San Diego, California • December 29, 1939 On this date in 1939 a prototype 4‑engine heavy bomber took off from San Diego’s Lindberg Field on its maiden flight. The flight lasted 17 minutes. Designed by Consolidated Aircraft, the prototype was initially known in-house as Model 32. Besides its distinctive twin tails and slab sides that allowed for…
Washington, D.C. • December 28, 1941 The Seabees were in effect combat engineers of the U.S. Navy, working and, when necessary, fighting on land. On this date in 1941 Rear Admiral Ben Moreell requested authority to organize a militarized Naval Construction Force, and a week later he gained permission from the Bureau of Navigation (later…
Boljanić, German-Occupied Yugoslavia • December 27, 1944 On this date in December 1944 the last 20 U.S. airmen were extracted in a hazardous Balkan air rescue courtesy of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Operation Halyard (aka Halyard Mission) began nearly 5 months earlier on August 2, though it had been…
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Near Bad Orb, Germany • December 26, 1944 On the first day in December 1939, 4 months since the outbreak of war in Europe, the German Wehrmacht (military) established a prisoner of war camp, Mannschafts-Stammlager IX B, outside Bad Orb, roughly 30 miles/48 km northeast of Frankfurt am Main in the state of Hessen. Over the course of the…
101st Airborne Command Post, Bastogne, Belgium • December 25, 1944 On Christmas Eve 1944 in the German-besieged Eastern Belgian town of Bastogne (population 3,500), soldiers of the armorless U.S. 101st Airborne “Screaming Eagles” Division, elements of the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions, and several combat engineer and field artillery battalions received rations of brandy and listened…
Changsha, Hunan Province, China • December 24, 1941 In the years since the political upheaval that brought Emperor Meiji to power (1868–1912), the Japanese began looking to the Asian mainland as a wellspring of new mineral, agricultural, and human resources to exploit for their use, benefit, and advantage. In the mid-1890s and 1905–1910 Japan brought the…
Long Beach, California • December 23, 1941 Of all the workhorse aircraft in World War II, none was more widely and effectively deployed than the Douglas C‑47 military transport. Nicknamed the “Gooney Bird” by American crewmen and passengers, the C‑47 Skytrain was a derivative of the Douglas propeller-driven commercial airliner, the DC‑3. (The British and Australians…
British Crown Colony of Hong Kong • December 22, 1941 The British Crown Colony of Hong Kong consisted of Hong Kong Island (since 1842) and the Kowloon peninsula (since 1860) opposite the island. The New Territories across Kowloon Bay on the South China mainland was leased for 99 years. (See map below.) Together with several hundred…
Bucharest, Romania • December 21, 1937 On this date in 1937 Romania’s last free elections (until 1990) ended in the ouster of the middle-of-the road National Liberal government. The Liberals, who remained the largest party in parliament, were unable to form a coalition government with the next 2 runner-up parties. A week later King Carol II named the…