Aircraft
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The Naval Radio Beacons of Imperial Japan January 17, 2025
They went through the Imperial Japanese Navy Zero with a fine-toothed comb. First, it was American soldiers taking souvenirs from the plane that had crashed at Fort Kamehameha near Pearl Harbor. Then, in the days after the attack of December 7, 1941,...
How Walt Disney's Characters Inspired Troops in WWII January 13, 2025
During World War II, the company that has grown to become an entertainment, theme-park and merchandising empire today created more than 1,200 pieces of military heraldry for the various U.S. service branches and other Allied troops....
V1: Hitler's First Terror Weapon June 13, 2023
The 'V' came from the German word Vergeltungswaffen, meaning weapons of reprisal. The V-1 was developed by German scientists at the Peenemünde research facility on the Baltic Sea, under the direction of Wernher von Braun and Walter Dornberger. They w...
Before Landing, Troops Stuffed in 'Sausages' June 06, 2023
This Thursday, 75 years ago, most of the troops earmarked for the invasion of Normandy made their final pre-deployment movement into the “Sausages.” They would reside within them until called to mount their transport aircraft or board their ships for...
WW II in Photos: Beauty of Italy Destroyed June 06, 2023
Ask a dozen military historians to name the single most pivotal battle or campaign of World War II the one operation that saw the war’s momentum irrevocably swing from the Axis to the Allied powers and you’ll get a dozen answers. Did the pendulum shi...
Could U.S. Win Battle of Midway Now? June 05, 2023
On June 4, 1942, the first day of the battle of Midway, the U.S. Navy sank four Japanese aircraft carriers for the loss of one of its own. This tore the heart out of Kido Butai, the enemy striking force, and changed the whole dynamic of the War in th...
Good Intelligence Critical to Midway Victory June 05, 2023
The Battle of Midway in June of 1942 was one of the most important naval battles in world history and a turning point in the Second World War. Between June 4 and 7, aircraft from aircraft carriers Enterprise, Yorktown, and Hornet of the U.S. Navy’s T...
Australian Aircraft Carrier Slices U.S. Destroyer in Half June 02, 2023
Niobrara is a very small town in Nebraska–so small it doesn't have a cinema, and the locals could not have flocked to see Saving Private Ryan. But Niobrara has a memorial outside its library dedicated to the three Sage brothers, who were the first fa...
Military Trickery That Actually Worked June 02, 2023
On June 2, 1763, as part of a general Indian (as in Native American) uprising known as Pontiac’s Rebellion, Chippewa warriors captured Fort Michiimackinac what is now present day Mackinaw City, by storming the fort. How did they get in? By playing ...
American Disaster in South China Sea June 01, 2023
Niobrara is a very small town in Nebraska–so small it doesn't have a cinema, and the locals could not have flocked to see Saving Private Ryan. But Niobrara has a memorial outside its library dedicated to the three Sage brothers, who were the first fa...
Meet Man Who Brought Us Jet Engines June 01, 2023
Sir Frank Whittle was an English engineer and air officer in the Royal Air Force (RAF). He was also the inventor of the turbojet engine. During his academic career, Whittle learned the theory of jet engines and gained practical experience during engi...
Ski-Equipped C-47 Lands at North Pole May 03, 2023
3 May 1952: A ski-equipped United States Air Force Douglas C-47A Skytrain, piloted by Lieutenant Colonels William P. Benedict and Joseph O. Fletcher, USAF, was the first airplane to land at the North Pole.¹ The navigator was 1st Lieutenant Herbert Th...
Powers Barely Got Out Alive ... Only to Be Taken Prisoner May 01, 2023
Steven Spielberg's most recent movie, Bridge of Spies, tells the story of a Cold War prisoner exchange between the Soviet Union and the US. The deal allowed US spy plane pilot Gary Powers to return home - but once there he faced a chorus of criticism...
WW I Blimps Were Great at Scaring People January 02, 2023
World War I saw the rise of the submarine and the airplane as vital weapons of war, and even now they remain keystones of military might. The airship, on the other hand, became little more than a means of capturing fantastic aerial shots at the Super...
McCool Survived Kamikazes and Saved His Men October 31, 2022
It was the largest Allied amphibious landing in the Pacific theater and marked the final island battle of the Pacific.On April 1, 1945, approximately 60,000 U.S. Marines and soldiers of the U.S. Tenth Army waded ashore from landing craft onto the bea...
Allies' Success at Sicily a Game Changer October 31, 2022
The island of Sicily, lying in the Mediterranean Sea between Tunisia and the toe of the Italian peninsula, is no stranger to war and conquest. Over the centuries, because of its strategic location, Sicily has been invaded, fought over, occupied, and ...
How Singapore 006 Crashed Without Leaving Ground October 31, 2022
Singapore Airlines Flight 006 was a scheduled flight from Singapore Changi Airport to Los Angeles International Airport via Chiang Kai-Shek Airport (now Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport) in Taiwan, Republic of China. On 31 October 2000, the Boein...
Lost in History, Battle of Leyte Gulf Was End of an Era October 26, 2022
Leyte Gulf was the greatest naval battle of the modern era, involving some 370 ships and over 200,000 personnel, primarily from the United States and Japan. But in both Japan and the United States, the Battle of Leyte Gulf remains curiously under-rem...
Japanese Bombers Relentless in Hornet Attack October 26, 2022
By October 1942, the United States and Japan had been locked in a battle of attrition on and around the island of Guadalcanal for over two months. The 1st Marine Division, and now elements of the Army’s 164th Infantry Regiment, still retained full co...
Watch: Russian Pilot Films Own Ejection October 26, 2022
Footage from a Russian Su-25 pilot’s close call with death may be the first of its kind in history.The first-person video -shot with what appears to have been a helmet-mounted camera- shows the Su-25 “Frogfoot” pilot narrowly escaping a fiery death i...
How One Collector Amassed Enough Warbirds for Museum October 19, 2022
In this memoir, a man chronicles his enthusiasm for warplanes and the remarkable aviation museum that resulted.Yagen certainly didn’t grow up collecting vintage airplanes—like most of his childhood peers, he amassed piles of comic books and stamps. B...
Pilot Error, Cannibalism, and 72 Days in Andes October 13, 2022
The Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, a story primarily about pilot error resulting in many deaths, is also about extreme survival. Also known as Miracle Flight 571, a chartered flight from Montevideo, Uruguay, set for Santiago, Chile, carrying 40 pass...
Rommel: 'I Shall Be Dead in a Quarter of an Hour' October 13, 2022
For a time, Erwin Rommel was Hitler's favorite general. Gaining prominence in 1940 as a commander of a panzer division that smashed the French defenses (see "Blitzkrieg, 1940"), Rommel went on to command the Afrika Korps where his tactical genius, ab...
German Commando's Daring Mogadishu Rescue October 12, 2022
On on the early hours of this day in 1977, members of the Grenshutzgruppe 9 (GSG-9) storm Lufthansa 737 jetliner Flight 181 Landshut in the Somali capital of Mogadishu and freed 86 hostages. Three of the hijackers were killed during the assault; the ...
