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

April 26: Anticipating an executive order from President Harry S. Truman
in July 1948, the Air Force became the first service to plan for racial
integration.
June 1: The Air Force Air Transport Command and the Navy Air Transport
Service merged into a new organization, the Military Air Transport
Service under the command of Maj. Gen. Laurence S. Kuter.
June 12: Congress passed the Women’s Armed Service Integration Act,
establishing Women in the Air Force.
June 16: Col. Geraldine P. May became the first director of Women in the
Air Force.
June 26: In response to a blockade instituted by the Soviet Union on June
24 of rail and road lines between the U.S., British, and French occupation
zones of western Germany and their occupation sectors in western
Berlin, the Allies launched the Berlin airlift. Called Operation
VITTLES by the United States and Operation PLANE FARE by the
British, the airlift delivered enough coal and food to sustain the city
indefinitely and became the largest humanitarian airlift in history.
C–54 Skymaster aircraft like this one carried most of the cargo during the
famous Berlin airlift of 1948–49.
1948
June 26: The 7th Bombardment Group received the Air Force’s first operational
B–36 Peacemaker heavy bomber. With a length of 160 feet and
wings spanning 230 feet, the Peacemaker was the world’s largest warplane.
The huge six-engine bomber was designed to deliver nuclear
weapons against an enemy on the other side of the globe.
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