Lex Anteinternet: Friday, February 18, 1944. Operation Jericho and Operation Hailstorm.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, February 18, 1944. Operation Jericho and Operation Hail 

Friday, February 18, 1944. Operation Jericho and Operation Hailstorm

Mosquitoes over Amiens prison. Mosquitos and Typhoons featured in the raid.

Royal Air Force and Royal New Zealand Air Force aircraft breached the walls of the Amiens prison, allowing 258 prisoners to escape.

French Resistance members were staged outside to spirit escapees to freedom, or at least away from the Germans.  2/3s of them were recaptured.  However, half of those due to be executed did escape, although many escapees were shot by guards as they felt.  Resistance escapees exposed over sixty Gestapo agents and informers, which was a blow to the Germans.  Prisoners re arrested by the French were simply let go.

The mission was requested by somebody, but the details of it remain a secret to this day.

Heavy fighting occured at Anzio on the Anzio Campoeone Road.  German armored reserves  consisting of the 26th Panzer Division and 29th Panzer Grenadier Division were committed to the attack but Allied artillery prevents significant gains. 

The HMS Penelope was sunk off of Naples by the U-410.

At Cassino attacks by Indian and New Zealand forces fail to advance.

The Battle of Karavia Bay, a nighttime action, ended up blocking the Japanese port.

The Red Army captured Staraya.

Lots of Japanese Imperial Navy ships were headed to the bottom in Truk Lagoon.

Truck was a Japanese disaster.

The Germans lost the U-406 and U-7, the latter in an accident.

Marines landed on Engebi Island, Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands.

President Roosevelt vetoed the Bankhead Bill ending food subsidies.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday February 11, 1944. The pioneering and tragic combat career of Wah Kau Kong (江華九).

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, February 11, 1944. The Factor Falls.: 

Friday February 11, 1944. The Factory Falls.

Wah Kau Kong (江華九), the first Chinese American fighter pilot, scored his first victory, showing down a FW190 while piloting a P-51B.  He'd be killed in a dogfight just eleven days later.  On that occasion, his wingman reported:

I was leading squadron in leader position of red flight, providing escort and target support for bombers with targets at Oschersleben and Halberstadt. 2nd Lt. Wau Kau Kong was my wingman. Enroute to target area, Northeim and Wernigerode, at 1350 hours I attacked a ME-410 which was pressing attack on a straggling B-17 at 16,000 feet. I fired a long burst from 300 yds, observing parts flying off the tail assembly and smoke pouring out of the right engine. All my guns stopped except one and I broke off attack to let my wingman finish off E/A. I circled and saw Lt. Kong fire at E/A from close range. The right engine of E/A burst into flames. As Lt. Kong broke off over the E/A the rear gunner must have hit him as his plane exploded and disintegrated in the air.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—February 11, 1944: First mission of the US 357th Fighter Group in P-51 Mustangs from England—this group would produce the most aces (42) in the US Eighth Air Force.

The U-424 was sunk off the Faroe's by a Wellington piloted by the RCAF.

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.

Blog Mirror: Has Amelia Earhart’s Long-Lost Plane Been Found in the Pacific?

 

Has Amelia Earhart’s Long-Lost Plane Been Found in the Pacific?

Ah foo. . .

Plasmas (ionized gasses) according to an article coming out in Modern Physics.

Plasmas are attracted to electromagnetic activity and have been widely observed being attracted to spacecraft, although they're not limited to that at all.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, February 29, 1924. Air assisted victory.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, February 29, 1924. Air assisted victory.:

Tuesday, February 29, 1924. Air assisted victory.

Mexican Federal forces took Esperanza in Puebla in a hard fought battle.

The counter-attack featured strafing runs by Mexican-born American pilot, Ralph O'Neill.

O'Neill had distinguished service with the US Army as a pilot in World War One and held three Distinguished Service Cross citations.  He lived until 1980, dying at age 83 in California.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, January 20, 1974. First flight of the F-16.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, January 20, 1974. First flight of the F-16.: 

Sunday, January 20, 1974. First flight of the F-16.

First flight of the F-16.

YF-16, the aircraft before official adoption, and YF-17, a Northrup aircraft that did not gain acceptance.

It was an accident.  During high speed ground test a horizontal stabilizer was damaged and the test pilot took the aircraft off due to the severe oscillations it was experiencing. 

One of the greatest fighter aircraft of all time, it remains in production, although not for the U.S.

Tug and glider from Honolulu Soaring, Northwest O'ahu.

 

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, January 7, 1944. Adoption of the P59 announced.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, January 7, 1944. Lou Henry Hoover passes ...:

Friday, January 7, 1944. Lou Henry Hoover passes away.

"Interested natives look on as armorers place 50 cal. machine guns in the nose of a North American B-25G, Mullinnix Airfield, Tarawa, Gilbert Islands. 7 January 1944. (NARA)"

A British Mosquito is shot down with its Oboe navigational aid intact, allowing the Germans to develop countermeasures.

The United States Army Air Force announced the production of the Bell P-59 Airacomet.  The first US jet fighter aircraft, it would prove to be a disappointment and provided no real advantage over existing piston engined aircraft.

Thursday, January 7, 1909. Those early licenses.

The first pilot's licenses were issued in France on this day in 1909. The issuing entity was the Aero-Club de France and the recipients were Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright, Albert Santos-Dumont, Louis Blériot, Robert Esnault-Pelterie, Léon Delagrange, Henri Farman and Captain Ferdinand Ferber.

John Evershed discovered, on the same day, that gas radiates over the surface of sunspots, from the inner border to the outer edge.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday January 3, 1944. The Turner Explosion.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday January 3, 1944. The Turner Explosion.: 

Monday January 3, 1944. The Turner Explosion.

George C. Marshall was Time's Man Of The Year.

The USS Turner suffered a series of internal explosions while in harbor off of the Ambrose Light in New York.  138 of the 256-man crew died during the incident.  A Coast Guard Sikorsky HNS-1 flown by Lieutenant Commander Frank A. Erickson flew two cases of blood plasma, lashed to the helicopter's floats, from New York to Sandy Hook, saving many of the injured crewman, and providing the first incident of a helicopter used in that fashion.

Commander Frank A. Erickson, USCG and Dr. Igor Sikorsky, Sikorsky Helicopter HNS-1.  The HNS-1 had been in service for slightly under a year at this time.

Gregory "Pappy" Boyington was shot down and became a Prisoner of War of the Japanese.