1862: One year after the Confederacy’s “glorious but dear-bought victory” over the Union in the First Battle of Bull Run, the two (significantly larger) armies meet again on the same battleground. 70,000 soldiers of Union Gen. Maj. Gen. John Pope’s Army of Virginia clash with Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s 50,000-man Army of Northern Virginia, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides. Five divisions (25,000 men), led by Maj. Gen. James Longstreet, will conduct the largest mass assault of the war, and the Union will once again withdraw.
1944: Army Air Force pilots Maj. Joseph Myers and 2nd Lt. Manford Croy, Jr., flying P-47 “Thunderbolts”, become the first fighter pilots to score a victory over a jet aircraft when they shoot down German pilot Hieronymus Lauer’s Me 262.
P-47
Meanwhile, the First Army crosses the Marne River in France just days after the liberation of Paris, and to the south, the coastal towns of Marseilles and Toulon surrender to the Allies.
1945: An advance party of 150 soldiers – the first American troops to set foot in Japan – land at the naval airfield at Atsugi to prepare for the 11th Airborne Division’s arrival in two days.
1952: Off the Korean coast, USS Boxer launches the first “guided missile” ever fired from an aircraft carrier – a radio-controlled F6F-5K “Hellcat” fighter fitted with 1,000-lb. bombs. A pilot controlled the drone, which was fitted with a TV camera, from a two-seat AD-2Q “Skyraider.” Of the six drones launched by Boxer, only one will reach its target.
F6F-5K “Hellcat”
1972: (Featured Image) Air Force Capt. Richard S. Ritchie, flying a two-seat F-4D “Phantom”, shoots down a North Vietnamese MiG-21 fighter near Hanoi, becoming one of only two American pilot aces during the Vietnam War. His weapons systems officer, Capt. Charles B. DeBellevue will be credited with six victories.
MiG-21
Also on this day, President Richard Nixon announces that the military draft will end by July of 1973.
