Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, March 21, 1946. The Strategic and Tactical Air Commands created.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, March 21, 1946. The Strategic and Tacti...: The Strategic Air Command and the Tactical Air Command were created. Shoulder patch of the United States Army Air Forces Strategic Air Comma...

Thursday, March 21, 1946. The Strategic and Tactical Air Commands created.

The Strategic Air Command and the Tactical Air Command were created.

Shoulder patch of the United States Army Air Forces Strategic Air Command.

SAC therefore predates the Air Force as an independent branch of the military.

And so does TAC, which has been inactive since 1992, when it was merged into SAC.

I've been meaning to do a post on reorganization of the U.S. military, which the illegal war on Venezuela and King Donny's War shows to be a desperate need, but I haven't gotten around to it..

Last edition:

Wednesday, March 20, 1946. Tule Lake closes but its residents struggles continue.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, 1960, 1960s, Aircraft, Disaster, Ethnicities, Internment of Japanese, law, Racism, U.S. Air Force

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, March 20, 1946. Crashes.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, March 20, 1946. Tule Lake closes but i...: The final adjudication of the cases of Japanese internees who had renounced their citizenship during World War Two concluded, resulting in t...

Wednesday, March 20, 1946. Tule Lake closes but its residents struggles continue.

The final adjudication of the cases of Japanese internees who had renounced their citizenship during World War Two concluded, resulting in the closure of Tule Lake War Relocation Center.  The litigation reversed their loss of citizenship, but the Justice Department would reverse that.  It would take until the 1960s for their citizenship to be restored.

Almost all of those who had renounced their citizenship had recanted, and for that matter not all of the renunciations were genuine.

There were two air disasters in the news:

26 DIE IN C-47 CRASH; AB-29 FALLS WITH 7; Army Plane Explodes in Sierras, Lost 'Superfort' Is Found South of San Francisco

Last edition:

Saturday, March 16, 1946. Route 66. George Mikan turns pro.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, 1940s, 1946, 1960s, 1970s, basketball, Cartoons, Highways, J.R. Williams, Music, Personalities, Post War United States (and Canada), Swing Music, television, Transportation

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, January 31, 1946. United Flight 14 crashed into Elk Mountain.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, January 31, 1946. United Flight 14 cras...: United Airlines Flight 14, flying from Boise to Denver, crashed into Elk Mountain, Wyoming, killing all 21 persons on board. The plane is ap...

Thursday, January 31, 1946. United Flight 14 crashed into Elk Mountain.

United Airlines Flight 14, flying from Boise to Denver, crashed into Elk Mountain, Wyoming, killing all 21 persons on board.

The plane is apparently the last one to have crashed into Elk Mountain, and was also apparently the fifth to do so.

The distant Elk Mountain from Shirley Basin.

Last edition:

Tuesday, January 22, 1946. Central Intelligence Group formed.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, 1947, actors and actresses, Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Group, Iran, Kurds, Office of Strategic Services, Post War United States (and Canada), USSR, Women

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, January 6, 1926. Deutsche Luft Hansa

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, January 6, 1926. Deutsche Luft Hansa: Deutsche Luft Hansa (DLH), the predecessor of Lufthansa, was formed. It ceased operations in April, 1945, but it's personnel later refor...

Wednesday, January 6, 1926. Deutsche Luft Hansa

Deutsche Luft Hansa (DLH), the predecessor of Lufthansa, was formed.

It ceased operations in April, 1945, but it's personnel later reformed the company as Lufthansa in 1955.

Last edition:

Sunday, January 3, 1926.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Cartoons, Ethel Hays

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, December 5, 1945. Flight 19.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, December 5, 1945. Flight 19.: 

Wednesday, December 5, 1945. Flight 19.

The legendary aviation mystery of Flight 19 occurred when five Grumman TBFs disappeared in a training flight between Florida and Bermuda, together with a PBM Mariner that was sent to look for the missing aircraft.

The PBM is believed to have exploded.

No doubt because none of the aircraft have ever been found, the mystery remains an enduring and popular one, and it is part of the Bermuda Triangle set of myths.

The French government nationalized five banks.

Last edition:

Monday, December 3, 1945. A Walk In The Sun.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, 1945 at the movies, Advertising, Aircraft, Arab League, British League of Nations Mandates, Israel, Movies, Palestine, Retail, Royal Navy, World War Two

Missing Wyoming WWII Vet’s B-17 Bomber Discovered In New Guinea Jungle

 

Missing Wyoming WWII Vet’s B-17 Bomber Discovered In New Guinea Jungle

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, August 5, 1945. Enola Gay and Necessary Evil

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, August 5, 1945. Enola Gay and Necessary E...: 

Sunday, August 5, 1945. Enola Gay and Necessary Evil.

The 20th Air Force dropped 720,000 leaflets over twelve Japanese cities.  Conventional bombing raids continued.

Gen. LeMay officially confirmed the atomic mission for the next day.

Paul Tibbets named the lead plane in the Hiroshima bombing mission the Enola Gay, after his mother.  This was done over the objection of the planes normal designated pilot, Robert Lewis, who wanted to name the plane  "The Pearl Harbor," "The Avenger," or "The USS Indianapolis".  Lewis also wasn't happy about being moved to the co-pilot's seat for the mission.

Lewis would return to civilian life after the war, and died in 1983 at age 65.

The B-29 that would take photos on the mission would be named Necessary Evil.  It featured, as many plans did, a buxom woman, albeit one clothed in a bikini, as nose art.

The Chinese 13th Army captured the town of Tanchuk. The Chinese 58th Division took Hsinning (Changchun).

Paul Ferdonet, the "Radio Traitor" of Stuttgart, was executed in France.

His pro Nazi broadcast had actually dwindled after 1942.

Oddly enough, today would have been Loni Anderson' birthday.  She passed away yesterday.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 4, 1945. Tibbets briefs his crew.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, British Army, Burma, Espionage, Imperial Japanese Army, Music, Operation Silverplate, Railroads, Swing Music, U.S. Air Force, USSR, War Crimes, Weapons, World War Two

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, April 17, 1945. Flak Bait.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, April 17, 1945. Flak Bait.:   The B-26 Marauder Flak Bait, which completed 200 missions on this day. Winston Churchill eulogized the late Franklin Roosevelt in Parliame...

 

Tuesday, April 17, 1945. Flak Bait.

 

The B-26 Marauder Flak Bait, which completed 200 missions on this day.

Blog Mirror: Laying Telephone Wire by Air, 1945

 

Laying Telephone Wire by Air, 1945

Cessna 195. Cheyenne Regional Airport.

 

AT-6, Cheyenne Wyoming.

Heinkel HE 162, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Dubois Wyoming.

A very late war German fighter, only 120 were made.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, October 26, 1944. Gertrude Tompkins Silver.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, October 26, 1944. End of the Battle of ...: 

Thursday, October 26, 1944. End of the Battle of Leyte Gulf and the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Gertrude Tompkins Silver and the P-51D she was flying disappeared in a delivery flight from Los Angeles to Newark, NJ.

She was 33 years old and had jointed the WASPs after a boyfriend died fighting in the RAF.  She was the only WASP pilot to be classified as missing during the Second World War.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, July 27, 1944. Gloster Meteor enters active service.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, July 27, 1944. Eastern advances.:

The jet fighter the Gloster Meteor entered active service with No. 616 Squadron RAF.  It would be the only jet aircraft to see active service during the war for the Allies.

Wednesday, July 26, 1944. The Merriam Bomber Crash of 1944

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, July 26, 1944. Cobra advances.: 

The Merriam Bomber Crash of 1944

AT-6's (SNJ's) from the film Tora! Tora! Tora!, Natrona County International Airport.

I heard them flying over downtown and looked up and saw them flying, but didn't notice the Japanese markings.  After realizing what they were, I went out the next day and to see if they were still there, and they were.

These are the SNJ's that were altered and remodeled to closely resemble Japanese Navy A6M's (Zeroes) and Nakajima B5N's (Kates) for the 1970s movie Tora! Tora! Tora!.  The resemblance to the Japanese aircraft is truly remarkable.

The Commemorative Air Force maintains and flies this team of aircraft today, preserving the excellent replica work done for the film.

In this instance, these aircraft were on their way to an airshow in Salt Lake City.

AT-6 in original markings.

AT-6 alte4red to resemble B5N.

SNJ rebuilt to resemble A6M.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, June 17, 1944. A stateside tragedy.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, June 17, 1944. A stateside tragedy.: 

Saturday, June 17, 1944. A stateside tragedy.

B-24J 42-100023 piloted by 2nd. Lt. Richard Zorn of Connecticut crashed on top of Casper Mountain, south of Casper, Wyoming, at about midnight, killing all on board.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, June 13, 1944. D+7. First use of V-1s on London.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, June 13, 1944. D+7. Heavy fighting in N...: 

Tuesday, June 13, 1944. D+7. Heavy fighting in Normandy.

The first V-1 rockets were launched on London.

V-1s are, basically, a pulse jet drone, and therefore heralded an advance in weaponry which we're only now seeing the full application of in combat.  One of a variety of late war German "Wunderwaffe", they were primitive in their category and while they affected terror, they stood no chance of being war altering.  The same can not be said of the V-2, which was a ballistic missile and truly revolutionary.

Armed drones would be revolutionary, but it would not really be until the advent of cruise missiles that they'd become effective.  With advances in targeting, they're now a massive dangerous weapon which has been one of the things which has allowed Ukraine to disproportionately take on Russia in the ongoing Russo Ukrainian War.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, May 24, 1944. First production B-29.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, May 24, 1944. Hitler to Caesar.: 

First production B-29, May 24, 1944.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, May 1, 1944. Piper Cub over Italy.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, May 1, 1944. Unmet expectations.: 

Monday, May 1, 1944. Unmet expectations.

The wounded German beast must be pursued and finished off in its lair.

Stalin, May 1, 1944.

Piper Cub over Italy, May 1, 1944.