One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University

1943–44
December 24: A total of 670 B–17s and B–24s bombed the Pas de Calais area
of France in the first major Eighth Air Force attack on German
V–weapon sites.
1944
January 4–5: Lt. Col. Clifford Heflin flew the first Army Air Forces mission
in Operation CARPETBAGGER from Tempsford, England, to France
to drop supplies at night to resistance forces.
January 6: Lt. Gen. Carl A. Spaatz, who had commanded U.S. air forces in
the Mediterranean theater, assumed command of Eighth Air Force,
replacing Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker. Spaatz had been Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s
air commander in the Mediterranean. Eisenhower was moving
to England to prepare for the invasion of France. At the same time,
Eaker replaced Spaatz in the Mediterranean.
January 8: Test pilot Milo Burcham flew the Lockheed XP–80 Lulu Belle for
the first time at Muroc Dry Lake, California. The P–80 became the first
U.S. fighter to exceed 500 miles per hour in level flight.
January 22: The Mediterranean Allied Air Force launched some 1,200 sorties
in support of Operation SHINGLE, the Allied amphibious invasion
of Anzio on the western coast of Italy.
February 3: Col. Philip Cochran led five P–51s on the first air-commando
combat mission against the Japanese in the China-Burma-India theater.
February 15: Some 250 Allied medium and heavy bombers attacked the
Nazi-occupied Abbey of Monte Cassino, Italy, to open the way for the
U.S. Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army to continue their offensive
toward Rome.
February 20–26: In what came to be known as “Big Week,” Eighth and Fifteenth
Air Force B–17s and B–24s launched heavy raids on German
aircraft factories and ball-bearing plants in an attempt to reduce the
Luftwaffe threat. Fighter escorts limited bomber losses to 6 percent.
February 22: Eighth Air Force was redesignated U.S. Strategic Air Forces in
Europe, and VIII Bomber Command was redesignated Eighth Air
Force.
March 4: Thirty-one B–17 Flying Fortresses flew the first U.S. daylight air
raid on the Berlin area of Germany, which had been bombed previously
only by the Royal Air Force at night. Eighth Air Force had
recalled the bombers after launch because of bad weather, but one
group carried out the mission.
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