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

1949–50
May 11: President Harry S. Truman signed a bill authorizing a 3,000-mile
guided-missile test range for the Air Force, subsequently established at
Cape Canaveral, Florida.
May 12: Faced with the success of the Berlin airlift, the Soviet Union ended
the land blockade of western Berlin. The airlift continued through
September 30, building up stockpiles of food and coal in case of a
renewed blockade.
July 1: The Air Force established the USAF Medical Service, headed by Maj.
Gen. Malcolm C. Grow, the first surgeon general of the Air Force.
July 27: The DeHavilland Comet, the world’s first commercial jet aircraft,
flew for the first time.
August 10: President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act
amendments of 1949, revising the unification legislation of 1947 and
converting the National Military Establishment into the Department
of Defense.
September 30: The Berlin airlift officially ended after 277,264 flights had
delivered 2,343,301.5 tons of supplies—1,783,826 tons of which were
carried by U.S. airplanes.
November 18: A C–74 Globemaster I became the first airplane to cross the
Atlantic Ocean with more than 100 people aboard. The airplane flew
from Mobile, Alabama, to Marham, England.
December 5: Upon the U.S. detection of a Soviet atomic explosion in
August 1949, the Air Force diverted $50 million from other projects to
begin construction of radar sites in Alaska and other areas of the
United States.
1950
January 15: General of the Air Force Henry H. Arnold, USAF, retired, died
of a heart ailment at Sonoma, California.
June 25: North Korean Communist forces invaded South Korea. North
Korean fighter aircraft attacked nearby Kimpo Airfield, destroying a
USAF C–54 on the ground. The United Nations Security Council
passed a resolution calling for the evacuation of North Korean forces
from South Korea, and Fifth Air Force prepared to airlift U.S. citizens
from Seoul, the South Korean capital.
June 26: F–82 Twin Mustang aircraft from the 68th Fighter All-Weather
Squadron provided fighter cover for a Norwegian ship evacuating U.S.
citizens from Seoul by sea. SB–17 airplanes provided rescue cover for
the ship, which sailed from Inchon to Japan.
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