Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, February 10, 1944. Offloading Piper at Saidor, Wellingtons in action, Inaugurating flights to the Keys, and a disaster.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, February 10, 1944. Victory at Saidor: 

Thursday, February 10, 1944. Victory at Saidor

The landing at Saidor concluded on January 2, Operation Michaelmas, resulted in an Allied victory on this date.  The Australians and the Americans had linked up, and the Huon Peninsula was mostly occupied.

Offloading of Piper Cub used in Operation Michaelmas.

The Minekaze was sunk off of Formosa by the USS Pogy. 

The Red Army took Shepetovka, Ukraine.

The U-545 was scuttled after being crippled west of the Hebrides by a Vickers Wellington.  T he U-666 disappeared in the North Atlantic.

On the same day, American Airlines Flight 2 crashed into the Mississippi River. All twenty-four passengers and crew were killed.  The cause of the crash was never determined.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, December 23, 1941. The first C47 Skytrain entered US military service.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, December 23, 1941. The Fall of Wake Island.: 

The first C47 Skytrain entered US military service.

23 December 1941

Lots of the civilian variants, the DC3, were already in military service, but it wasn't until this date that the first example of the dedicated military version was delivered.  The civilian airliner had been introduced in 1935.

Over 10,000 C47s were built, or over 16,000 if the Li-2 Soviet produced version is considered, and amazingly they remain in service with the Columbian, El Salvadorian and South African air forces.  They were preeminently important as an Allied cargo plane during the Second World War, and they were used by every Allied power including the Soviet Union, which built 6,000 of them under license in addition to the ones that were supplied to the USSR via lend lease, making the Soviet Union the second-largest producer of the aircraft.

The role of the C47 in Allied airpower could hardly be understated.  It and the DC3 are one of the greatest aircraft ever produced.  Some DC3s remain in commercial use today (I've seen one in United Airlines colors as late as 2004) and they're actually being remanufactured as the Basler BT-67 for current use.

Friday, July 22, 1921. The Douglas Aircraft Company founded.

On this day in 1921 the legendary Douglas Aircraft Company was founded in Santa Monica, California.

A manufacturer of legendary aircraft, particularly the DC-3, the company merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967.  The new McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing in 1997.