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  • V-1 Buzz Bomb

    Germany answered the invasion of France by launching its first V-1 against London on the night of June 12-13. By July 21, 4,059 V-1s had been fired, 3,045 of which reached England. Although this "secret weapon" did little to alter the course of the war in France, it killed 3,875 people and injured

  • Winged Angels: USAAF Flight Nurses

    Before World War II (WWII), the US military was not properly equipped to evacuate wounded soldiers from the front lines. The need to access the remote battlefields of WWII drove the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) to revolutionize military medical care through air evacuation. At the same time, commercial

  • D-Day

    The first Allied amphibious troops hit the beaches of Normandy at 6:30 a.m. on June 6, 1944. Constant air cover was flown over the vast sea armada and the assault beaches, and only three Luftwaffe airplanes were sighted the first day. For the next several weeks while the Allies strengthened

  • USAAF Tactical Ground Attack in Southern Europe

    The 12th Air Force was the U.S. Army Air Forces' tactical arm in southern Europe from 1943 to the end of the war in 1945. The 12th Air Force played a key role in the success of the four major amphibious landings in southern Europe and in breaking the enemy's entrenched defensive lines in

  • USAAF Tactical Ground Attack in Western Europe

    The 9th Air Force was the tactical arm of the USAAF in western Europe from 1943 to the end of the war in 1945. The aircrews of the 9th Air Force "softened" the enemy before the invasion of Normandy, supported ground forces on D-Day and made possible their rapid advance through France to the Nazi

  • Long Cold Flights and Long Cold Days

    Attempting to stay warm during the long missions in the cold cockpit of the P-38, many pilots in Europe chose to wear the Army winter combat jacket that was popularly known as a "Tanker Jacket." 2nd Lt. John Carroll of the 55th Fighter Group was wearing this jacket when he was shot down over Holland

  • Ploesti

    While Allied and Axis forces were battling in Sicily, the USAAF staged one of the war's most daring heavy bomber raids. The target was the Ploesti oil fields in Rumania, estimated to be supplying 60 percent of Germany's crude oil requirements.Shortly after dawn on Aug. 1, 1943, USAAF B-24s took off

  • Pantelleria

    The capture of the islands of Pantelleria and Lampedusa, lying in the Mediterranean Sea between North Africa and Sicily, was vital to protect the flank of the planned invasion of Sicily. Geographic features made Pantelleria easily defended against an amphibious assault, so on May 18, 1943, an almost

  • North Africa

    In the spring of 1942, the German Afrika Korps, commanded by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, "The Desert Fox," had advanced eastward across North Africa to El Alamein, deep inside Egypt. The British called for U.S. aerial assistance and by July, the AAF had become sufficiently strong to join the RAF in

  • First Over the 'Hump:' The China National Aviation Corporation

    In early 1940, lone DC-3 passenger aircraft of the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) cautiously probed over and around the highest mountains in the world seeking air routes between China and India ... and to the outside world. CNAC's great success in finding these vital air routes led to