Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » This Week In Military/Aviation History: 28 May

Hello Folks,

Do you realize that next week I’ll have been doing this weekly post for six months already? Almost 26 weeks have gone by since I started. How am I doing? Why don’t you leave a comment and let me know. Do you realize how many trivia contests or free sodas you could have won with these snippets of history? A bunch! Memorial Day (observed) has come and gone and with it the unofficial start of the summer season. When I started it was the dead of winter. What a difference a few months make. Well, let’s get down to some history…

30 May 1912
Pioneer aviator Wilbur Wright died from typhoid fever.

2 June 1912
A machine-gun was fired from an airplane for the first time. Captain Charles de Forest Chandler of the United States Signal Corps fired a Lewis gun from a Wright Model B biplane piloted by Lieutenant Thomas de Witt Milling at Maryland, USA.

31 May 1915
German Zeppelin LZ38 made the first bombing raid on London, dropping 3,000 pounds of bombs, killing seven civilians and injuring fourteen.

1 June 1915
The United States Navy ordered their first airship, the A1 (DN1), from the Connecticut Aircraft Company.

30 May 1917
After flying overnight from Chicago, t United States Navy’s B1 dirigible (steerable airship) arrived at Akron, Ohio.

31 May 1917
Austrian pilot Linienschiffleutnant G. Banfield, at the controls of a Pfalz AII fighter, forced down an Italian seaplane, achieving the first Austro-Hungarian victory against enemy night-bombers.

June 1917
The first German Staaken RVI four-engine bomber became operational.

2 June 1917
The Aviation Section of the United States Army Signal Corps became the Airplane Division.

29 May 1918
Brigadier General Mason Patrick was made the Chief of the US Air Service in France.

31 May 1918
1st Lieutenant Douglas Campbell shot down his fifth German airplane to become the US Army’s first ace.

June 1918
Oberleutnant Ernst Udet received the Pour le Merite.

2 June 1918
Oberleutnant Erich Lowenhardt received the Pour le Merite.

29 May 1937
German Battleship ‘Deutchland’ was attacked by Spanish Republican air units near Ivaza in the Balearic Islands. 28 people were killed and 71 injured.

June 1938
Pabst von Ohain’s Heinkel HeS 3B turbojet was test flown beneath a Heinkel He 118.

31 May 1939
A German/Danish non-aggression pact was signed in Berlin.

2 June-4 July 1942
A costly but successful German assault on Sevastopol took place, supported by concentrated German Air Force bombing attacks.

29 May 1945
An advance party of the 509th Composite Group of the USAAF arrived in the Mariana Islands.

31 May 1945
The United States War Department announced that a woman and five children had been killed by a Japanese bomb-carrying balloon on 5 March at Lake View in Oregon.

31 May 1950
The Royal Australian Air Force sent a squadron of Douglas Dakota transport aircraft to assist British forces in Malaya.

2 June 1954
A Douglas DC-3 freighter belonging to Sabena, the Belgian airline was attacked by a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 jet.

28 May 1959
Two monkeys, Able and Baker were recovered unharmed after a 300 mile flight in a compartment in the nose cone of a Jupiter rocket.

1 June 1964
The Kenya Air Force was officially established, with British assistance.

30 May 1972
Three Japanese terrorists killed 25 people and injured 72 at Tel Aviv airport in Israel when they removed guns and grenades in their luggage and began shooting. The terrorists had just stepped off a flight from Rome.

30 May 1975
The European Space Agency was founded.

29 May 1987
19 year old West German Mathais Rust landed a light plane in Moscow’s Red Square.

June 1991
For the first time the secrets of a current Russian combat aircraft were displayed to a Western audience as a MiG-31 went on display at the Paris Air Show.

June 2000
Four MiG-27 ground attack aircraft were delivered to the Sri Lanken Air Force for use in the ongoing conflict against the insurgent group, the Tamil Tigers of Tamil Elam.
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That’s it for this one Folks! See ya in seven!!

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