in the war. Doolittle earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for the raid.


Billy Mitchell and B-25

The war also introduced a whole new cast of heroes, such as Charles “Chuck” Yeager. With his distinctive West Virginian drawl, Yeager came to epitomize “the right stuff,” the cool, steady nerve of the test pilot. As a member of the Army Air Force, Yeager flew 64 combat missions in World War II, shooting down a total of 13 planes, including a German jet. Incredibly, five of those kills came in a single day.

The ranks of aviation’s elite were not exclusively male, however. Ann Baumgartner Carl and Jean Hixon were two of the first “WASPs” – Women Airforce Service Pilots. They served as flight instructors, towed targets for gunnery practice, ferried aircraft both here and overseas. In the process, they flew most of the fighters and bombers in the U.S. inventory. Later, at Ohio’s Wright Field, Carl became America’s first female test pilot, flying America’s newest aircraft. She went on to become the first woman to fly the Bell YP-59A “Airacomet,” America’s first jet fighter in October 1944.



Shooting Stars: The Jet Age

Aviation rocketed forward – both literally and figuratively – with the advent of jet-powered aircraft. The revolutionary propulsion system set the stage for even more spectacular achievements.

Col. Laurence Craigie became the first military jet pilot almost by chance. After observing test flights of the Bell XP-59A at California’s Muroc Army Air Field (later Edwards Air Force Base), Craigie was surprised to be offered a chance to fly the jet. With Craigie’s 20-minute flight on October 2, 1942, the U.S. military entered the jet age.


Col. Laurence Craigie

Three years later, on October 12, 1945, Craigie stood on the flight line of Wright Field with his friend, Orville Wright. Just 42 years after he had coaxed a flimsy, fabric-covered craft into the skies over Kitty Hawk, Wright saw his first jet, a Lockheed YP-80 “Shooting Star,” roaring overhead. It was a dramatic illustration of just how far aviation had come in four tumultuous decades.

Back at Edwards AFB, another aviation milestone was at hand, and Capt. Chuck Yeager was about to join the ranks of aviation legends. After 64 combat missions in Europe, Yeager had become an Air Force test pilot. One of his first assignments was to test the Bell X-1, a rocket-shaped jet dropped from a B-29 bomber. Many pilots had tried unsuccessfully to cross the so-called “sound barrier,” an invisible wall of compressed air molecules. Breaching the barrier was widely believed to be impossible; aircraft had been so severely buffeted that several pilots had perished in the attempt. Yeager would be flying at the very threshold of the unknown that day.


Yeager in the Bell X=1

On October 14, 1947, Yeager proved that, with sufficient engine power, it was indeed possible to break through the sound barrier and survive. He reached Mach 1.06, or more than 760 miles per hour, as he streaked over the Mojave Desert. That night, Yeager wrote in his diary, “I was almost disappointed that nothing happened.” But in fact, the world of aviation had kicked into afterburner. Five years later, Yeager set a new air speed record of 1,650 miles per hour, or more than twice the speed of sound.

Yet not all military aviation pioneers operated in the skies. Dr. John Paul Stapp, for instance, pioneered the effects on the human body of aviation’s increasing speeds using a rocket-powered sled, of all things. As an Air Force researcher, Dr. Stapp became the “fastest man on earth” in December 1954 when the sled rocketed him to 632 miles per hour in just five seconds. He then decelerated to a stop in just 1.4 seconds, simulating a supersonic ejection from an aircraft. The resulting 40 Gs were the equivalent of hitting a brick wall at 60 miles per hour. In nearly two decades of research, Dr. Stapp designed improved safety harnesses and pioneered crash survival techniques that saved the lives of countless aviators forced to “punch out” at high speeds.



The Race for Space

In the late 1950s, aviation’s final frontier beckoned, and the race to space was on. The sky, it seemed, was no longer the limit to man’s dreams.

The physical, mental and technological demands of space flight called for a special breed of pioneers. A new term entered the American vocabulary –- astronaut. The first astronauts were drawn from the ranks of military test pilots, who had already proven their ability to keep their cool in high-pressure situations.

Chuck Yeager, who pioneered supersonic flight, also played a pivotal role in training the early astronaut corps. After commanding Air Force units in Europe and Korea, Yeager returned to Edwards to head the Air Force’s Aerospace Research Pilots School, where he supervised development of the space simulator and other technologies that would help launch the age of space exploration. Ultimately, nearly half the astronauts in the Gemini, Mercury and Apollo programs were graduates of Yeager’s school.

In 1962, Air Force Maj. Robert M. White became one of a handful of so-called “winged astronauts” who reached space in something other than a conventional spacecraft. White earned his astronaut wings by piloting his North American X-15 to the edge of space, nearly 60 miles above the earth’s surface. The experimental, high-altitude craft was a joint project of the Air Force, Navy and NASA. In November 1961, White had become the first man to fly a winged craft at six times the speed of sound.

But the moment that truly captured the world’s attention came in July 1969. Two American astronauts realized one of man’s oldest dreams – voyaging to another world. Neil Armstrong, commander of the lunar module, Eagle, was a Navy flyer who had flown 78 combat missions in Korea from the aircraft carrier Essex. Later, Armstrong became an experienced civilian test pilot, and was widely considered the best “stick” in the astronaut corps. Armstrong, while quietly confident of his flying abilities, had agonized over what to say on such a historic occasion. Late on the night of July 20, Armstrong stepped onto the powdery surface of the moon’s Sea of Tranquility and radioed back to earth, “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Next out the hatch was Col. Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, who described what he saw as the “magnificent desolation” of the lunar landscape. Aldrin was an Air Force fighter pilot and test pilot. He had followed in the footsteps of his father, an aviation pioneer who studied with rocket developer Robert Goddard. “Buzz” Aldrin had earned a doctorate in astronautics from M.I.T. in the early 1960s. His doctoral research in orbital mechanics had focused on manned space rendezvous and docking techniques, many of which were critical in subsequent NASA space missions.

Far above Tranquility Base, Lt. Col. Michael Collins orbited in the command module Columbia. Collins, an Air Force fighter pilot and test pilot, had been the 17th American in space, flying aboard the Gemini 10 mission that tested the rendezvous and docking techniques that would be essential to a successful lunar mission. Ironically, Collins was one of the few humans who did not hear Armstrong’s famous remark as he set foot on the moon, since he was out of radio contact at the time.


Armstrong, Collins, Aldrin

The trio of astronauts, safely reunited aboard Columbia, returned safely to earth eight days after they’d rocketed into space. Their journey of nearly 1 million miles had truly proven that nothing is impossible, and that man’s destiny is limited only by his imagination.

From Kitty Hawk to Tranquility Base and beyond

More than 30 years have passed since Apollo 11’s momentous mission. Scores of astronauts have continued the pioneering tradition, rocketing into space aboard America’s space shuttle fleet. They have launched the Hubble telescope, enabling astronomers to peer into the furthest reaches of the universe and capture stunning images of distant galaxies. Astronauts also have begun building the International Space Station, one of the largest construction projects in history.

From Kitty Hawk to Tranquility Base and beyond, America’s military has played a pivotal role in advancing aviation. In this century of flight, “born of dreams, inspired by freedom,” we celebrate the Wright Brothers’ legacy of ingenuity and innovation. America’s men and women in uniform have inherited that legacy, pioneering cutting-edge technology in the quest to own the sky.

While we celebrate historical achievements, we also continue to “push the envelope,” soaring ever higher and faster. Imagine what today’s entrepreneurs and inventors might achieve in the century ahead! Perhaps hypersonic flight – more than Mach 5 – will become routine. Perhaps new propulsion technologies will enable manned flights to even more distant worlds. The dream of flight is an enduring one. The quest to conquer new frontiers is not merely our legacy – it is our future. After all, generations of aviators have shown us that nothing is impossible.

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FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links

[Darksheare]

Yeah.
*Chuckle*
You should see what some of the 'flight is faked' delusional types do when aircraft are pointed out in the skies.
*chuckle*

[Professional Engineer]

But the moment that truly captured the world’s attention came in July 1969. Two American astronauts realized one of man’s oldest dreams – voyaging to another world. Late on the night of July 20, Armstrong stepped onto the powdery surface of the moon’s Sea of Tranquility and radioed back to earth, “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”

These are the kind of Heroes kid need.

Here I am, in 1970, looking at an Apollo 11 Moon rock.

[SAMWolf]

Good Morning Snippy.

Excellent thread today. I love the slogan they used for the Centennial of Flight:

"Born of Dreams - Inspired by Freedom"

Only a free people could have gone as far as fast as we didi in developing flight.

[Samwise]

Unfortunately, I didn't pay too much attention to Dad's stories when I was a kid. If he ever described any details, I don't remember them. When I showed him a special plane I had found, he said he remembered it. I really thought it was the one. I wanted to solve the puzzle for him. It matched his stories: Ladd Field, Russians, secrets, everyone talking about it. But Dad's plane was a bomber with secret cargo and it was the only one he was ever given "shoot to kill" orders for. Another freeper tried to help find the plane before Dad died, but Dad was starting to get sick and I couldn't pry any details out of him.

But the plane I did find is pretty interesting. Someone may want to read about it.

http://www.akpub.com/akttt/oneof.html

By the way, as you foxholers jog my memories of Dad's stories, I am going to record them so the Hobbit lass will have them. :^)

[SAMWolf]

“We learned to improvise and make due with what we had,” Faber said.

I think this line sums up the entire history of the military, thank God for the unit scroungers.

[SAMWolf]

Morning E.G.C. Looks like another clear day here today.

[SAMWolf]

Good Morning Mayor.

[SAMWolf]

My guess was that it may have been a relatively intact Japanese Zero.

The significance of the recovery and flight testing this famous World War II fighter, is best expressed by General Masatake Okumiya (Japanese Air Sea Defense Forces), in his book ZERO: "The acquisition of that ZERO (was) no less serious than the Japanese defeat at the Battle of Midway"

"Beating the Best"
© 1999, by A. P. Glesner

A fine gray mist painted the side of the canopy, indicating trouble long before the gauges. The pilot descended through perpetual overcast and considered his options. A chain of rugged, volcanic islands stretched out ahead, and below lay the Bering Sea, always frigid, even in June. To the north, though, a treeless mass of land looked promising. He banked right, mentally calculated bearing and range, and leveled off into the wind, on a course for the flat, seemingly barren island. To a man who regularly landed on the deck of a rolling aircraft carrier, the make-shift airfield looked almost inviting. Certain that the touchdown would be as routine as an emergency landing could be, he began to lower his wheels.

Flight Petty Officer Tadayoshi Koga's skill as a pilot was only surpassed by his hatred for those against whom he flew--a hatred for Americans so intense that even his shipmates considered him a fanatic. His aircraft was one his enemies justifiably feared: the Mitsubishi Zeke, Type 96 carrier based fighter--the infamous Zero! Rightly considered the finest fighting plane in the world, the practically invincible Zero ruled the skies over Asia and the Pacific, outranging, outclimbing, outmaneuvering, and outrunning everything the Allieds threw against it. For months the all-conquering fighter had secured an unbroken string of conquests for the Emperor.

Victory was in the air again, on 3 June 1942, as Koga and his fellow pilots pulverized Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Not simply content with his mission, to provide air-cover for his bombers, Koga returned to the harbor again and again, braving anti-aircraft fire, swooping low over the docks, strafing the hated Americans. His ammunition expended, Koga flew off in triumph, climbed over the flanking mountains and rolled off toward Cape Cheerful. He had not yet noticed the single fifty caliber bullet hole in his engine cowling.

The sortie at Dutch Harbor, along with the Japanese invasion of Attu, made a seemingly auspicious beginning for a week that ended in disaster, with four Imperial carriers on the ocean floor, near Midway. Koga's triumph would also end in disaster, with another significant loss for the Emperor.

Perhaps he realized his error, seconds before touchdown. The island was not barren. It was Alaskan tundra, covered with lush, spongy vegetation that would have likely safely cushioned a gear-up landing. Instead the gear snagged in the muskeg, causing the aircraft to ground-loop. It was a fatal mistake. Koga, his neck broken, died instantly.

The squadron fight leader, Lieutenant Michio Kobayashi, winged low over the wreckage and radioed his carrier: The island appeared uninhabited, he reported, Koga was likely dead, his aircraft was probably destroyed, and if not, it appeared buried too deeply in the tundra to facilitate recovery. On the chance that Koga had survived, a submarine was despatched to the scene, but was unable to locate the downed pilot or his plane. In the meantime, however, a U.S. reconnaissance plane had spotted the wreck.

U.S. forces had recovered Zero fighters before, but always too damaged to provide any useful data. Now, when the first search party reached Koga's Zero and reported it almost unscathed, aeronautical engineers flocked to the scene. There they found the plane upside-down in the muskeg, with only minor damage to its landing gear and propeller. The bullet that had passed through the fuselage had merely nicked an fuel line. Further investigation showed their prize to be the newest and fastest version of the Zero. The first on the scene had already removed Koga and unceremoniously buried him nearby.

In the days that followed, they laboriously hauled salvage equipment over the tundra, eased the Zero out of the bog, painstakingly disassembled it, and then ferried it by barge to Dutch Harbor. From there it went to Naval Air Station San Diego, were engineers carefully reassembled it.

Almost at once it began to reveal its secrets: it was under-armored, under-armed, and unusually light. Dynamometer tests that showed that the airplane achieved its high performance with an engine that produced less than 1000 horsepower, also surprised the engineers. In essence, it appeared as if the plane could be knocked down with a feather. By itself, this meant little, for American fliers rarely brought the agile fighter into their cross-hairs.

But once back in the air, the Zero began to show other weaknesses. Exhaustive flight tests indicated a flaw in the aileron design that caused it to respond sluggishly in dives and at speeds below 300 mph. Its performance at altitude was also limited: although it had a service ceiling of 30,000 feet, a poorly designed propeller hub caused its performance to fall off sharply above 20,000 feet. The word, quickly passed to the fleet, echoed the age-old military maxim: take the high ground. Force the Zeros to bring the fight to you, American fliers were told, force them to sacrifice altitude for speed. Capitalize on their weaknesses.

Comparisons with the flight performance of existing American planes showed areas in which U.S. fighters excelled. Aviation technicians then developed ways to make the most of these advantages. For example, the P-38 possessed high-speed at altitude, an excellent rate of climb, and superior performance and speed in a dive. In this case P-38, pilots learned to dive from high altitude, slash through Zero formations with their heavy machine guns and cannons blazing, and then zoom upwards in a climb no Zero could match.

And the best was still to come. Grumman designers, who had observed the flight tests with great interest, now returned to the factory and began modifying the design of their latest aircraft, with a specific purpose of producing a fighter that could out-fly the Zero. They reduce the thickness of the fuselage and the weight of the aircraft, while retaining high structural strength, armor plating, and self-sealing fuel tanks. They equipped it with a Pratt & Whitney, 2000 horsepower, "Double Wasp" radial engine, and armed it with guns nearly twice the caliber of those mounted on Zeros. With the result, the Grumman F6F Hellcat, the Navy at last had a fighter that could outclimb, outdive, outgun, and outmaneuver the Zero in close-in combat. A year after Koga crash-landed the tables had clearly turned. America ruled Pacific skies now streaked with the trails of flaming Zeros.

Even then, Koga's Zero continued to benefit the U.S. war effort. Painted with U.S. Navy markings, it flew from city to city, aiding the war bond drive.

Commander Masatake Okumiya, Japanese air staff officer during the Aleutian campaign, later wrote of the episode: "I did not realize at the time how far-reaching an effect this seemingly trivial incident of losing to the enemy a single intact Zero could have. The unnoticed capture of the airplane . . . did much to hasten our final defeat. Although it lacked the drama of open combat," he added, "it was no less serious than the debacle of Midway."

After the war Japanese officials returned to the Aleutians, intent upon bringing Koga's remains back to his homeland. The tundra had erased all traces of the grave, however. The pilot who so hated Americans, who unwittingly aided their victory, lies buried yet in American soil.

Koga's Zero met its end in February of 1945, when a taxiing Curtis Hellcat overran it and chopped it to pieces. Only rarely since then has the magnificent, once invincible Zero graced the skies. Today there are only sixteen complete and assembled Zeros, and of these only two are flyable: one is owned by Planes of Fame in Chino, California, the other by the Confederate Air Force of Midland, Texas.


Seems like your dad may have been a part of a significant event.

[SAMWolf]

Tahnks for the link Samwise

[SAMWolf]

Morning Darksheare.

I told Snippy the other day that the reason the Wright Brothers plane worked and the replica didin't was becasue the Wright Brothers didin't have to deal with OSHA, unions, Government regulations, the EPA, FAA, NASA, NPS, permits and all the other "rules"

[SAMWolf]

Morning SCDogPapa.

[Valin]

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on December 19:
1036 Su Tung-p'o China, poet/essayist/painter/calligrapher
1683 Philip V, Versailles France, King of Spain (1700-24, 24-46)
1790 Sir William Parry England, Arctic explorer
1814 Edwin M[cMasters] Stanton, Ohio, US Secretary of War (1861-65)
1817 James Jay Archer Brigadier-General (Confederate Army) died in 1864
1819 James Clifford Veatch Brevet Major General (Union volunteers), died in 1895
1849 Henry Clay Frick, Penn, built world's largest coke & steel operation
1868 Novelist Eleanor Porter ("Pollyanna")
1888 Fritz Reiner, Budapest Hungary, US conductor (Chicago Symphony Orch)
1894 Ford Frick (baseball: Commissioner of Baseball)
1902 Sir Ralph Richardson (Actor)
1906 H Allen Smith, Ill, humorist/author (Low Man on Totem Pole)
1906 Leonid I Brezhnev, Ukraine, 1st Secretary of USSR (1964-82)
1910 French dramatist Jean Genet, criminal/novelist/dramatist)
1915 Edith Piaf, [E Giovanna Gassion], Paris, chanteuse
1920 David Susskind (TV producer)
1925 'Little' Jimmy Dickens (Country Music Hall of Famer)
1926 Jeanne Kirkpatrick US ambassador to UN
1934 Al Kaline (baseball: Detroit Tigers)
1935 Tony Taylor (baseball: Philadelphia Phillies)
1939 Cicely Tyson (actress)
1940 Phil Ochs (folk singer, songwriter)
1944 Alvin Lee (musician: group: Ten Years After)
1944 Richard Leakey, anthropologist
1944 Tim Reid (actor)
1946 Robert Urich (actor)
1946 Stan Smith (tennis: Men's Singles Wimbledon Champion [1972] and Amateur U.S. Open Champion [1969])
1949 Claudia Kolb (U.S. Olympic Gold swimmer)
1966 Alberto "La Bomba" Tomba, Italian skier (Olympic-gold-1988, 92)

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Deaths which occurred on December 19:
0401 Anastasius I Bishop of Rome (399-401), dies
1370 Urban V [Guillaume de Grimoard] 1st Avignon Pope (1362-70), dies
1915 Alvis Alzheimer, German neurologist (Alzheimer Disease), dies at 51
1953 Robert A Millikan, US physicist (Nobel 1923), dies at 85
1959 Walter Williams, claimed to be last survivor of Civil War, dies at 117
1968 Norman Thomas, founder (ACLU)/Socialist Party (1926-55), dies at 84
1996 Actor Marcello Mastroianni died in Paris at age 72.
1997 Masaru Ibuka, co-founder (Sony Corp), dies at 89
1998 Mel Fisher underwater film maker, dies from bladder cancer at 76
2000 Jazz bassist Milt Hinton at age 90;
2000 Gospel singer Roebuck "Pops" Staples at age 85;
2000 Former New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay at age 79;

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Reported: MISSING in ACTION
1968 PAYNE NORMAN---CLEVELAND OH.
1971 FORAME PETER C.---MC LEAN VA.
1971 JOHNSON KENNETH R.---MINNEAPOLIS MN.
[03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE IN 98
1971 POYNOR DANIEL R.---ENID OK.
[REMAINS IDENTIFIED 06/27/95]
1971 SKILES THOMAS W.---BUFFALO WY.
1971 THOMAS LEO T. JR.---GEORGETOWN KY.
[REMAINS IDENTIFIED 06/27/95]
1971 VAUGHAN SAMUEL R.---ST. GEORGE SC.
[03/28/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 ALEXANDER FERNANDO---DALLAS TX.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 BARROWS HENRY C.---WESTFIELD NJ.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 BROWN CHARLES A. JR.---BOSTON MA.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE IN 1998]
1972 COOPER RICHARD W. JR.---SALISBURY MD.
1972 POOLE CHARLIE S.---GIBSLAND LA.
1972 WILSON HAL K.---HAMBURG NY.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

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On this day...
0401 St Anastasius I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1055 Seldjuken under Toghril Beg occupy Baghdad
1154 King Henry II of England crowned
1551 Dutch west coast hit by hurricane
1562 Battle at Dreux: Anne de Montmorency & huguenots under Condé captured
1686 Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years (as per Defoe)
1688 King James II's wife & son flee to France
1732 Benjamin Franklin (under the name Richard Saunders) begins publication of "Poor Richard's Almanack"
1776 Thomas Paine published his 1st "American Crisis" essay, in which he wrote, "These are the times that try men's souls"
1777 Washington settles his troops at Valley Forge PA for the winter
1783 English government of Pitt Jr forms
1788 Chinese troops occupy capital Thang Long Vietnam
1795 1st state appropriation of money for road building, Kentucky
1823 Georgia passes 1st US state birth registration law
1828 South Carolina declares the right of states to nullify federal laws
1842 US recognizes independence of Hawaii
1843 Charles Dickens publishes "A Christmas Carol" in England
1854 Allen Wilson of Connecticut patents sewing machine to sew curving seams
1861 Battle of Black Water
1862 Skirmish at Jackson/Salem Church TN (80 casualties)
1871 Albert L Jones (New York NY), patents corrugated paper
1884 Italy recognizes King Leopold II's Congo Free State
1887 Jake Kilrain & Jem Smith fight 106 round bare knuckle draw
1888 Stanley's expedition reaches Fort Bodo, East-Africa
1889 Bishop Museum founded in Hawaii
1890 Start of Sherlock Holmes "The Adventure of The Beryl Coronet" (BG)
1891 1st Negro Catholic priest ordained in US, Charles Uncles, Baltimore
1891 Canadian Rugby Union forms
1903 Williamsburg suspension bridge opens between Brooklyn & Manhattan
1904 The Dawson City (Yukon) hockey team begins 9 day walk to get a boat to Seattle to catch a train to Ottawa to play in the Stanley Cup on January 13 1905
1907 239 workers die in a coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek PA
1910 1st city ordinance requiring white & black residential areas (Baltimore)
1910 Rayon 1st commercially produced, Marcus Hook PA
1913 Jack Johnson fights Jim Johnson to a draw in 10 for hw boxing title
1916 Suriname Bauxite Company forms in Paramaribo
1917 1st NHL game played on artificial ice (Toronto)
1917 Québec Bulldogs play their 1st professional hockey game
1918 Robert Ripley began his "Believe It or Not" column (New York Globe)
1919 American Meteorological Society found
1920 1st US indoor curling rink opens (Brookline MA)
1922 Mrs Theres Vaughn, 24, confessed in court to being married 62 times
1932 British Broadcasting Corp begins transmitting overseas
1933 Electric Home & Farm Authority Inc, authorized
1934 Japan agress to fleet treaty of 1922 & 1930
1939 Russian air & ground attack against Finnish positions near Summa
1941 Hitler takes complete command of German Army
1941 US Office of Censorship created to control info pertaining to WWII
1943 Military coup in Bolivia
1945 Austrian Republic re-establishes
1946 War breaks out in Indochina as Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi
1948 8th largest snowfall in NYC history (15.3")
1948 Cleveland Browns beats Buffalo Bills 49-7 in AAFC championship game
1948 Philadelphia Eagles shutout Chicago Cardinals 7-0 in NFL championship game
1948 2nd political action of Java/Sumatra
1949 Luxury passenger ship Aquitania demolished in Garelock Scotland
1949 WJW TV channel 8 in Cleveland OH (CBS) begins broadcasting
1950 General Eisenhower named NATO commander
1950 Tibet's Dalai Lama flees Chinese invasion
1951 Nazi General Christiansen leaves Netherlands
1953 KFYR TV channel 5 in Bismarck ND (NBC/ABC) begins broadcasting
1955 Carl Perkins records "Blue Suede Shoes"
1957 "The Music Man", starring Robert Preston, opens at Majestic Theater NYC for 1375 performances
1958 1st radio broadcast from space (recorded Christmas message by President Eisenhower: "To all mankind, America's wish for Peace on Earth & Good Will to Men Everywhere")
1959 1st Liberty Bowl game-Penn State beats Alabama 7-0
1960 Fire aboard USS Constellation, under construction in Brooklyn (50 die)
1960 Mercury-Redstone 1A reaches 210 km in test flight
1961 British government begins decimal coin system
1961 Indonesian President Sukarno proclaims general mobilization
1962 Nyasaland secedes from Rhodesia & Nyasaland
1962 Transit 5A1, 1st operational navigational satellite, launched
1963 Zanzibar becomes independent from UK
1965 French President De Gaulle re-elected (Mitterrand gets 45%)
1971 NASA launches Intelsat 4 F-3 for COMSAT Corp
1971 "Inner City" opens at Barrymore Theater NYC for 97 performances
1971 CBS airs "Homecoming - A Christmas Story" (introducing the Waltons)
1971 Stanley Kubrick's X-rated "A Clockwork Orange" premieres
1972 Apollo 17 (last of Apollo Moon landing series) returns to Earth
1973 Grenada adopts constitution
1974 Dave Kryskow scores Washington Capitals 1st NHL shorthanded goal
1974 Nelson A Rockefeller sworn-in as the 41st Vice-President
1974 "The Man With the Golden Gun" premieres in US
1975 John Paul Stevens becomes a Supreme Court Justice
1975 Ron Wood joined the Rolling Stones
1976 Piper Cherokee crashes into Baltimore Memorial Stadium upper stands, 10 minutes after Colts lose 40-14 to Steelers; No one seriously hurt
1976 President Brezhnev receives his 5th Lenin order
1978 France performs nuclear test
1978 Indira Gandhi ambushed in India
1980 Anguilla becomes a British dependency separate from St Kitts
1980 Iran requests $24 billion in US guarantees to free hostages
1984 Scotty Bowman becomes NHL's all time winningest coach
1984 China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China
1984 China People's Republic Premier Zhao Ziyang & Margaret Thatcher sign Hong Kong Treaty
1984 Wayne Gretzky, 23, is 18th & youngest NHL-er to score 1,000 points
1986 USSR frees dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile
1987 Gari Kasparov becomes world chess champion
1988 NASA unveils plans for lunar colony & manned missions to Mars
1988 Oklahoma's College football team gets 3 year probation
1988 Unexploded WWII bomb found in Frankfurt, Germany-5,000 evacuated
1989 American Airlines purchases Eastern Airline's Latin American route
1989 Larry Bird (Celtics) begins NBA free throw streak of 71 games
1991 Boris Yeltsin takes control of Kremlin
1991 New York Yankee pitcher Steve Howe arrested for cocaine possession
1995 Queen Elizabeth askes Prince Charles & Diana to divorce
1998 - House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston, R-La, announced he would not be a candidate and would be leaving Congress. Two days earlier, Livingston admitted he'd had extra-marital affairs "on occasion."

1998 President Clinton became only the second U.S. president to be impeached when the House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment, charging him with perjury and obstruction of justice. The allegations stemmed from the actions he took to conceal his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. (he was later acquitted by the Senate).

2000 President-elect Bush met with President Clinton in Washington.
2000 The U.N. Security Council voted to impose broad sanctions on Afghanistan's Taliban rulers unless they closed "terrorist" training camps and surrender U.S. embassy bombing suspect Osama bin Laden.

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Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Hawaii : Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop's Birthday
World : Underdog Day (Friday)
US : Underdog Day. People in the 2nd position: eg. Ed McMahon, Robin, Tonto, etc
US : Can't Get Up Day
National Indigestion Season-Jewish Book Month

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Religious Observances
Orthodox : Feast of St Nicholas the Wonderworker

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Religious History
1808 Birth of Horatius Bonar, Scottish clergyman and poet. He authored several missionary biographies and penned over 600 hymns, including "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say."
1855 Birth of William Henry Draper, Anglican clergyman and hymnwriter. His words to "All Creatures of Our God and King" are an English translation of a Latin text believed to have been penned by St. Francis of Assisi.
1860 Birth of Frank E. Graeff, American Methodist clergyman. Well_known for his interest in children's ministry and for his storytelling abilities, Graeff also authored over 200 hymns, including "Does Jesus Care?"
1944 Birth of Andrew Robert Culverwell, American sacred music songwriter. This contemporary music artist has written such popular Christian songs as "Born Again" and "Come On, Ring Those Bells."
1965 American missionary and apologist Francis Schaeffer wrote in a letter: 'God has given us rules not because He is arbitrary, but because the rules...are fixed in His own character... Thus, when we sin we break the law of God...in the direction of destroying what we really are.'

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

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Thought for the day :
"The reluctance to put away childish things may be a requirement of genius."

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Question of the day...
Whatever happened to preparations A through G?

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Murphys Law of the day...(Love Laws)
Money can't buy love, but it sure gets you a great bargaining position.

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Astonishing Fact #591...
The world population of chickens is about equal to the number of people.

[SAMWolf]

Hi Feather

[SAMWolf]

some confuse our moon trip to Mars.

Only ignorant congresswomen who get elected because of their "diversity"

[snippy_about_it]

...thank God for the unit scroungers.

Amen! Good scrounging is a valuable talent!

[Soaring Feather]

ooooooooooo another winner!!
Thanks so much Sam! My collection is growing feather by feather.

[SAMWolf]

Morning CholeraJoe.

Snippy really did a good summary of military flight and the Alaska story was a real bonus.

[snippy_about_it]

Only ignorant congresswomen who get elected because of their "diversity"

LOL. I knew you'd catch that!

[SAMWolf]

Morning Gator Navy.

Now that we solved the "SG radar at Savo" mystery, what do you think about my "Samwise's dad and Koga's Zero" theory?

[snippy_about_it]

It certainly must have been an amazing time, the birth of flight. I can just imagine the conversations when the first flights for "ordinary" people arrived. Who'd be crazy enough to take the chance? LOL.