This Day in US Military History

[mhansen2]

19 September

1863 – “Manhassett” was a Union schooner that ran aground with a cargo of coal in a storm 7 miles southwest of Sabine Pass, TX, where she broke up. The crew was captured by Confederate forces.

1881 – Eighty days after a failed office seeker shot him in Washington, D.C., President James A. Garfield dies of complications from his wounds.

1944 - Consolidated B-32-1-CF Dominator, 42-108472, first B-32 delivered, on this date, written off the very same day when nosewheel collapsed on landing.

1953 - A WB-29 Superfortress, 44-62277, en-route to Bermuda from Hunter AFB, Georgia. suffers an engine fire, drops the engine from the wing, then suffers collapse of the wing. Nine bail out and are rescued 150 miles off Charleston, South Carolina. The Coast Guard said there was little hope for the seven who were still on board when the plane hit the sea. The Coast Guard said that the steamship Nassau picked up four survivors, and the S.S. Seatrain Georgia, a railroad car-carrying vessel, rescued three more. Two other men found floating in lifejackets were picked up by unidentified surface craft. The first four recovered were on rafts, but the others spent the night in the water in lifejackets although they were able to climb onto rafts dropped to them before rescue. Flares visible on a clear night led search planes to where the survivors were clustered. One survivor was badly burned, Hunter AFB reported. Three were in good condition while the condition of the others was not known. A second disaster was averted when an Air Force rescue amphibian (SA-16) tore off a float while attempting to land to pick up survivors. Its crew of nine was also fished up by the SS Nassau.

1958 - Lockheed C-130A Hercules 56-0526, of the 314th Troop Carrier Wing, has a mid-air collision with a French Armée de l'Air Dassault Super Mystère over France.

1969 – Former USS Alvin C. Cockrell (DE-366) was sunk as a target off California.

1971 – Former USS Coates (DE-685) was sunk as a target.

1973 - U.S. Navy Grumman A-6A Intruder, BuNo 155721, 'NJ', of VA-128, out of NAS Whidbey Island, Washington, crashes in the Oregon desert, ~25 miles SE of Christmas Valley, Oregon, during a low level night training mission. The pilot Lt. Alan G. Koehler, 27, and navigator Lt. Cdr. Philip D. duHamel, 33, are killed while flying (KWF). On 14 June 2007, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) officially declares the crash scene a historic Federal government site at a Flag Day ceremony. An interpretive plaques was unveiled during this event reflecting this designation and depicting the historical significance of the location.

1990 - While flying a training mission in preparation for Operation Desert Storm over the Fallon, Nevada desert, Lieutenant Andrew G. "Andy" Baer a Weapons Systems Officer and Captain Ralph Miller a pilot with the Indiana Air National Guard's 181st Fighter Group, 113th Fighter Squadron, based at the Hulman International Airport in Terre Haute, IN were killed while flying their F-4 Phantom II during a high-speed, low-altitude turning maneuver. At the outset of the mishap, Lt. Baer initiated the dual-sequenced ejection seats however due to their low altitude and the aircraft's attitude the ejection attempt was unsuccessful and Lt. Andrew Baer and his pilot, Captain Ralph Miller (who were both natives of Terre Haute, Indiana) were unable to survive the incident.

2009 - A United States Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk crashed at Joint Base Balad, (formerly Al-Bakr Air Base), Balad, Iraq. The accident occurred during a storm including high winds and a sandstorm resulting in 12 crew injured and 1 fatality.

 

[mhansen2]

20 September

1797 – USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) was launched in Boston.

1800 – USS Insurgent was a frigate which departed Hampton Roads, VA on 8 Aug. 1800 for West Indies. She was never heard from again. Ship and crew of 340 presumed lost in severe West Indies storm.

1806 – After nearly two-and-a-half years spent exploring the western wilderness, the Corps of Discovery arrived at the frontier village of La Charette (about 60 miles up the Missouri River from St. Louis), the first white settlement they had seen since leaving behind the outposts of eastern civilization in 1804.

1814 – With the U.S. Capitol destroyed by the British, Marines protected Congress in a hotel.

1864 – “Philo Parsons” was a Union side wheel paddle steamer of 221 tons built in 1861 at Algonac, Michigan. She was on route from Detroit for Sandusky when she was captured by Confederate raiders. The Confederates scuttled the vessel at the dock at Sandwich, Ontario.

1881 – Chester A. Arthur was sworn in as the 21st president of the United States, succeeding James A. Garfield, who had been assassinated.

1914 - USCG Tahoma was a 1,215 ton, 191 foot U S Revenue Cutter steam ship which hit an uncharted reef and was lost in the Rat Islands of the Aleutians. The officers and crew escaped in life boats. Two of the life boats reached Agattu and Alaid Islands and the crews were picked up by the steamer Patterson. The captain’s lifeboat was picked up at sea by the steamer Cordova.

1926 - The Great Miami hurricane makes landfall for the second time near Perdido Beach, Alabama, at ~ 22:00 UTC with winds of 100 mph (160 km/h). At NAS Pensacola, Florida, the storm destroys 30 seaplanes, several hangars, "and other equipment for a total damage of about $1,000,000."

1942 - Lt. Burton W. Basten, pilot, of Placentia, California, is killed in the crash of Martin B-26A-1 Marauder, 41-7459, of the 474th Bomb Squadron, 335th Bomb Group, Barksdale Field, Louisiana, when the bomber suffers a stall/spin crash 4 miles W of Plain Dealing, Louisiana. Airframe condemned at Barksdale Field on 24 September.

1948 - First prototype USAF North American XB-45 Tornado, 45-59479, in a dive test at Muroc Air Force Base, California, to test design load factor, suffers engine explosion, tearing off cowling panels that shear several feet from the horizontal stabilizer, aircraft pitches up, and both wings tear off under negative g load. Crew has no ejection seats, and George Krebs and Nick Piccard are killed.

1952 - A US Navy PB4Y-2S Privateer, of VP-28, was attacked by two Chinese MiG-15 Fagots off the coast of the People's Republic of China. One of the PLAAF pilots was Zhongdao He. The USN aircraft was able to safely return to Naha, Okinawa.

1969 - An Air Vietnam Douglas C-54D-10-DC Skymaster, XV-NUG, c/n 10860, collides on approach to landing with an American U.S. Air Force McDonnell F-4 Phantom II near Da Nang, Vietnam. 77 died.

1990 – Both Germanys ratified reunification.

1995 - Just after making a supersonic pass close by the starboard side of the USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53), Grumman F-14A Tomcat, BuNo 161146, 'NH 112', of VF-213 from the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) explodes in flight from catastrophic compressor failure, both crew ejecting, suffering burns to the upper body. Crew recovered. Aircraft goes down in the Central Pacific, ~800 miles W of Guam, and 55 miles from the carrier.


2010 – Former USS Acadia (AD-42) was sunk off Guam during the live fire training exercise Valiant Shield.

2011 – The United States military ends its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, allowing gay men and women to serve openly for the first time.

2016 - U.S. Air Force Lockheed TU-2S, 80-1068, 'article 068', assigned to the 1st Reconnaissance Squadron of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base crashes in a rural area near the Sutter Buttes in Sutter County, California while on a training mission.

While recovering from a stall as part of the training flight, the interviewing pilot accidentally puts the aircraft into a second stall. The aircraft rolls left and goes into a nose-low attitude. The instructor pilot realizes that the aircraft is out of control and nearly inverted, and orders ejection. Both pilots eject, but the instructor pilot and seat strike the right wing, killing him. The crash, combined with hot weather conditions and wind, resulted in a 250-acre wildfire, which was extinguished by firefighters.

2018 - National POW/MIA Recognition Day is observed across the nation on the third Friday of September each year (can fall on any date from the 14th to the 20th of a given year). Many Americans take the time to remember those who were prisoners of war (POW) and those who are missing in action (MIA), as well as their families.

 

[mhansen2]

21 September

1780 – General Benedict Arnold, American commander of West Point, met with British spy Major John André to hand over plans of the important Hudson River fort to the enemy.

1854 - Brig USS Porpoise disappeared, presumably sinking during a typhoon. At least 62 lost. Last seen between Formosa and China this date.

1858 – Navy Sloop Niagara departs Charleston, SC, for Liberia with African slaves rescued from slave ship.

1864 – “Gertrude” was a Union side wheel paddle steamer of 70 tons built in 1864 at New Orleans. She foundered at College Point (Queens, NY?) with the loss of 6 lives.

1923 - USS Gopher (IX-11) was built as the USS Fern. Renamed USS Gopher-Gunboat 27th December 1905. Designated Miscellaneous Auxiliary USS Gopher (IX-11) on the 17th July 1920. She was lost in a northwest gale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

1938 - Following the conclusion of its test program, the Hall XPTBH-2, BuNo 9721, was used for experimental duties at the Naval Torpedo Station in Newport, Rhode Island, participating in trials of aerial torpedoes. Its service at Newport came to an end on this date, when the XPTBH-2 was destroyed during the Great New England Hurricane. This was the last design by Hall Aluminum, which was bought out by Consolidated Aircraft in 1940.

1938 - USAAC Chief Maj. Gen. Oscar Westover is killed while on an inspection tour, on a return hop from Vultee Field at Downey, in the crash of Northrop A-17AS, 36-349, c/n 289, '1', assigned at Bolling Field, Washington, D.C., in a crosswind short of the runway at Lockheed Air Terminal in Burbank, California, now known as Bob Hope Airport. The single-engined attack design used as a highspeed staff transport, crashed into a house at 1007 Scott Road in Burbank. Also KWF is his mechanic T/Sgt Samuel Hymes, promoted just five days before. Another source identifies him as Sgt. Samuel Hyne. "The Lockheed field, though long, was narrow, set behind the aircraft factory. A crosswind was blowing and he flew over the field to check its direction. Then, with flaps down, he began his final approach. He had done it thousands of times before; the procedure was routine, and so was his pattern until he began his turn onto final. There was turbulence, tricky winds from off the nearby mountains, thermal currents rising from the sunbaked earth. Oscar Westover, at fifty-five, was not all that sharp a pilot. He stalled the plane in the turn and it whipped into a spin. When he saw he couldn't pull out, his last act was to shut off the power to prevent fire on impact." Northeast Air Base, Massachusetts, renamed Westover Field on 1 December 1939, later Westover AFB on 13 January 1948.

1942 – First flight of the XB-29 Superfortress over Seattle, Washington.

1949 – In Germany the Allied Occupation Statute came into force. The functions of the military government were transferred to the Allied high commission. The Federal Republic of [West] Germany was created under the 3-power occupation.

1951 – Operation SUMMIT, the first helicopter landing of a combat unit in history, took place. It included the airlifting of a reinforced company of Marines and 17,772 pounds of cargo into the Punchbowl area.

1953 – North Korean pilot Lieutenant Ro Kim Suk landed his MIG-15 at Kimpo airfield outside Seoul.

1956 - Grumman test pilot Tom Attridge shoots himself down in a Grumman F11F Tiger, BuNo 138260, during a Mach 1.0 20 degree dive from 22,000 feet (6,700 m) to 7,000 feet (2,100 m). He fires two bursts from the fighter's 20 mm cannon during the descent and as he reaches 7,000 feet (2,100 m) the jet is struck multiple times, including one shell that is ingested by the engine, shredding the compressor blades. He limps the airframe back towards the Grumman airfield but comes down at almost the same spot where the first prototype impacted on 19 October: 1954. Pilot gets clear before jet burns, suffers only minor injuries – investigation shows that he had overtaken and passed through his own gunfire.

1963 - USS Grouse (MSCO-15) ran aground on the Little Salvages off Rockport, MA. She was destroyed by explosives as a navigation hazard on the 28th.

1964 – During delivery flight of North American XB-70A Valkyrie, 62-0001, from Palmdale, California to Edwards Air Force Base, California, on touchdown the brakes on the main gear lock up and the friction causes the eight tires and wheels to burn. The Valkyrie was otherwise undamaged.

1977 – A nuclear non-proliferation pact is signed by 15 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union.

 

[mhansen2]

22 September

1711 – The Tuscarora Indian War began with a massacre of settlers in North Carolina, following white encroachment that included the enslaving of Indian children.

1776 – In New York City, Nathan Hale, a Connecticut schoolteacher and captain in the Continental Army, is executed by the British for spying.

1862 – Motivated by his growing concern for the inhumanity of slavery as well as practical political concerns, President Abraham Lincoln changes the course of the war and American history by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.

1893 – America’s first automobile. Charles and Frank Duryea showed off their home invention on the streets of Springfield, the first successful run of an automobile in the U.S.

1945 – Gen. George S. Patton tells reporters that he does not see the need for “this denazification thing” and compares the controversy over Nazism to a “Democratic and Republican election fight.”

1945 - On first day of planned two-day exhibition of captured German aircraft at Freeman Field, Indiana, pilot Lt. William V. Haynes, 20, completes his flying routine in one of the eight remaining Focke Wulf Fw 190s at the base, (this being the same Fw 190D-9, Werke Nummer 211016, coded FE-119, that he had ferried from Newark, New Jersey, to Freeman on 13 September), when, as he prepares to land, at ~300 feet AGL, the aircraft pitches up and rolls over, bellying into the ground nose up. Aircraft destroyed, pilot killed. Although investigation cites "pilot error" (it was thought he may have attempted a wing-over at too low an altitude for recovery), this may well have been another example of the faulty electrical horizontal trim switch problem that caused the loss of the Fw 190 at Hollidaysburg Airport, Pennsylvania on 12 September. Recent excavations at the former Freeman Field have uncovered various aircraft components that were apparently buried to dispose of them when the base was being shut down in 1947–1948.

1947 – A Douglas C-54 Skymaster made the first automatic-pilot flight over the Atlantic.

1954 - A USAF North American EF-86D-5-NA Sabre, 50–516, crashes and burns on take-off from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida killing the pilot. After briefly becoming airborne, it settled back onto the runway's end, continues off the overrun area and comes to rest in a marshy stream bed ~1,000 feet (300 m) to the north.

1958 – USS Skate (SSN-578) remained a record 31 days under the North Pole.

1960 - USN/VCP-61 lost an aircraft 180 miles SE of Naha, Okinawa with the loss of 2 Marines (Flight Crew) and 13 USN personnel. Don't look for this one in military records, but is confirmed by USN Casualty Report #93353-A-23-21. By cross-referencing newspaper stories and "official" US Government records of both civilian and military air disasters, there are many air disasters in the Cold War Era that appear in the newspapers but NOT on Government records, particularly over the Pacific in a triangle defined as Guam, Manila, and Okinawa as the apexes. Aircraft lost was actually a USMC Douglas R5D-3 Skymaster, BuNo 56541, (ex-USAAF C-54D-15-DC, 43-17241), c/n 22191/DC642, en route from Atsugi, Japan, to NAS Cubi Point, Philippines, carrying three crew and 26 passengers all of whom were lost. It went down after "transmitting a message that the No. 3 engine was on fire and they were diverting to Okinawa. The fire in the No. 3 engine was extinguished but a residual fire continued in a tire until it ignited the fuel tank resulting in an explosion."

1963 - MATS Douglas C-133A Cargomaster, 56-2002, of the 1607th Air Transport Wing, with ten personnel of the 1st Air Transport
Squadron on board, is lost in the Atlantic Ocean on a flight from Dover AFB, Delaware to the Azores when contact is lost some 57 minutes after a 0233 EDT take-off from Dover. Last reported position was ~30 miles off of Cape May, New Jersey.

1965 – Test pilot Robert Rushworth flew the X-15 to 30,571 meters (100,303 feet) and Mach 5.18.

1978 - A U.S. Navy Lockheed P-3B Orion, BuNo 152757 of VP-8 on flight out of Naval Air Station Brunswick, Maine, at 1205 hrs. en route to Trenton, Ontario for display at an air show, explodes in the air eight-ten minutes later and comes down over Poland, Maine. Cause is thought to be failure of number one (port outer) engine nacelle due to "whirl-mode" in turbulence; engine separates along with 11 feet of outer port wing, strikes and shears off the port horizontal stabilizer. Aerodynamic forces then cause loss of other three engines, starboard wing fails at fuselage, which rolls inverted and impacts ground. Much of the debris comes down near the intersection of Route 11 and Megquier Hill Road, but pieces are scattered in a wide area around the site. No homes are hit, but the nearest residences to the wreckage are only a few hundred feet away. The blast blows out some of the windows in a nearby house. The eight crew are killed while flying (KWF): Lt. Commander Francis W. Dupont, Jr., Lt. j.g. Donald E. Merz, Aide-de-camp Larry R. Miller, Lt. j.g. George D. Nuttelman, Aviation ASW Operator 3rd Class Robert I. Phillips, Aviation ASW Operator 3rd Class James A. Piepkorn, Aviation ASW Operator Striker Paul.G. Schulz, and Lt. j.g. Ernest A. Smith.

1982 – Former USS Deperm (ADG-10) was a degaussing vessel that was sunk as a target some 65 miles west of San Clemente Island, California.

1987 - A U.S. Navy Grumman F-14A-70-GR Tomcat, BuNo 162707, of VF-74 out of NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia, operating from the USS Saratoga (CV-60), accidentally shoots down a USAF RF-4C-22-MC Phantom II, 69-0381, 'ZR' tailcode, of the 26th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, out of Zweibrücken Air Base, West Germany, at 1550 hrs. EDT over the Mediterranean during a NATO exercise, DISPLAY DETERMINATION. Both RF-4C crew eject, pilot Capt. Michael Ross of Portsmouth, Ohio, and WSO Lt. Randy Sprouse of Sumter, South Carolina, both of the 38th TRS, and are rescued by a helicopter from the Saratoga within 30 minutes suffering numerous injuries. A Navy spokesman said that the F-14 downed the RF-4C with an air-to-air missile. Recovery of the F-14 aboard Saratoga makes it obvious the missile was an AIM-9 Sidewinder. When told by the Saratoga's Admiral that they had been shot down, Sprouse remarks "I thought we were supposed to be on the same side?" to which the Admiral replies "We're sorry about this, but most of the time we are." The Tomcat pilot is duly disciplined and permanently removed from flying status.

1995 - A USAF Boeing E-3B Sentry 77-0354 callsign Yukla 27, of the 962d AACS, 552d ACW, crashes shortly after take-off from Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, when a flock of Canadian snow geese were ingested by its engines. All 24 crew members die, including 2 Canadian air crew members. This was the first loss of an E-3 since the type entered service in 1977.

2006 – The U.S. Navy officially retires the F-14 Tomcat having been supplanted by the Boeing F/A-18E and F Super Hornets.

2016 - A U.S. Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas AV-8B+(R)-25-MC Harrier II Plus 165354 (VMA-542) crashes off the coast of Okinawa, Japan. 33rd Rescue Squadron together with JSDF rescued the pilot.

 

[mhansen2]

23 September

1779 – During the American Revolution, the U.S. ship Bonhomme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones, wins a hard-fought engagement against the British ships of war Serapis and Countess of Scarborough off the east coast of England.

1780 – British spy John Andre was captured along with papers revealing Benedict Arnold’s plot to surrender West Point to the British.

1806 – Amid much public excitement, American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark return to St. Louis, Missouri, from the first recorded overland journey from the Mississippi River to the Pacific coast and back.

1863 – “Alliance,” a Union wooden schooner on voyage to Port Royal with a cargo of sutler’s stores, was set on fire, after being captured by the Confederates and aground at Old Haven Creek (or Milford Haven), Virginia.

1863 – “Phantom” was a Confederate Steel screw steamer of 322 gross tons, built in 1863 at Liverpool, England.

While en route from Bermuda with a cargo of arms, 9 cases of whiskey, 2 cases of gin, 200 pigs of lead, 3 cannons, 50 cases of Austrian rifle muskets and other Confederate government stores, she was chased aground by the steamer USS Connecticut, 200–250 yards off New Topsail Inlet, South Carolina in 15 feet of water. A strongbox with $45,000 in gold supposedly fell over the ship's side.

The vessel was set afire by her crew to prevent capture and was further shelled and destroyed by USS Connecticut after recovering 16 cases of rifle muskets and other goods. The Confederates also salvaged some of the goods.

The wreck later broke in half. Many treasure hunters have been diving this wreck and have recovered lead bars of 155 pounds. The wreck is parallel to the beach south of New Topsail Inlet. Only machinery is exposed, the rest lies in sand.

1864 - USS Antelope, a sternwheel steamer, ran aground and sank on the Mississippi River about 7 miles below New Orleans while trying to assist gunboat USS Meteor. Vessel was stripped and broken up.

1865 – USS Pink was a wooden screw steamer built in 1863 at Newburgh, NY. She ran aground in a gale off Dauphin Island, Alabama while trying to make the Sand Island Light. She was later raised and sold.

1922 - A Martin NBS-1 bomber, Air Service 68487, Raymond E. Davis, pilot, nose-dived and crashed from an estimated altitude of 500 feet on a residential street near Mitchel Field, Mineola, New York, killing the six military personnel on board. At the time, the aircraft was involved in a night time war game display that was lit by searchlights and watched by an estimated crowd of 25,000 spectators.

1924 - 1st Lts. Robert Stanford Olmsted and John W. Shoptaw enter U.S. Army balloon S-6 in international balloon race from Brussels, despite threatening weather which causes some competitors to drop out. S-6 collides with Belgian balloon, Ville de Bruxelles on launch, tearing that craft's netting and knocking it out of the race. Lightning strikes S-6 over Nistelrode, the Netherlands, killing Olmsted outright, and Shoptaw in the fall. Switzerland's Génève is also hit, burns, killing two on board, as is Spain's Polar, killing one crew immediately, second crewman jumps from 100 feet, breaking both legs. Three other balloons are also forced down. Middletown Air Depot, Pennsylvania, was renamed Olmsted AFB on 11 March 1948.

1925 - The U.S. Navy flies 23 Curtiss CS-1 floatplanes to Bay Shore Park on the Chesapeake Bay, 14 miles SE of Baltimore, Maryland, on a Friday with intention of an airshow demonstration before the 1925 Schneider Cup Race on Saturday, but that night gale force winds break three-inch mooring and anchor ropes on 17 of the biplanes and they are blown onto shore or dashed against seawalls, destroying seven and damaging ten. The next afternoon's Baltimore Evening Sun runs headline "Plane Disaster in Harbor Called Hard Blow to Navy" and quotes the ever-outspoken General William "Billy" Mitchell calling the loss of the CS-1s "staggering", and blaming it on Navy mismanagement of its aviation program.

1931 – LT Alfred Pride pilots Navy’s first rotary wing aircraft, XOP-1 autogiro, in landings and takeoffs on board USS Langley (CV-1) while underway.

1942 – At Auschwitz Nazis began experimental gassing executions.

1944 – USS West Virginia (BB-48) reaches Pearl Harbor and rejoins the Pacific Fleet, marking the end of the salvage and reconstruction of 18 ships damaged at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

1949 – In a surprisingly low-key and carefully worded statement, President Harry S. Truman informs the American people that the Soviets have exploded a nuclear bomb.

1960 – In his first flight aboard the X-15, test pilot Forest Peterson flew to 16,168 meters (53,047 feet) and Mach 1.68.

1968 - General Dynamics F-111A, 66-0040, c/n A1-58, crashes and is destroyed this date due to control system failure, at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. Crew ejected safely.

1994 - US Army Boeing CH-47D Chinook, 90-00220, of the 6–158th AVN, assigned for fire duty with the U.S. Forest Service, crashes at ~1750 hrs. on the Davis Ranch, 35 miles NE of McCall, Idaho, killing one of five on board. During a landing attempt in a clearing, the slope was misjudged, being ~11 degrees rather than the anticipated 2–3 degrees. After the front gear touched down, power was reduced to lower the tail, but the airframe rolled backward downslope until the front rotor made contact with the ground and then immediately impacted the fuselage, severing the driveshaft, flight control tubes and all electrical and hydraulic lines along the top of the cabin. The aft rotor, still under power, lifted the tail until the ship went over on its nose, the fuselage then rolling onto its starboard side. One Army crew killed, three others and a Forest Service passenger survived. The port engine continued to run for almost two hours after the accident, even though it was partially detached. Eventually a fuel valve was closed. Cause was insufficient reconnaissance of the proposed landing sight compounded by the crew's inability to perceive the slope from their observation angle. The loss was estimated at $13,770,360. Written off with 4007 flight hours.

1997 - Static test Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet airframe, ST56, being barricade tested at NAES Lakehurst, New Jersey by being powered down a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) track by a Pratt & Whitney J57-powered jet car, flips over and crashes into nearby woods when the steel cable linking the barrier with underground hydraulic engines fails.

1997 - A USN EP-3 Aries II (electronic warfare P-3C Orion variant, BUNO 157320) crashed in the early morning hours while landing at Souda Bay airfield near Chania, Greece. 24 crew members sustained minor injuries after the aircraft landed at high speed, drifted to the right, clipped side runway lights before making strong corrections towards centerline, and finally overran the runway. The aircraft's left wing and engine clipped a sand pile after it left the runway, before finally colliding and stopping upon impact with a pillbox. The nose was ground off and the left outboard ("Number 1") engine caught fire. Most crew members safely evacuated out of the starboard side over-wing hatch. A Navy spokesman said the three crewmen suffered minor cuts and abrasions, and a fourth sprained his ankle. No fatalities, aircraft destroyed.

2014 – The United States and its allies commence air strikes against Islamic State in Syria.

 

[mhansen2]

24 September

1780 – Benedict Arnold flees to British Army lines when the arrest of British Major John André exposes Arnold’s plot to surrender West Point.

1789 – The Judiciary Act of 1789 is passed by Congress and signed by President George Washington, establishing the Supreme Court of the United States as a tribunal made up of six justices who were to serve on the court until death or retirement.

1862 – “Phantom” was a Union Clipper carrying a cargo of $10 million in gold and silver ingots from California. She ran aground on the Tankan Shan Reefs off China and foundered.

1863 – “Elizabeth” was a Confederate wooden side-wheel steamer of 623 tons, built in 1852 at New York City. While carrying military cargo, she was wrecked and later burned at the east edge of Lockwood's Folly Inlet, North Carolina.

1918 – Ensign David S. Ingalls, USNR, in a Sopwith Camel, shoots down his fifth enemy aircraft, becoming the first U.S. Navy ace while flying with the British Royal Air Force.

1920 – Former USS Adder A-2 (SS-3) was designated for use as a target this date and sunk in mid-January 1922.

1920 – Former USS Cushing (Torpedo Boat No.1) was sunk as a target.

1920 – Former USS McKee (Torpedo Boat No.18) was ordered to be sunk near Craney Island, Virginia. Orders were carried out later that fall.

1929 – U.S. Army pilot Lt. James H. Doolittle guided a Consolidated NY2 Biplane over Mitchel Field in New York in the first all-instrument flight.

1939 - Eight fliers are killed, four officers and four cadet bombardiers, when their two Beechcraft AT-11 Kansans bombing trainers collide over a target and burn during training out of Williams Field, Arizona. The Williams Field public relations office said that a commercial transport sighted and reported the wreckage. The bombing range was about six miles SE of Florence, Arizona. Victims of the accident were identified as Lt. William P. Owen, 24, Magnolia, Arkansas; Lt. Donald J. Gibson, 24, Valley City, North Dakota; Lt. Robert T. Ross, 20, Port Huron, Michigan; Lt. William B. Shea, 23, Kansas City; Cadets Robert E. Coate, 19, Woonsocket, Rhode Island; Mathew F. Farrell, 25, Lynn, Massachusetts; Wilbur C. Harter, 24, Delaware, Ohio; and John H. Cwik, 27, Johnstown, Pennsylvania. AT-11, 41-27630, piloted Lt. Shea, and AT-11, 41-27620, piloted by Lt. Gibson, both of the 537th School Squadron, were the airframes involved.

1941 – The Japanese consul in Hawaii is instructed to divide Pearl Harbor into five zones and calculate the number of battleships in each zone–and report the findings back to Japan.

1945 – Japanese Emperor Hirohito says that he did not want war and blames Tojo for the attack on Pearl Harbor.

1945 – General Jaques Philippe Leclerc, newly appointed as France’s military commander in Vietnam, arrives in Saigon to the general melee and a general strike called by the Vietminh. Leclerc declares, ‘We have come to reclaim our inheritance.’

1948 – Former USS Tuna (SS-203) survived the two atomic bomb tests of Operation Crossroads and was sunk as a target off the California coast.

1957 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect nine black students entering its newly integrated high school.

1957 - U. S. Air Force Major James Melancon, 36, of Dallas, Texas, is killed when the Douglas B-26 Invader he was piloting crashes in a residential area near Dayton, Ohio, at 1659 hrs. Coming down at 1843 Tuttle Avenue, the flight, out of Wright Field, strikes a home, killing the pilot, co-pilot Capt. Wilho R. Heikkinen, 31, and two on the ground, and injuring others. Mildred VanZant, 44, an assistant director of nursing at St. Elizabeth Hospital, was killed when the plane impacted her house. Her brother Walter Geisler, 53, was mowing the lawn behind the house when he was killed. Four houses were struck by wreckage and two were set alight. An investigation determined that a loose engine cowling moved forward into the propeller. The pilot's son, Mark E. Melancon, will die in the Thunderbirds demonstration team Diamond Crash in Nevada in 1982.

1958 - Twelfth of 13 North American X-10s, GM-52-5, c/n 12, was on X-10 Drone BOMARC target mission 1, out of Cape Canaveral, Florida. The remaining X-10s are expended as targets for Bomarc and Nike antiaircraft missiles. The X-10 flies out over the ocean, then accelerates toward the Cape at supersonic speed. A Bomarc A missile comes within lethal miss distance. The X-10 then autolands on the Skid Strip, but both the drag chute and landing barrier fail. The vehicle runs off the runway and explodes.

1959 - A Lockheed U-2C, 56-6693, Article 360, of the SAC's 4028th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (SRS), Detachment C, out of Atsugi Air Force Base, Japan, and clandestinely operated by the CIA, runs out of fuel and pilot Tom Crull makes an emergency landing at the civilian airfield at Fujisawa, damaging belly. The black-painted aircraft with no identity markings attracts curious locals, and officials and military police are quickly dispatched to cordon off the area. This they do at gunpoint, which attracts even more attention and pictures of the highly secret U-2C soon appear in the Japanese press. Factory repaired and assigned to Det. B, this is the airframe that pilot Francis Gary Powers will be shot down in on 1 May 1960. The 20th U-2 built, it was delivered to the CIA on 5 November 1956. Used for test and development work from 1957 to May 1959. Converted to U-2C by 18 August 1959.

1960 – USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) was launched at Newport News, Va.

1962 - A US Air Force RB-47H, piloted by John Drost, was intercepted over the Baltic Sea by a Soviet MiG-19 Farmer.

1968 - A Boeing KC-135A-BN Stratotanker, 55-3133, c/n 17249, of the 509th Air Refueling Squadron, 509th Bombardment Wing, assigned to Pease Air Force Base, New Hampshire, crashes during an emergency landing at Wake Island, producing the first tanker casualty in the Southeast Asia war. The accident claims 11 of 52 Arc Light support personnel on board, assigned to the 509th Field Maintenance Squadron, redeploying from U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield, Thailand. After an in-flight engine failure, the undercarriage struck a seawall at the end of the runway — all the fatalities were in the rear fuselage.

1998 – Former USS Belknap (CG-26) was sunk as a target some 230 miles off Virginia Beach, Virginia.

 

[mhansen2]

25 September

1513 – Vasco Nunez de Balboa, Spanish explorer, crossed the Isthmus of Panama and claimed the Pacific Ocean for Spain.

1639 – The 1st printing press in America began operating.

1779 – Bonhomme Richard was the former French merchantman Duc de Duras that was placed at the disposal of John Paul Jones by King Louis XVI of France. As such, she was part of a squadron in the Continental Navy commanded by Jones. Off Flamborough Head, England, the American squadron encountered two British ships of war, Serapis (capt. Pearson) and the Countess of Scarborough, escorting a fleet of 41 merchantman.

John Paul Jones´ squadron comprised the Bonhomme Richard with 40 guns, the Alliance 36 guns, the Pallas with 32 guns, the Cerf with 18 guns and the Vengeance with 12 guns.

In the close battle HMS Serapis struck into the Bonhomme Richard, leaking badly, but Captain Pearson gave up his gallant defense and surrendered to the Bonhomme Richard.

Attempts to save Bonhomme Richard failed and the HMS Serapis set sail with Jones in command.

1780 – American General Benedict Arnold joined the British.

1789 – The first Congress of the United States approves 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and sends them to the states for ratification. Of the two amendments not ratified, the first concerned the population system of representation, while the second prohibited laws varying the payment of congressional members from taking effect until an election intervened. The first of these two amendments was never ratified, while the second was finally ratified more than 200 years later, in 1992.

1861 – Secretary of US Navy authorized the enlistment of slaves.

1863 - CCS Grand Duke was a Confederate Cottonclad side wheel paddle steamer of 508 tons built in 1859 at Jeffersonville, Indiana. She was accidentally burnt at Shreveport.

1918 - Chief Machinist's Mate Francis E. Ormsbee went to the rescue of two men in a aircraft which had crashed in Pensacola Bay, Florida. He pulled out the gunner and held him above water until help arrived, then made repeated dives into the wreckage in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the pilot. For his heroism, Chief Ormsbee was awarded the Medal of Honor.

1925 - USS S-51 (SS-162) collided with SS City of Rome some 15 miles east of Block Island, Rhode Island while operating in good weather on the surface at night. She sank with only three survivors.

1928 - Boeing PW-9D, 28-31, flown by Lt. Roger V. Williams, suffers mid-air collision with PW-9D, 28-36, piloted by Lt. William L. Cornelius, both of the 95th Pursuit Squadron, at Rockwell Field, San Diego, California. Williams bails out and survives but Cornelius is killed. Cornelius was one of the Three Musketeers Air Corps stunt trio pilots.

1931 - Douglas O-38B, 31-427, piloted by Lt. Robert Richard, collides in midair with another plane in a flight of three from March Field, Riverside, California, to Crissy Field, San Francisco. Richard and observer Pvt. Ralph Farrington bail out as the plane breaks up and are rescued by the other plane in the collision, undamaged, which lands safely 15 mi SE of Mendota, California. The remaining two planes reach San Francisco without incident.

1941 – In first successful U.S. Navy escort of convoys during World War II, Navy escort turn over HX-150 to British escorts at the Mid-Ocean Meeting Point. All ships reach port safely.

1942 – Camp Pendleton was dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1948 – Iva Toguri D’Aquino (b.1916), a Japanese-American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist “Tokyo Rose,” arrived in SF aboard the General Hodges and was taken away by FBI agents. On Sep 9, 1949, she was found guilty of speaking into a microphone concerning the loss of US ships. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. She was released in 1956 and pardoned by Pres. Ford in 1977.

1953 - The last Boeing B-29 Superfortress to be delivered, Boeing-Wichita-built B-29-100-BW, 45-21872, in September 1945, converted to a WB-29, was destroyed in a crash this date near Eielson AFB, Alaska, while assigned to the 58th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (Medium), Weather.

1957 – Under escort from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, nine black students enter all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

1958 - Boeing RB-47E Stratojet, 52–276, is written off when it veers off runway, landing gear collapses, port inner engine nacelle torn from mount, suffers fire.
HD Stock Video Footage - Officers and airmen examine crashed Boeing B-47 Stratojet.

1959 - A United States Navy Martin P5M-2 Marlin, BuNo 135540, SG tailcode, '6', of VP-50, out of NAS Whidbey Island, Washington on Puget Sound, is forced to ditch in the Pacific Ocean, about 100 miles (160 km) W of the Washington-Oregon border after fire in the port engine, loss of electrical power. Pilot was Lt. James D. Henson of Hot Springs, Arkansas. A Betty depth bomb casing is lost and never recovered, but it was not fitted with a nuclear core. The weapon was jettisoned immediately after ditching, in 1430 fathoms of water. Coast Guard cutter USCGC Yocona, out of Astoria, Oregon, rescues all ten crew after ten hours in a raft. A Coast Guard Grumman UF Albatross amphibian directed the vessel to the crew.

 

[mhansen2]

26 September

1777 – The British army launched a major offensive during the American Revolution, capturing Philadelphia.

1864 – “Mandamis” was a Union bark out of Baltimore with a crew of two officers and 12 sailors and in ballast when she was captured by the CSS Florida and burned in the South Atlantic.

1864 – “Mary Celestia” was a side paddlewheel steamer chartered by the Confederacy during America´s Civil War. She was utilized as a blockade runner, smuggling much needed guns, ammunition, supplies and food to the troops in the South. She sank after hitting a reef close to the south shore of Bermuda. The wreck lies in 55 feet of water, with one of her paddlewheel frames standing upright like a miniature Ferris wheel. The other paddlewheel lies flat on the sand, along with other interesting artifacts such as the boilers, anchor and part of the bow.

1864 – “Lynx” was a British iron side-wheel steamer of 372 gross tons, built in 1864 at Liverpool, England. While carrying 600 cotton bales and $50,000 in Confederate government gold and bonds to Bermuda, she was chased aground near Half Moon Battery, 5 miles north of Fort Fisher, North Carolina and shelled by the USS Niphon, USS Governor Buckingham and USS Howquah. The ship was set afire by her crew.

1918 - USCG Tampa was a United States Coastguard Cutter that was probably torpedoed by German submarine U-53 off South Pembrokeshire/Bristol Channel and sunk.

1931 – Keel laying at Newport News, VA of USS Ranger (CV-4), first ship designed and constructed as an aircraft carrier.

1942 - A USAAF Martin B-26B Marauder, 41-17767, of the 437th Bomb Squadron, 319th Bomb Group, out of Baer Field, Fort Wayne, Indiana, explodes in mid-air and crashes to earth two miles N of Rimer, Ohio, killing its crew of seven. Public relations officers at Baer Field said that the victims were: 2d Lt.s Eugene L. Newton, Kansas City, Missouri, pilot, and Fred Bice, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, co-pilot; Tech/Sgt. A. J. Lamison, Three Springs, Pennsylvania; Staff Sgt. P. J. Nelligan, Santa Rosa, California; and Pvts. O. R. Colestock, Hecla, South Dakota; A. A. Wildt, Broadmead, Oregon; and R. D. Risepter, Radcliffe, Iowa.

1943 - A Vought OS2U-3 Kingfisher, BuNo 5767, of VS-34, from Naval Air Station New York, Floyd Bennett Field, crashes 7 miles S of Little Egg Inlet, near Atlantic City, New Jersey. Two survivors, pilot William K. Stevens, and radio operator-gunner Frank W. Talley, are picked up by Coast Guard 83-foot Wooden Patrol Boat WPB-83340.

1945 – President Truman announces that, under a decision at the recent Potsdam Conference, the surviving German naval vessels will be divided equally between the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. He notes also that no decision has been made on the disposal of the Imperial Japanese Fleet.

1950 - USAF Douglas C-54D-1-DC Skymaster medical aircraft, 42-72457, c/n 10562, of the 6th Troop Carrier Squadron, 374th Troop Carrier Wing, from Tachikawa Air Base, Japan, crashes in the Korea Strait, one mile from the end of the runway after taking off from Ashiya Air Base, Kyushu, killing 23 of 51 on board.

1950 – USS Brush (DD-745) struck a free-floating mine and 13 sailors were killed and 34 others seriously wounded. This was the first incident of a U.S. Navy ship hitting a mine during the war.

1957 - US Navy Douglas A3D-1 Skywarrior, BuNo 135417, 'AB 7', of Heavy Attack Squadron VAH-1 crashes on the deck of USS Forrestal (CVA-59) during Operation Strikeback in the Norwegian Sea. It was a day landing, second approach, CCA (first approach mode one without); 1.6 km visibility, low, ragged ceiling, intermittent rain showers.

After a low approach the aircraft settled at the ramp and the mainmounts and fuselage struck the ramp. The aircraft continued up deck in flames crashing off angle. Parts of the plane struck a parked Douglas AD-5N Skyraider. Only two helmets and one boot were later recovered. It was estimated that one possible contributing factor was that the rain caused the optical illusion of "high ball" (on the landing mirror), and low airspeed. The crew died: CDR Paul Wilson (71 total carrier landings); LTJG Joseph R. Juricic B/N; and ADC Percy Schafer, third crew member. As a high-altitude bomber, the A3D was not equipped with ejection seats.

1958 - USS Hampden County (LST-803) was sunk as a fleet practice target off the coast of California.

1963 – First steam-eject launch of Polaris missile at sea off Cape Canaveral, FL (now Cape Kennedy) from USS Observation Island (EAG-154).

1976 - A USAF Boeing KC-135A Stratotanker, 61-0296, c/n 18203, of the 46th Air Refueling Squadron, Strategic Air Command, on a routine tanker training mission en route from K.I. Sawyer AFB, Michigan, to Offutt AFB, Nebraska (two sources list Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan as its destination), crashes at 0830 hrs. EDT in a densely wooded swampy area near Alpena, Michigan, killing 15 of the 20 on board. Sole witness to the accident, Hubbard Lake farmer Elmer Liske, 48, saw the aircraft flying low over the treetops. "It suddenly started to go down", Liske said. "It blew up, and I saw a big ball of fire, and then it exploded several more times."

Capt. John Harrison, 33, of Ravenswood, West Virginia; Capt. Clifford Call, of Seattle, Washington; 1st Lt. Dwain E. Crane, 26, of Pine Bluff, Arkansas; and Capt. Frederick Anderson, 32, of Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, were transported to Brooke Army Medical Center burns unit in San Antonio, Texas. Airman Dale J. Solon of Lakewood, Ohio, escapes serious injury in the crash and explosion Sunday of the tanker. He is released 27 September from Alpena General Hospital, and the Air Force assigns him to the team investigating the disaster. Killed while flying (KWF) are Major Rederick Wrinkle; Major Daniel H. Craven; Capt. Charles R. Adam; Capt. Richard G. Dankey; Capt. Oscar W. Dugan; Capt. William H. Warren, Jr.; Capt. Jerry B. Richardson; Capt. Van T. Cook; Capt. Richard N. Smithwick; Capt. David A. Phelps; Capt. Jack A. Kuzanek; Lt. Ronald P. Roach; Lt. Robert S. Witt; Tech. Sgt. Gary L. Carlson; and Sgt. James M. Singleton. All the men except for Lt. Witt and Capt. Adam, who were from Kincheloe Air Force Base, were attached to Sawyer AFB. Possible cabin pressurization problem may have led to the accident.

1983 – Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov averts a likely worldwide nuclear war by correctly identifying a report of an incoming nuclear missile as a computer error and not an American first strike.

 

[mhansen2]

27 September

1861 – “Minnesota” was a Union paddle steamer of 749 tons built in 1851 at Maumee, Ohio. She ran aground and was wrecked at Green Bay, Wisconsin.

1864 - CSS North Carolina was a Confederate screw ironclad sloop of 600 tons, built in 1863 at Wilmington, N.C. The engines were from the Uncle Ben. She sank when her worm-eaten hull gave way, off Smithville, North Carolina, 3 miles up the Cape Fear River from the old inlet.

1921 - USS Alabama (BB-8) was used as a target for bombing trials in Chesapeake Bay. She sank in shallow water and her remains were sold for scrap in 1924.

1940 – The Axis powers are formed as Germany, Italy, and Japan become allies with the signing of the Tripartite Pact in Berlin.

1941 – Launch of first Liberty ship, SS Patrick Henry, in Baltimore, MD. 13 sister ships are launched the same day.

1942 – The S.S. Stephen Hopkins, a Liberty Ship with an all-San Francisco crew, engaged the German raider Stier and her tender, Tannenfels. It shelled and brought down the Stier and hit the Tannenfels before it was sunk. Of a crew of 58, only 15 survived. They reached the shore of Brazil after a 31-day voyage in an open lifeboat.

1942 – 1st Class Signalman Douglas A. Munro, U.S. Coast Guard, rescued Marines of 1/7 during Operation Pestilence on Guadalcanal. He is the only Medal of Honor recipient for the U.S. Coast Guard.

1956 – Test pilot Milburn Apt flew the X-2 to 31,946 meters (104,814 feet) and Mach 3.196. After powered flight, Apt slowly turned to head back to Edwards AFB. The X-2 went out of control and Apt was killed. This was the last flight of the program.

1961 - A U.S. Air Force Boeing RB-47K Stratojet, 53-4279, of the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, loses number six engine during takeoff from Forbes AFB, Kansas, crashes, killing all four crew, aircraft commander Lt. Col. James G. Woolbright, copilot 1st Lt. Paul R. Greenwalt (also reported as Greenawalt), navigator Capt. Bruce Kowol, and crew chief S/Sgt. Myron Curtis. Cause was contaminated water-alcohol in assisted takeoff system.

1964 – The Warren Commission report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is released after a 10-month investigation, concluding that there was no conspiracy in the assassination, either domestic or international, and that Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, acted alone.

1967 - A Lockheed SP-2H Neptune, BuNo 147946, of VP-30, collides with a US Navy Vought RF-8G Crusader, BuNo 146864, assigned to VFP-62, Detachment 38, NAS Cecil Field, Jacksonville, Florida, during a heavy rainstorm, near Jacksonville Beach, Florida, crashing on the swampy east bank of the Intracoastal Waterway. The Crusader, which was operating off of the USS Shangri-La (CVA-38), also impacts near Jacksonville Beach. The Neptune was carrying two officers and three enlisted men. The pilot was the only occupant of the jet. All aboard the two aircraft were KWF.

1977 - A United States Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas RF-4B Phantom II, BuNo 157344, c/n 3717, 'RF611', of VMFP-2, flown by a USMC crew based at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, en-route to USS Midway (CVA-41) in Sagami Bay, suffers a mechanical malfunction, the port engine catches fire, and crashes into a residential neighborhood, killing two boys, ages 1 and 3, and injuring seven others, several seriously. The two-man crew of the aircraft, Capt. J. E. Miller, of Mendota, Illinois, and 1st Lt. D. R. Durbin, of Natchitoches, Louisiana, eject and are not seriously injured. The crash destroys several houses. The boys' mother is also severely burned. Due to the fear that she may be adversely affected during her recovery by the shock, she is not told until 29 January 1979, that her sons have died. The mother dies in 1982, aged 31, of complications from her injuries.

1991 – President Bush announced in a nationally broadcast address that he was eliminating all U.S. battlefield nuclear weapons and called on the Soviet Union to match the gesture.

 

[mhansen2]

28 September

1542 – Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sails into present-day San Diego Bay during the course of his explorations of the northwest shores of Mexico on behalf of Spain.

1787 – Congress voted to send the just-completed Constitution of the United States to state legislatures for their approval.

1822 – Sloop-of-war Peacock captures 5 pirate vessels.

1850 – Flogging was abolished as a form of punishment in the U.S. Navy.

1861 – “M. H. Sheldon” was a Union schooner that was lost on Block Island, R.I. while carrying a cargo of coal.

1900 – Marines withdrew from Peking after the Boxer Rebellion.

1912 – Wright Model B, U.S. Army Signal Corps serial number 4, crashes at College Park Airport, Maryland, killing two crew, Lieutenant L. C. Rockwell and Corporal Frank S. Scott. On 20 July 1917, the Signal Corps Aviation School is named Rockwell Field in honor of 2nd Lt. Lewis C. Rockwell, killed in this crash, and Scott Field, Illinois is named for the first enlisted personnel killed in an aviation crash. Scott Air Force Base remains the only U.S. Air Force base named for an enlisted man.

1924 – Two U.S. Army planes landed in Seattle, Wash., having completed the first round-the-world flight in 175 days.

1940 – The first of the 50 old American destroyers given to Britain arrives in the UK.

1942 – Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold gives highest priority to the development of two exceptional aircraft–the B-35 Flying Wing and the B-36 Peacemaker–intended for bombing runs from bases in the United States to targets in Europe.

1947 – LCI-332 was irradiated during the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests and was considered not worth to decontaminate or simply 'too hot to handle.' The craft was scuttled at Kwajalein.

1954 - Fourth of 13 North American X-10s, GM-19310, c/n 4, on Navaho X-10 flight number 10, a structural test flight, successfully makes extreme manoeuvres at Mach 1.84. However automated landing system attempts to make landing flare 6 meters below the runway level at Edwards AFB, California. The vehicle impacts at high speed and is destroyed. The flight sets a speed record for a turbojet powered aircraft.

1961 – Test pilot Forest Petersen flew the X-15 to 31,029 meters (101,806 feet) and Mach 5.30.

1962 – Test pilot John McKay flew the X-15 to 20,787 meters (68,202 feet) and Mach 4.22.

1964 – Test pilot Joe Engle flew the X-15 to 29,566 meters (97,006 feet) and Mach 5.59.

1965 - Test pilot John McKay flew the X-15 to 90,099 meters (295,561 feet) and Mach 5.33.

1971 - A U.S. Navy Lockheed P-3 Orion, on patrol over the Sea of Japan, is fired on by a Soviet Sverdlov class cruiser in international waters. The P-3 was checking a group of Soviet Navy ships cruising off the shore of Japan when crew members reported seeing tracer rounds fired well ahead of the Orion. Immediately following the incident, authorities recalled the P-3 to its base at MCAS Iwakuni, and all surveillance craft were pulled back five miles.

1972 – Weekly Vietnam casualty figures are released that contain no U.S. fatalities for the first time since March 1965.

1975 – A US bill authorized the admission of women to military academies.

1981 – (or 30 September, sources differ) During a NAVAIR weapons release test over the Chesapeake Bay, a McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18A-3-MC Hornet, BuNo 160782, c/n 8, out of NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, drops a vertical ejector bomb rack with an inert Mk. 82 bomb from the port wing, which shears off the outer starboard wing of Douglas TA-4J Skyhawk camera chase aircraft, BuNo 156896, c/n 13989, which catches fire as it begins an uncontrolled spin. Two crew successfully eject before the Skyhawk impacts in the bay, the whole sequence caught on film from a second chase aircraft.


1987 - A USAF B-1B Lancer, 84-0052, c/n 12, of the 7th Bomb Wing, Dyess AFB, Texas, crashes near La Junta, Colorado, following impact with an American white pelican. Three crew members eject safely, one killed due to an ejection seat malfunction. Two additional crew members die due to lack of time and proper flight conditions to accomplish manual bailout. Aircraft destroyed on impact. "The Air Force, which said no weapons were aboard the aircraft, said the last radio transmission from the crew reported that two of the bomber's four engines were on fire. The F.A.A. said the aircraft was at 15,500 feet when the radio report came in, suggesting that the pilot had climbed after the collision in an effort to save the aircraft or give the crew time to parachute." The Air Force disclosed on 28 September "that the survivors of the crash were Capt. Joseph S. Butler, 33 years old, of Rocky Mount, N.C., a student defensive officer; Capt. Lawrence H. Haskell, 33, of Harrisburg, Pa., a student aircraft commander, and Maj. William H. Price, 42, of Yuma, Ariz., an instructor in offensive systems. They were said to be in good condition. The three who were killed were Maj. James T. Acklin, 37, of Champaign, Ill., an instructor pilot, First Lieut. Ricky M. Bean, 27, of Farmington, Me., a student pilot, and Maj, Wayne D. Whitlock, 39, of Johnson City, Tenn., an instructor in defensive systems."

2000 - A US Navy Beechcraft T-34C Turbo-Mentor of VT-10 crashes in a hayfield in Baldwin County near Silverhill, Alabama, killing both crew.

2008 – SpaceX launches the first private spacecraft, the Falcon 1 into orbit.

 

[mhansen2]

28 September addendum

2018 - USMC F-35B of VFMAT-501 crashed near MCAS Beaufort, South Carolina. The pilot ejected safely and, at the time of this writing, was being evaluated. Accident was under investigation.

 

[mhansen2]

29 September

Feast Day of St. Michael the Archangel, Patron Saint of Soldiers, marines, Military Police, Aviation, and Airborne: The name Michael signifies “Who is like to God?” and was the war cry of the good angels in the battle fought in heaven against Satan and his followers. Holy Scripture describes St. Michael as “one of the chief princes,” and leader of the forces of heaven in their triumph over the powers of hell. He has been especially honored and invoked as patron and protector by the Church from the time of the Apostles. Although he is always called “the Archangel,” the Greek Fathers and many others place him over all the angels – as Prince of the Seraphim.

1789 – The U.S. War Department established a regular U.S. army with a strength of several hundred men.

1829 - Brig USS Hornet was lost with all hands in a gale off Tampico, Mexico.

1861 – “Joseph Park” was a Union brig of 244 tons built at Maine. She was sailing in ballast and was out of Boston for Pernambuco, Brazil when she was captured by the CSS Sumter on the 28th September 1861. Her provisions, sails and cordage were removed and she was burned the following day after being used for target practice.

1899 – VFW established.

1921 - First Orenco D manufactured by Curtiss, 63281, McCook Project Number 'P163', loses entire leading edge of its upper wing, crashing at McCook Field, Ohio. An investigation by an officer of the flying test section of the USAAS Engineering Division reveals that the Orenco Ds are badly constructed, no fewer than 30 defects and faulty fittings being recorded in the published report, forcing the Air Service to withdraw all Orenco Ds from use (Joe Baugher cites date of 28 September).

1938 – Munich Agreement: Germany is given permission from France, Italy, and Great Britain to seize the territory of Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia. The meeting takes place in Munich, and leaders from neither the Soviet Union nor Czechoslovakia attend.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, “Peace in our time.”

1939 – Germany and the Soviet Union agree to divide control of occupied Poland roughly along the Bug River–the Germans taking everything west, the Soviets taking everything east.

1943 - A Douglas C-53D-DO Skytrooper, 42-68788, of the 93d Troop Carrier Squadron, 439th Troop Carrier Group, departs Alliance Army Airfield, Alliance, Nebraska, on a night training mission to practice communication with the Scottsbluff Radio Range, but crashes three miles S of the base for unknown reasons shortly thereafter, killing both crew members. Heavy fog hindered the search from the air, however, a rancher found the wreckage while checking his stock. KWF were 2d Lt. William Cardie, pilot, of Plainfield, New Jersey, and 2d Lt. Robert G. Bartels, co-pilot, of Blasdell, New York. The left wing had struck the ground.

1944 – USS Narwhal (SS-167) evacuates 81 Allied prisoners of war that survived sinking of Japanese Shinyo Maru from Sindangan Bay, Mindanao.

1945 - Silverplate Boeing B-29B-35-MO Superfortress, 44-27303, named "Jabit III", of the 509th Composite Group, Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, on cross-country training mission, strikes several objects on landing at Chicago Municipal Airport, Illinois, never flies again. Assigned to the 4200th Base Unit at the airport pending disposition decision, it is salvaged there in April 1946.

1945 – Former USS Tatoosh (YAG-1) was loaded with old ammunition and towed to a point 10 miles N of Adak, Alaska by ATR-32 where she was scuttled.

1946 - Blue Angels pilot Lt. (JG) Ros "Robby" Robinson is killed in Grumman F8F-1 Bearcat, BuNo 95986, Blue Angels No. 4, at NAS Jacksonville, Florida, when he fails to pull out of a dive during a Cuban Eight maneuver – wingtip broke off his fighter.

1946 – Lockheed P2V Neptune, Truculent Turtle, leaves Perth, Australia on long distance non-stop, non-refueling flight that ends October 1.

1950 - Landing aboard USS Philippine Sea (CV-47), which was operating as flagship of Task Force 77 in Korean waters, Grumman F9F-2 Panther, BuNo 123432, of VF-111, crashes through all barriers and hits eleven parked aircraft.

1964 – Test pilot Robert Rushworth flew the X-15 to 29,809 meters (97,803 feet) and Mach 5.20.

1965 – Hanoi publishes the text of a letter it has written to the Red Cross claiming that since there is no formal state of war, U.S. pilots shot down over the North will not receive the rights of prisoners of war (POWs) and will be treated as war criminals. The U.S. State Department protested, but this had no impact on the way the American POWs were treated.

1971 - A U.S. Air Force Lockheed C-5A Galaxy of the 443d Military Airlift Wing, Altus AFB, Oklahoma, one of six used for training, had its number one (port outer) engine tear off the pylon while advancing take-off power before brake release, setting the wing on fire. The crew evacuated safely within 90 seconds and the fire was extinguished by emergency equipment. The engine had flown up and behind the Galaxy, landing some 250 yards to the rear. The Air Force subsequently grounded six other C-5s with similar flight hours and cycles. Further investigation found cracks in younger C-5s and the entire fleet was grounded.

1988 – The space shuttle Discovery (STS-26R) blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., marking America’s return to manned space flight following the Challenger disaster.

1990 – The YF-22, which would later become the F-22 Raptor, flies for the first time.

2010 – Germany makes the final payment of its World War I reparations.

 

[mhansen2]

30 September

1857 – Unable to obtain trading privileges in Vietnam through diplomacy, the French begin their campaign to take Vietnam.

1864 – “Ogdensburg” was a Union screw steamer of 352 tons built in 1852 at Ohio City, Ohio. She collided with the schooner Snow Bird, 5 miles off Fairport, Ohio and sank.

1899 – First Navy wireless message sent via Lighthouse Service Station at Highlands of Navesink, New Jersey.

1918 – USS Ticonderoga (Id. No. 1958) was a steamship in the United States Navy which served as a cargo ship. She was torpedoed, shelled and sunk after a 2hr battle with German submarine U-152 in the North Atlantic. 213 killed.

1942 - Two pilots are killed and two injured when Lockheed P-38G-5-LO Lightning, 42-12854, piloted by William C. McConnell, by one source, or William M. McConnell, by another, taking off from the Lockheed Air Terminal, Burbank, California, on a test flight, swerves out of control, plows through several parked training planes, ignites, and damages a hangar of the Pacific Airmotive Company. McConnell, of San Fernando, California, a Lockheed test pilot for about two years, is killed. "The other pilot killed was identified from papers on his body as Eddie C. Wike, of Sharon, Conn., student flier from Ryan Aeronautical school at Hemet, who was near the group of parked training planes when the accident occurred. The two injured men were John Waide, Ryan instructor from Hemet, and Harold Keefe of Hollywood, representative of an airplane engine company." Parked aircraft damaged or destroyed were Ryan PT-22s, 41-15341, 41-15610, 41-20852, and a fourth with an incorrectly recorded serial that ties up to an AT-6A-NT Texan rather than the reported PT-22.

1942 - "Hondo, Texas, Sept. 30 - Two officers and two enlisted men were killed in an airplane accident near the A.A.F. navigation school here. The dead included Capt. John G. Rafferty, 40, Monrovia, California." Lockheed A-28A-LO Hudson, 42-46980, of the 846th School Squadron, Hondo Army Airfield Navigation School, Texas, crashed 2.5 miles E - 1.5 mile N of the base due to a spin / stall after takeoff. Capt. Rafferty was the pilot.

1944 - Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat, BuNo. 42782, lost 125 miles (201 km) SE of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts during carrier qualifications. Pilot's name/fate unknown. Located by submarine DSV Alvin, 24 September 1968.

1949 – After 15 months and more than 250,000 flights, the Berlin Airlift officially comes to an end.

1954 – The USS Nautilus (SSN-571) is commissioned by the U.S. Navy.

1965 – Test pilot Pete Knight flew the X-15 to 23,348 meters (76,604 feet) and Mach 4.20.

1974 – Former USS Pettit (DE-253) was sunk as a target off Puerto Rico.

1990 - SH-60B, BuNo 162343 of HSL-43, crashed into sea off Oregon killing all three crew aboard while deployed with USS Crommelin (FFG-37) at the time, headed north along the western coast off Oregon during workups.

1996 - Air Force Academy Slingsby T-3A Firefly crashes 30 miles E of Colorado Springs, Colorado when the crew, who had been practicing a forced landing, suffer engine failure during the key part of the manoeuvre, the instructor and student both killed.

 

[mhansen2]

1 October

1880 – John Philip Sousa started his 12-year tour as director of the US Marine Band. He premiered many of his marches and produced the first commercial phonograph recordings.

1917 – Revenue Cutter Mohawk sank due to a collision with the British tanker S.S. Vennacher, while on patrol off Sandy Hook, NJ.

1918 - USS SC-60 was in a collision with the tanker Fred M. Weller, five miles south of Ambrose Channel lightship and 2 miles north of Shrewsbury Rock gas buoy, off New York. Two crewmen were killed.

1934 – Adolph Hitler expanded the German army and navy and created an air force, violating Treaty of Versailles.

1942 – Bell P-59 Airacomet, 1st US jet, made its maiden flight.

1942 – USS Grouper (SS-214) torpedoes Lisbon Maru not knowing she is carrying British PoWs from Hong Kong.

1942 - The Associated Press reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico, that a USAAF transport had crashed in the mountains NW of the town of Coamo, in southern Puerto Rico, killing all 22 on board. "Names of the dead were not announced immediately pending notification of relatives in the United States. Several civilians were known to have been aboard. The plane crashed shortly after its takeoff. It took hours for a searching party working afoot in the difficult mountain country to locate the wreckage." Douglas C-39, 38-524, c/n 2081, of the 20th Troop Carrier Squadron, assigned at Losey Field, Puerto Rico, piloted by Francis H. Durant, crashed 15 mi NW of Coamo.

1942 – “Visalia, CA” Two Army aviation cadets and a civilian instructor were killed today in the mid-air collision of two primary training planes near Seville, five miles from their Sequoia field base. They were Cadets Mike Mumolo, 25, Los Angeles, and James Cameron Schwindt, 19, Santa Paul, and Instructor Edward Hedrick, 47, formerly of Ontario." Ryan PT-22s, 41-20658, flown by Schwindt, and 41-20661, flown by Mumolo, came down 7 mi E of Sequoia Field.

1946 – Eleven Nazi war criminals were sentenced to be hanged at Nuremberg trials– Hermann Goring, Alfred Jodl, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachin von Ribbentrop, Fritz Saukel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Julius Streicher, and Alfred Rosenberg. Karl Donitz was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

1947 – First flight of the F-86 Sabre.

1951 – The all-African-American 24th Infantry Regiment and 159th Field Artillery Battalion, 25th Infantry Division, were disbanded and the personnel reassigned to formerly all-white units. Other formerly all-African-American units were infused with white soldiers, thus beginning racial integration in the Army.

1952 - U.S. Navy Grumman TBM-3S2 Avenger, BuNo 53439, of Air Anti-Submarine Squadron-23, NAS San Diego, California, on night radar bombing training flight strikes Pacific Ocean surface at 110 knots (200 km/h) ~2 1/2 miles W of Point Loma. Both crew survive the accidental ditching, with pilot Lt. Ross C. Genz, USNR, rescued after four hours in a life raft by a civilian ship, but radarman AN Harold B. Tenney, USN, apparently drowns after evacuating the bomber and is never seen again. Wreckage discovered in 1992 during underwater survey.

1953 - A USAF North American TB-25J, 44-86779A, built as a B-25J-30/32-NC, (Joe Baugher states that it was modified and redesignated to TB-25N status, but the official accident report refers to it as a TB-25J) attached to Andrews AFB, Maryland, crashes in fog and heavy overcast into the forested pinnacle of historic Pine Mountain, striking Dowdell's Knob at ~2130 hrs., near Warm Springs in western Georgia, killing five of six on board, said spokesmen at Lawson AFB. The bomber struck the 1,395-foot peak at the 1,340-foot level. It had departed from Eglin AFB, Florida, at 1930 hrs. for Andrews AFB. Two Eglin airmen were among those KWF.

The sole survivor, Richard Kendall Schmidt, 19, of Rumson, New Jersey, a Navy fireman assigned to the crash crew at NAS Whiting Field, Florida, who had hitch-hiked a ride on the aircraft, was found by two farmers who heard the crash and hiked to the spot from their mountainside homes "and found the sailor shouting for help as he lay in the midst of scattered wreckage and mutilated bodies.

They said [that] they found a second man alive but base officials said [that] he died before he could be given medical attention." First on the scene was Lee Wadsworth, of Manchester, Georgia, who, while visiting his father-in-law, Homer G. Swan, in Pine Mountain Valley, had heard and seen the Mitchell in level flight at very low altitude AGL on an easterly course moments before impact at ~2130 hrs. Immediately following the crash, Wadsworth, Swan, and Wadsworth's brother-in-law, Billy Colquitt, drove a truck to the knob, arriving there at 2145 hrs. After a short search, they smelled gasoline and heard the cries for help from Schmidt. They proceeded to render aid for two and a half hours until the first medical help arrived, in the person of Dr. Bates from Pine Mountain Valley. Schmidt was loaded into Dr. Bates' automobile and was driven east towards Columbus to meet the military ambulance dispatched from Martin Army hospital at Fort Benning. The semi-conscious man had died of his injuries some 35 minutes after the first responders got to him. The Air Police, and Sheriff and Coroner for Harris County arrived at ~0030 hrs., 2 October.

Tom Baxley, one of the farmers, said that the bodies of the dead, most of them torn by the collision, were flung about among the pine trees, and bits of the plane were hurled over a wide area. Schmidt was hospitalized with a possible hip fracture and cuts. Among the fatalities were two airmen assigned to Eglin AFB who had also hitch-hiked a ride and were on their way home on leave. The impact location is on the site of the proposed $40,000,000 Hall of History to mark a scenic point frequented by the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Killed were Capt. Stephen A. Clisham, pilot; Capt. Virgil G. Harris, co-pilot; T/Sgt. Othelier B. Hoke, flight engineer; and passengers A3C Robert W. Davidson, and A2C Benny J. Shepard. Shepard, riding in the waist section aft the bomb bay, as was Schmidt, survived the initial impact and was thrown from the wreckage, but died of his severe injuries before assistance arrived.

1953 - "An Air Force F-86 Sabre jet, its electric firing device out of order, sprayed this western Pennsylvania town (Farrell, Pennsylvania) with machine gun bullets for several terror-filled seconds. The whining .50 caliber slugs riddled 12 autos, setting two afire and tore into nearly 30 buildings and homes yesterday (1 October). No one was hurt although several persons had narrow escapes. 'Something happened to one of its machine guns,' Police Chief John J. Stosito said after a conference with Maj. A. F. Martin Jr. of the Vienna Air Force Base near Warren, Ohio. The plane was on a routine flight from the base. Name of the pilot was withheld. Witnesses said [that] the craft was several thousand feet up as it zoomed over the city. Martin, who came here to conduct an investigation, said [that] there is "only about one chance in a million" of such a thing happening and added [that] the Air Force would pay all damages."

1955 – Commissioning of USS Forrestal (CVA-59), first of postwar supercarriers.

1957 - Aborted takeoff at Homestead AFB, Florida, causes write-off of Boeing B-47B-50-BW Stratojet, 51-2317, of the 379th Bomb Wing. Gear collapses, aircraft burns, but base fire department is able to quench flames such that crew escapes – pilots blow canopy to get out, navigator egresses through his escape hatch.

1958 – Inauguration of NASA.

1961 – The United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is formed, becoming the country’s first centralized military espionage organization.

1970 - A US Army helicopter was fired on by North Korean gun positions along the Korean DMZ.

1970 – Former USS Atlanta (CL-104) was converted to a weapons effect target (IX-304) in 1964 but survived the test. She was again used as a target, being sunk off St. Clemente Island, CA.

 

[mhansen2]

2 October

1780 – British spy John Andre was hanged in Tappan, N.Y., for conspiring with Benedict Arnold.

1799 – Establishment of Washington Navy Yard. The Washington Navy Yard is the U.S. Navy’s oldest shore establishment, in operation since the first decade of the 19th century. It evolved from a shipbuilding center to an ordnance plant and then to the ceremonial and administrative center for the Navy. The yard is home to the Chief of Naval Operations and is headquarters for the Naval Historical Center, the Marine Corps Historical Center, and numerous naval commands.

1920 - U.S. Navy Lt. Cdr. William Merrill Corry, Jr. (5 October 1889 – 6 October 1920), of Quincy, Florida, designated Naval Aviator No. 23 in March 1916, while on a flight from Long Island, New York, with another pilot, the aircraft crashes, with Corry earning the Medal of Honor "for heroic service in attempting to rescue a brother officer from a flame-enveloped airplane near Hartford, Connecticut. On 2 October 1920, an airplane in which Lieutenant Commander Corry was a passenger crashed and burst into flames. He was thrown 30 feet clear of the aircraft and, though injured, rushed back to the burning machine and endeavored to release the pilot. In so doing he sustained serious burns, from which he died four days later." In 1923, Corry Field, a new satellite airfield for Naval Air Station Pensacola, is named in his honor. Three U.S. Navy destroyers have been named USS Corry, a Clemson-class in 1921 (DD-334), a Gleaves class in 1941 (DD-463) and a Gearing-class in 1945 (DD-817).

1939 – Foreign ministers of countries of the Western Hemisphere agree to establish a neutrality zone around the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North and South America to be enforced by the U. S. Navy. All belligerent actions by hostile powers are supposed to be forbidden in this zone.

1942 – Enrico Fermi and others demonstrated the 1st self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction under Stagg Field at the University of Chicago.

1944 - A B-25D Mitchell bomber, 41-30114, crashes in the Mojave Desert while on a pilot training mission. The plane stalls, spins and crashes into the ground, killing pilot 1st Lt George D. Rosado, copilot WASP Marie Michell Robinson, and crew chief S/Sgt Gordon L. Walker.

1945 - A U.S. Navy Martin PBM-5E Mariner flying boat, BuNo 59336, of VPB-205, carrying Rear Admiral William Sample, commander of Carrier Division 22, and eight others disappears near Wakayama, Japan while on a familiarization flight. The wreckage and their bodies will not be discovered until 19 November 1948.

1953 - A US Navy PBM-5 Mariner of VP-50 was intercepted by two People's Republic of China MiG-15 Fagots 30 miles east of Tsingtao. The MiGs made twelve firing passes, but only hit the PBM twice in the tail with 37mm cannon shells. The crew was not injured and the aircraft returned safely to base.

1963 – Defense Sec. Robert McNamara told Pres. Kennedy in a cabinet meeting that: “We need a way to get out of Vietnam.” McNamara proposed to replace the 16,000 US advisers with Canadian personnel.

1990 – Allies ceded any remaining rights as occupiers of Germany.

1997 - A USN Grumman F-14A Tomcat, BuNo 161425, converted to F-14A+, later redesignated F-14B, of VF-101, based at NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia, crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the North Carolina coast Thursday afternoon, moments after the two crew eject. "A Coast Guard helicopter later plucked the Tomcat's radar intercept officer from 4- to 5-foot seas, but rescuers were still searching for the jet's pilot after nightfall. The Navy declined to identify either of the crewmen...until their families were notified. The radar intercept officer was undergoing a medical examination at Oceana Thursday night, and was reportedly in good condition."

The U.S. Navy suspends search for the missing aviator on 5 October. The cause of the crash was not known, the Navy said in a statement. A failure of left horizontal stab linkage—while the trailing edge was down—threw the aircraft into violent right-hand rolls. When the pilot put in corrective stick, the aircraft would pitch down violently due to a stuck left-hand horizontal stab. This flight condition was unrecoverable. The RIO pulled the ejection handle at 7000 feet. The mishap pilot died when his ejection seat failed.

2003 – North Korea said it is using plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel rods to make atomic weapons.

 

[mhansen2]

4 October

1861 – The Union ship USS South Carolina captured two Confederate blockade runners outside of New Orleans, La.

1943 – Aircraft from USS Ranger (CV-4) sink 5 German ships and damage 3 in Operation Leader, the only U.S. Navy carrier operation in northern European waters during World War II.

1949 - Grumman XTB3F-2S Guardian, BuNo 90505, prototype of the ASW variant, undergoing propeller vibration tests by Grumman in New York, suffers prop failure and crashes on Long Island, killing the Hamilton Standard representative who was aboard in the rear fuselage. Pilot Mike Ritchie makes a high-speed, 200-foot altitude parachute escape, but lands on top of the wreckage and is hospitalized for many months.

1952 – Task Force 77 aircraft encounter MIG-15 aircraft for the first time.

1957 – The Space Age and “space race” began as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik (traveler), the first man-made space satellite.

1961 – Test pilot Robert Rushworth flew the X-15 to 23,774 meters (78,002 feet) and Mach 4.30.

1962 - Test pilot Robert Rushworth flew the X-15 to 34,199 meters (112,207 feet) and Mach 5.17.

1967 - Test pilot Bill Dana flew the X-15 to 76,535 meters (251,111 feet) and Mach 5.35.

1968 – Former USS Jaccard (DE-355) was sunk as a target.

1973 - A Soviet Tu-16 Badger overflew the USS John F. Kennedy (CVA-67) in the Norwegian Sea. While attempting to escort the bomber away from the area, a US Navy F-4 Phantom II collided with it. The Tu-16 safely returned to its base and the F-4 landed at Bodø, Norway.

1989 - U.S. Air Force, Boeing KC-135A-BN Stratotanker, 56-3592, from Loring AFB Maine, crashed on final approach near Carlingford, New Brunswick, Canada after a fuel pump ignited vapor in the main tank. The in-flight explosion rendered the aircraft uncontrollable. All 4 crewmembers were killed.

 

[mhansen2]

5 October

1914 - First aerial combat kill in history recorded when a Voisin III pusher of Escadrille VB24, French Air Service, flown by Sgt. Joseph Frantz and Cpl. Louis Quénault, downed a German two-seater Aviatik B.II, 114/14, of FFA 18, flown by Feldwebel Willhelm Schlichting with Oberleutnant Fritz von Zangen as observer, over Jonchery, Reims, using what is believed to have been a Hotchkiss machine gun.

1915 – Germany issued an apology and promises for payment for the 128 American passengers killed in the sinking of the British ship Lusitania.

1916 – Corporal Adolf Hitler was wounded in WW I.

1948 – Former USS Skate (SS-305) was sunk as a target off the Southern California Coast.

1966 - Ryan XV-5A Vertifan, 62-4506, crashes at Edwards Air Force Base, California, killing Air Force test pilot Maj. David Tittle. During hover, the aircraft began uncontrolled roll to left, pilot ejected at 50 feet (15.24 m), but chute failed to deploy.

1967 - NASA astronaut Clifton Williams, U.S. Marine Corps, suffers control failure in Northrop T-38A-65-NO Talon, 66-8354, N922NA, he was flying while en-route from Cape Canaveral, Florida to Mobile, Alabama to see his father who was dying of cancer. Jet went into an uncontrollable aileron roll, Williams ejected but he was traveling too fast and was at too low an altitude, comes down near Tallahassee, Florida. Williams served on the backup crew for Gemini X and had been assigned to the back-up crew for what would be the Apollo 9 mission. This crew placement would have most likely led to an assignment as Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 12. The Apollo 12 mission patch has four stars on it – one each for the three astronauts who flew the mission, and one for Williams.

1969 – A Cuban defector entered US air space undetected and landed his Soviet made MiG-17 at Homestead Air Force Base near Miami, Florida, where the presidential aircraft Air Force One was waiting to return President Richard M. Nixon to DC.

1980 - Lockheed U-2R, 68-10340, Article 062, last of twelve R-model airframes in initial order, allocated N820X, first flown 26 November 1968, delivered to 100th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing 19 December 1968 and to 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing 1976. Crashes in Korea this date, pilot Capt. Cleve Wallace survives.

1990 – NASA astronaut and Coast Guard CDR Bruce Melnick made his first space flight when he served as a Mission Specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery on Space Shuttle Mission STS -41, which flew from 6 to 10 October 1990. Discovery deployed the Ulysses spacecraft for its five -year mission to explore the polar regions of the sun. CDR Melnick was the first Coast Guardsman selected by NASA for astronaut training.

 

[mhansen2]

6 October

1683 – German Quaker and Mennonite families found Germantown in the colony of Pennsylvania, marking the first major immigration of German people to America.

1781 – Americans and French began the siege of Cornwallis at Yorktown, the last battle of Revolutionary War. They began digging the first parallel trenches, a distance of 500 to 600 yards from the enemy’s works. A French wagon train arrived at the siege site.

1861 – USS Flag, Commander Louis C. Sartori, captured Confederate blockade running schooner Alert near Charleston.

1864 - CSS Constance Decima was a side-wheel steamer, 345 bulk tons, 163 registered tons, 140 tons. Length 201 feet 5 inches, beam 20 feet 2 inches, depth 9 feet 5 inches, draft 6 feet. Crew of twenty-nine. Cargo of weapons and possibly some gold to buy cotton.

While en-route from Nova Scotia for Charleston, South Carolina, Constance Decima hit the wreck of Confederate blockade runner Georgiana and sank a mile out and 2 miles east of Breach Inlet in 15 feet of water. The wreck was discovered in 1967.

1884 – Department of the Navy establishes the Naval War College at Newport, RI. Secretary of the Navy William E. Chandler signed General Order 325, which began by simply stating: “A college is hereby established for an advanced course of professional study for naval officers, to be known as the Naval War College.”

1942 – An additional Lend -lease agreement is signed in Washington by representatives of the USA and the USSR. Between this date and July 1943 it is planned to deliver 4,400,000 tons of supplies to the Soviet Union, 75 percent by sea, the rest though Iran.

1947 – Former USS Crittenden (APA-77) took part in the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll, then was towed to San Francisco and sunk in an explosives test off California either off the Farallone Islands or San Clemente Island (sources differ).

1958 – USS Seawolf (SSN-578) remained a record 60 days under the north polar ice.

1961 – JFK advised Americans to build fallout shelters from atomic fallout in the event of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union.

1966 – Test pilot Mike Adams flew the X-15 to 22,982 meters (75,404 feet) and Mach 3.00.

1981 – Egyptian Pres. Anwar Sadat was killed by an assassin at the parade ground of Nasser City by Islamic fundamentalists during a ceremony commemorating the Egyptian crossing of the Suez Canal during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

2008 – Former USS O'Bannon (DD-987) was sunk as a target off Virginia by aircraft from USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69).

 

[mhansen2]

7 October

1862 – “Dunkirk” was a Union Brig of 293 tons carrying a cargo of Flour and Portuguese Bibles on route from New York City for Lisbon, Portugal. She was captured and burned off Nova Scotia by CSS Alabama.

1862 – “Francis Elmor” (aka Frances Elmore) was a Union schooner. With a cargo of hay, she was captured and burned off Popes Creek, Virginia, in the Potomac River by a Confederate boarding party led by Lt. John Taylor Wood. The crew of 7 was later released.

1862 – “Wave Crest” was a Union bark of 409 tons carrying a cargo of grain out of New York City for Cardiff, Wales when she was captured, used for target practice and then burned southeast of Nova Scotia by CSS Alabama.

1862 – “Blanche” was a British side wheel paddle steamer of 750 tons built in 1857 at Wilmington, Delaware. as merchantman PSS General Rusk. She was seized by the state of Texas and converted to a blockade runner and renamed PSS Blanche.

While on route to Havana, Cuba she was chased by wooden screw steamer USS Montgomery to Maiano Beach, Cuba. She was then burned either by the crew of Montgomery or her own crew.

Strong protests were made by Britain & Spain over violation of neutral water by the Union Navy. Reparations were paid to Spain by the United States and Cdr. Charles Hunter captain of the USS Montgomery was court martialed, convicted of violating Spanish territorial jurisdiction and dismissed from the US Navy.

1863 – “Robert Fulton” was a Confederate side-wheel steamer of 158 tons, built in 1860 at California, Pa that was captured with a cargo of stores, along with steamer Argus (see below) near the mouth of Red River, Louisiana, by the USS Osage. She was burned when the Union crew could not pass a shoal to get into the Mississippi River.

1863 – “Argus” was a Confederate steamer that was captured and burned together with Robert Fulton (see above) by USS Osage while at anchor in Red River.

1863 – “Pushmataha” was a British flagged sloop used for Confederate commercial interests. While in company with another schooner, she was chased ashore by gunboat USS Cayuga at the mouth of the Mermentau River, Louisiana, 0.75 miles from the beach.

Pushmataha was carrying a cargo of rum, claret and French gunpowder. She was stripped of all but two kegs of gunpowder and blown up by a Union boarding party.

1863 – “Argus” was a Confederate States steamer used for transportation. She was captured and burned by monitor USS Osage while at anchor on the Red River in Louisiana.

1864 – USS Wachusett, a screw sloop-of-war of 1,032 tons, illegally captures the CSS Florida Confederate raider while in port in Bahia, Brazil in violation of Brazilian neutrality.

1949 - USS Chehalis (AOG-48) lay alongside the navy dock at Tutuila, American Samoa, when one of her gasoline tanks exploded, killing six of her 75-man crew. The ship burst into flames, capsized, and sank in 45 feet of water. She later slid off the ledge, atop of which she had originally sunk, into 150 feet of water. She was stricken from the Naval Register on the 27th October 1949.

1952 - A US Air Force RB-29 Superfortress “Sunbonnet King” (44-61815) of the 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron was shot down over the Kurile Islands, between Yuri Island and Akiyuri Island, by two Soviet La-11 Fang fighters, flown by Alekseyevich Zhiryakov and Lesnov.

The crew of eight, Eugene M. English, John R. Dunham, Paul E. Brock, Samuel A. Colgan, John A Hirsch, Thomas G. Shipp, Fred G. Kendrick and Frank E. Neail III, were all listed as missing, presumed dead. Soviet search and rescue units recovered the body of one crewman, John R. Dunham. His remains were initially buried on Yuri Island in the Kurile chain, but were returned to the US in the 1994.

1953 - Second Lt. G. A. Thomas, of the 18th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, based at Saint Paul, Minnesota, departs from Yuma, Arizona, on a gunnery training flight, in an F-86A Sabre, but has an emergency and attempts to bail out. The pilot's body is found Wednesday 7 October, 25 miles S of the Mexican-American border. March AFB officials said that the downed fighter was located on Thursday, four miles N of the border.

1958 – The U.S. manned space-flight project is renamed Project Mercury. Originally it was called Project Astronaut, but President Dwight Eisenhower thought that it gave too much attention to the pilot. Instead, the name Mercury was chosen from Greco-Roman mythology, which already lent names to rockets like the Atlas and Jupiter. It absorbed military projects with the same aim such as the Air Force Man-in-Space-Soonest.

1963 – President Kennedy signed the documents of ratification for a limited nuclear test ban treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union. Testing was outlawed in the atmosphere, underwater and in outer space.

1963 - -Test pilot Joe Engle flew the X-15 to 23,713 meters (77,802 feet) and Mach 4.20.

1964 – Former USS Barbero (SS-317) was sunk as a target off Pearl Harbor.

1975 – President Gerald Ford signs law allowing admission of women into service academies (Public Law 94 -106).

1985 – The United States announced it would no longer automatically comply with World Court decisions. This was in response to a June 25, 1985, World Court ruling that U.S. involvement in Nicaragua violated international law. The ruling stemmed from a suit brought in April 1984 after revelations that the CIA had directed the mining of Nicaraguan ports. The U.S. later vetoed two U.N. resolutions calling for compliance to the World Court ruling.

1985 – Four Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) gunmen hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians held by Israel. 413 people were held hostage for 2 days in the seizure that was masterminded by Mohammed Abul Abbas. American Leon Klinghoffer was shot while sitting in his wheelchair and thrown overboard.

 

[mhansen2]

8 October

1775 – Officers decided to bar slaves and free blacks from Continental Army. This decision will be formalized by the Continental Congress in November.

1812 – Boat party under Lt. Jesse D. Elliott captures HMS Detroit and Caledonia in Niagara River. Adams-a newly constructed 200-ton brig-was purchased during the summer of 1812 by General William Hull, the Army commander at Detroit (now in Michigan) to add to the defenses of that forward outpost. However, before the ship could be armed Hull sur rendered her along with Detroit on 16 August 1812. The British armed the prize and commissioned her as HMS Detroit. She and HMS Caledonia gave the British undisputed control of Lake Erie. All changed early in the morning when a boat expedition commanded by Lt. Jesse D. Elliott captured the two vessels right under the muzzles of the guns at Fort Erie. Caledonia made it safely to the temporary American base at Black Rock, but Detroit, owing to light wind, was swept away by the Niagara River’s strong current and was forced to anchor within range of British guns. An artillery duel ensued.

Elliott brought all his guns to his engaged side and continued the cannonade until his supply of ammunition was exhausted. Thereupon, he cut the cable; and the brig drifted down the river. She grounded on Squaw Island within range of both British and: American batteries. Elliott and his men abandoned her, and almost immediately, some two score British soldiers took brief possession of the brig. American guns soon drove them out with great loss, and both sides began pounding her with gunfire. The Americans finally set fire to and destroyed the battered hulk.

1842 – Commodore Lawrence Kearny in USS Constitution addresses a letter to the Viceroy of China, urging that American merchants in China be granted the same treaty privileges as the British. His negotiations are successful.

1864 - USS Aster (ex-Alice) was a Union wooden screw steam tug of 285 tons, built in 1864 at Wilmington, Del.

She grounded while chasing the blockade-runner, steamer Annie. The tug USS Berberry tried to pull Aster off but failed. To avoid capture, she was burned on the North Carolina Shoals off New Inlet.

1864 - USS Picket Boat No.2 was a Union screw steam 'torpedo' boat, built at Boston. While en-route from Baltimore to Hampton Roads to join Lt. William Barker Cushing's expedition against the CSS Albemarle, her engine broke down and she anchored in the Great Wicomico Bay near the mouth of Reason Creek.

On this date the vessel was attacked and captured by Confederate guerrillas under Capt. S. Covington when it ran aground on Potomac River oyster beds.

USS Commodore Read, formerly the ferryboat Atlantic, and tug USS Mercury later shelled the USS Picket Boat No.2 and the Confederates scuttled it after salvaging her 12-pounder howitzer.

1918 – Sgt. Alvin C. York almost single-handedly killed 25 German soldiers and captured 132 in the Argonne Forest in France.

1942 - "Long Beach, Oct. 8 - Capt. Don E. Brown, 25, son of Actor Joe E. Brown, was killed in the crash of an army bomber near Palm Springs this afternoon. An announcement from ferrying command said 'Capt. Brown was on a routine flight from the Long Beach air base to Utah when the crash occurred nine miles north of Palm Springs. Brown was flying alone.'” Douglas A-20B-DL Havoc, 41-3295, of the 1st Ferrying Squadron, 6th Ferrying Group, Long Beach AAF, crashed after takeoff due to engine failure.

1943 - First (of two) Northrop XP-56 tailless flying wing fighters, 42-1786, suffers blown left main tire during ~130 mph (210 km/h) taxi across Muroc Dry Lake, Muroc Air Base, California. Aircraft tumbles, goes airborne, throws pilot John Myers clear before crashing inverted, airframe destroyed. Pilot, wearing a polo helmet for protection, suffers only minor injuries.

1945 - YMS-478 ran aground at Wakanoura, Japan this date; Hulk destroyed 24 October 1945.

1947 – Test pilot Chuck Yeager flew the X-1 to Mach 0.925 in an instrumentation calibration flight.

1952 – Test pilot Jean Ziegler flew the X-2 on its first glide flight.

1952 - A US Air Force Boeing B-29A-75-BN Superfortress, 44-62320, of the 1st Bomb Squadron, 9th Bomb Wing, 15th Air Force, Travis AFB, California, and a Lockheed F-94A-5-LO, 49-2574, of the 318th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 4704th Defense Wing, McChord AFB, Washington, collide 1.5 miles N of Wilsonville, Oregon. The B-29 was making a simulated attack on Portland, Oregon, when it was struck by the F-94, making a simulated gunnery pass. Fighter landed at the Aurora State Airport, but the B-29 was lost with all 11 crew killed.

1952 - A US Air Force C-47 was fired on near Berlin Germany.

1952 – Operation RED COW, a joint Navy -Air Force mission against enemy positions near Kaesong, was conducted with Navy F2H Banshee fighter jets from Task Force 77 providing fighter escort for Air Force B-29 Super Fortress bombers. This was one of only two instances in the war in which Navy fighters escorted Air Force bombers.

1953 - "Three Air Force fliers died in the blazing wreckage of their jet bomber which crashed Thursday at 4:55 p.m., 15 miles southeast of Riverside while on a test flight. An Air Force spokesman said the plane was a jet B45 Tornado, stationed temporarily at Norton Air Force Base, San Bernardino, while undergoing repairs. He said the plane left Norton on a routine test flight at 4:18 p.m., carrying a crew consisting of a major and two first lieutenants. According to the Air Force spokesmen, the three officers were making final test runs with the plane before returning to their home base, which was unknown at the time. Names of the fliers are being withheld pending notification of relatives. The bodies were taken to Preston Funeral Home in Riverside." At 4:56 p.m., the Riverside sheriff's office received a call from an unidentified woman that a plane had crashed about seven miles SE of March Air Force Base, near Lakewood. The victims' bodies were badly charred as the wreckage burned for four hours. Reports that the plane exploded in air were disbelieved by investigators as the wreckage was concentrated in a small area. A board of Air Force officers will be appointed to investigate the accident, said Floyd K. Smith, civilian public information officer at Norton.

1953 - "PALM SPRINGS - Disaster to an Air Force C-47 and the plane's load of 28 was narrowly averted in Palm Springs. Merton Haskell, who with his brother Malcolm operates the Palm Springs Municipal Airport, said the carrier plane was reported in difficulties around 2 a.m. by the Civilian Aeronautics Authority [sic] station at Thermal, with one motor out of commission. Haskell commented, "we can thank the good Lord we have been keeping the lights on all night. The situation could have been bad." The plane's origin and destination have not been revealed, but it was reported that the passengers aboard were all Air Force jet pilots being transferred from one base to another. A crash landing was expected and police emergency patrol cars and fire station equipment rushed to the scene while Wiefels and Sons Palm Springs ambulance stood by. While spectators watched tensely, the pilot of the C-47 succeeded in making his emergency landing with only one motor of the twin-engine craft in operation."

1957 - USNS Mission San Miguel (T-AO-129) was on a voyage from Apra, Guam to Seattle, Washington when she ran aground on Maro Reef in the Hawaiian Islands while running at full speed and in ballast. When she began to go down by the stern, USNS LST-664 took off Mission San Miguel's crew despite darkness, 8-foot seas, and numerous reefs. Declared unfit for further naval service and salvage, she was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 20 December 1957.

1959 - A USAF Boeing B-47E-65-BW Stratojet, 51-5248, of the 307th Bomb Wing at Lincoln AFB, Nebraska, crashes during RATO take-off, killing instructor pilot Maj. Paul R. Ecelbarger, aircraft commander 1st Lt. Joseph R. Morrisey, and navigators Capt. Lucian W. Nowlin and Capt. Theodore Tallmadge.

1966 - Lockheed U-2C, 56-6690, of the 349th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, 100th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, develops technical problems while on high-altitude reconnaissance flight over North Vietnam, attempts to recover to base but crashes near Bien Hoa, South Vietnam. Pilot Maj. Leo J. Stewart ejects and survives. This is the only U.S. Air Force U-2 loss in theatre during the War in Southeast Asia.

1969 – Former USS Barton (DD-722) was sunk as a target off Virginia.

2014 - United States Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-15D-41-MC Eagle, 86-0182, c/n 0994/D062, of the 493d Fighter Squadron, 48th Fighter Wing, 'LN' tail code, crashed in a field at Broadgate, Weston Hills, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom. The pilot ejected and survived with minor injuries. He was taken by a HH-60G Pave Hawk from the resident 56th Rescue Squadron for evaluation at the RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk base hospital.