One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University
One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University
One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University
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1945<br />
Command dropped two Allied airborne divisions on the other side <strong>of</strong><br />
the Rhine near Wesel, Germany.<br />
March 27–28: Almost 100 B–29 Superfortresses from bases in the Mariana<br />
Islands dropped mines in the Shimonoseki Strait <strong>of</strong> Japan to stop<br />
shipping between the islands <strong>of</strong> Honshu and Kyushu. This B–29 mining<br />
operation was the first <strong>of</strong> many against Japan.<br />
March 30: <strong>The</strong> Army <strong>Air</strong> Forces launched its final B–29 mission from India.<br />
Twenty-six B–29s <strong>of</strong> XX Bomber Command raided Japanese facilities<br />
on Bakum Island near Singapore.<br />
April 7: Twentieth <strong>Air</strong> Force launched the first fighter-escorted B–29 raid on<br />
Japan. Acquisition <strong>of</strong> the island <strong>of</strong> Iwo Jima, after heavy fighting in<br />
February and March, made this raid possible by providing a base<br />
within fighter range <strong>of</strong> Japan.<br />
April 10: About 50 German jet aircraft shot down 10 U.S. bombers over the<br />
Berlin area—the largest single-mission loss <strong>of</strong> bombers to enemy jets.<br />
<strong>The</strong> same day, the bombers and their escorts shot down at least 20 <strong>of</strong><br />
the German jets.<br />
April 25: Eighth <strong>Air</strong> Force flew its last mission against an industrial target,<br />
launching 274 heavy bombers with escorts to bomb the Skoda Works<br />
at Pilsen, Czechoslovakia.<br />
May 1–7: In Operation CHOWHOUND, Eighth <strong>Air</strong> Force and Royal <strong>Air</strong><br />
Force bombers dropped 7,859 tons <strong>of</strong> food to starving people in the<br />
Netherlands. By agreement with the Germans, the food was<br />
dropped from low altitude on Dutch airfields, racetracks, golf<br />
courses, and other high ground near towns and cities <strong>of</strong> the largely<br />
flooded country.<br />
May 8: World War II ended in Europe (V-E day).<br />
May 16: In the largest use <strong>of</strong> napalm in the Pacific War, almost 100 Far East<br />
<strong>Air</strong> Force P–38s attacked the Ipo Dam area <strong>of</strong> Luzon in the Philippines.<br />
July 16: Maj. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay assumed command <strong>of</strong> Twentieth <strong>Air</strong><br />
Force, which had been commanded directly by Army <strong>Air</strong> Forces commander<br />
Gen. Henry H. Arnold.<br />
July 16: <strong>The</strong> world’s first atomic bomb, having an explosive yield equal to 19<br />
kilotons <strong>of</strong> TNT, successfully detonated at Trinity Site near Alamagordo,<br />
New Mexico.<br />
August 6: In the first atomic bomb attack in history, Col. Paul W. Tibbets<br />
piloted a B–29 called Enola Gay from the island <strong>of</strong> Tinian in the Marianas<br />
to Hiroshima, Japan, destroying the city with a single bomb.<br />
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