Friday, May 17, 2024

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, May 17, 1924. U.S. Flyers reach Paramashiru.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, May 17, 1924. U.S. Flyers reach Paramash...

Saturday, May 17, 1924. U.S. Flyers reach Paramashiru.

Notre Dame students clashed with Ku Klux Klan members arriving in South Bend.

By Vallee - Made with freely available DEM data using QGIS and AerialOD, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=144444385

Three U.S. Army airplanes flew from Attu to Paramashiru in the Kurils, the longest and most dangerous leg of their transglobal flight.


The route allowed the effort to avoid Soviet airspace.  The US had not yet recognized the USSR.

Attu has been discussed here several times before, Paramushir (Russian: Парамушир, Japanese: 幌筵島, Ainu: パラムシㇼ) has not.  It is a volcanic island in the northern portion of the Kuril Islands chain in the Sea of Okhotsk in the northwest Pacific Ocean. The Kurils have been mentioned on this blog only once previously. 


Paramushir derives from  Ainu and means “broad island” or “populous island”.   Now a Russian possession, it was a Japanese one at the time.

Monday, May 6, 2024

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, May 6, 1944. Normandy Reconnaisance and the A7M.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, May 6, 1944. Shelling Sevastapol.

Saturday, May 6, 1944. Shelling Sevastapol.

Reconnaissance photograph, Normandy.  Taken by a F5, the reconnaisnace version of the P-38.


The first flight of the Mitsubishi A7M, the intended replacement for the famous A6M "Zero", occured.  Only seven of the carrier planes would be built before the end of the war.

Friday, May 3, 2024

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, May 3, 1924. Zinaida Kokorina.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, May 3, 1924. Foundings.

Zinaida Kokorina, against the odds and through the intervention of the Soviet head of state, became the first female military pilot on this day in 1924.



She wanted to become a fighter pilot, but was persuaded to remain a flight instructor, which she did through World War Two.  She later became headmistress of a village school at Cholpon-Ata in Kyrgyzstan before retiring to Moscow.

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, April 16, 1944. Black Sunday.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, April 16, 1944. Black Sunday.

Sunday, April 16, 1944. Black Sunday.

The RAF hit Romania for the first time. On the same day, the Soviet Air Forces hit Galatz. 

A large air raid was staged on Hollandia, Indonesia.  The mission was successful with no losses, but the aircraft ran into a severe weather front on the return and 46 of the 170 aircraft in the raid went down.  The day acquired the name "Black Sunday" as a result.

The attacking force was made up of  B-24s, B-25s and A-20s, escorted by P-38s

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, April 15, 1944. Romania attacked from the air

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, April 15, 1944. Romania attacked from t...

Saturday, April 15, 1944. Romania attacked from the air, Teenagers lose at Tarnopol, Politics in Minnesota, Hydro-Québec

PB4Y Photo Reconnaissance Liberators on a photo mission in the South Pacific , April 15, 1944.

PhoM1c E.S. Ujvarosy and PhoM1c R.M. Rhodes check their cameras, magazines, and data sheets before taking off on a mission in a Navy PB4Y photo reconnaissance plane. Cameras, left to right: F56-40”, two K-18’s 24”, K-17-12” and a K-17-06”. Lying on its side is vertical view finder. April 15, 1944.

The US 15th Air Force sent 500 sorties to Bucharest and Ploesti.  The war had reached the point where the Western Allies air attacks were now directly assisting the Soviet offensive in the east.

Thursday, April 11, 2024

“It stinks, like bad medicine going down, it’s a hard thing to swallow, but I think overall it is going to pay back 10-fold.”

So stated a Casper City Councilman about extending an additional $400,000 to SkyWest Delta to anchor the flight to Salt Lake City from Casper for at least a while.

I'm glad they did.  I don't know if it stinks, but losing the flight certainly would.