Aircraft in fiction
Various real-world aircraft have made significant appearances in fiction over the decades, including in books, toys, TV programs, video games, other media. These appearances spotlight the popularity of different models of aircraft, showcase the different types for the general public; the first aviation film was the 1911 William J. Humphrey–directed two-reeler, The Military Air-Scout, shot following an Aero Club of America flying meet at Long Island, New York, with Lt. Henry Arnold doing the stunt flying. "Arnold, who picked up'a few extra bucks' for his services, became so excited about movies that he quit the Army to become an actor."The years between World War I and World War II saw extensive use of the new technology, aircraft, in the new medium, film. In the early 1920s Hollywood studios made dozens of now-obscure "aerial Westerns" with leads such as Tom Mix and Hoot Gibson, where the role of the horse was taken by aircraft, or used aircraft as nothing more than vehicles for stunts to excite audiences.
In 1926 the first "proper" aviation film was made. Made with the co-operation of the United States' then-Department of War, it used front-line military aircraft of the day such as the Thomas-Morse MB-3 and Boeing PW-9, flown by military pilots. Future US Air Force Generals Hap Arnold and Hoyt Vandenberg were among the military officers involved with the production, Arnold as a technical consultant and Vandenberg as one of the pilots. Wings was a box-office hit when it achieved general release in 1929 and went on to win the award for Best Production at the first Academy Awards. In Fascist Italy in the 1930s, aviation-themed films were used as propaganda tools to complement the massed flights led by Italo Balbo in promoting the regime domestically and abroad. One such film was the most successful Italian film of the pre-World War II era; the film, set between 1921 and the Italo-Abyssinian War, was used to compare the moribund state of aviation in pre-Fascist Italy with the purported power of the Regia Aeronautica and Italian aviation in general in the 1930s.
However, by the time that Luciano Serra pilota was shown at the 1938 Venice Film Festival, the link between aviation and Fascism had been established in the minds of the Italian people through widespread depictions of aircraft in a variety of media. For example, there was an entire branch of the Futurist Art movement devoted to aviation, known as Aeropittura. While many of the Aeropittura works were devoted to flight rather than aircraft per se, some did celebrate Italian aviation exploits, such as Alfredo Ambrosi's Il volo su Vienna which depicted in Futurist style the World War I exploit of Gabriele d'Annunzio. In the US the use or denial of use of current military aircraft in films is determined by the US military itself; the armed services review all requests for the use of aircraft, by examining the scripts to ensure that aircraft will only be used in films that show the US military in a positive light. Because alternatives to using real military aircraft can be expensive, films that do not get US military approval do not get financed or made.
Sean McElwee, writing for Salon.com concluded of this problem, "This is a prima facie case for de facto censorship... If the government wants to allow its equipment to be used by studios, it needs to grant access to anyone who wants to use it –, the meaning of pluralism; the Pentagon fears that some of the movies may hurt the military's reputation and recruiting efforts. These concerns are legitimate, but it's more important that we allow John Stuart Mill's'market place of ideas' to be a place for free trade, rather than favoring some over others."Since the advent of television, aircraft have been featured in numerous miniseries and series around the world. These include the American productions Twelve O'Clock High, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Sky King and Wings. In the 1953 James A. Michener novel The Bridges at Toko-Ri a number of Douglas AD-1 Skyraiders fly RESCAP missions over a downed Grumman F9F Panther and Sikorsky HO3S-1 during the Korean War; this is the case in the 1954 film of the same name.
A flight of US Navy AD-1s stood in for unavailable Republic P-47 Thunderbolts in the 1962 production The Longest Day, based on the Cornelius Ryan non-fiction book of the same title. The A-1 Skyraider made appearances in the 1968 film The Green Berets, loosely based on the 1965 book of the same name by Robin Moore."Sandy" combat search and rescue missions were depicted in the 1991 John Milius film Flight of the Intruder based on the Stephen Coonts novel of the same title. The Skyraider was featured as one of the many aircraft providing close air support during the First Battle of the Ia Drang Valley Campaign in Mel Gibson's 2002 film We Were Soldiers, based on the non-fiction book We Were Soldiers Once… And Young by Lieutenant General Hal Moore and reporter Joseph L. Galloway. CGI-rendered US Navy Skyraiders were shown in the 200
Bell X-1
The Bell X-1, is a rocket-engine–powered aircraft, designated as the XS-1, was a joint National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics–U. S. Army Air Forces–U. S. Air Force supersonic research project built by Bell Aircraft. Conceived during 1944 and designed and built in 1945, it achieved a speed of nearly 1,000 miles per hour in 1948. A derivative of this same design, the Bell X-1A, having greater fuel capacity and hence longer rocket burning time, exceeded 1,600 miles per hour in 1954; the X-1, piloted by Chuck Yeager, was the first manned airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight and was the first of the X-planes, a series of American experimental rocket planes designed for testing new technologies. In 1942, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Aviation began a top secret project with Miles Aircraft to develop the world's first aircraft capable of breaking the sound barrier; the project resulted in the development of the prototype turbojet-powered Miles M.52, designed to reach 1,000 miles per hour in level flight, to climb to an altitude of 36,000 ft in 1 min 30 sec.
By 1944, design of the M.52 was 90% complete and Miles was told to go ahead with the construction of three prototypes. That year, the Air Ministry signed an agreement with the United States to exchange high-speed research and data. Miles' Chief Aerodynamicist Dennis Bancroft stated that Bell Aircraft personnel visited Miles in 1944, were given access to the drawings and research on the M.52, but the U. S. reneged on the agreement and no data was forthcoming in return. Unknown to Miles, Bell had started construction of a rocket-powered supersonic design of their own, with a conventional horizontal tail. Bell was battling the problem of pitch control due to "blanking" the elevators. A variable-incidence tail appeared to be the most promising solution; the XS-1 was first discussed in December 1944. Early specifications for the aircraft were for a piloted supersonic vehicle that could fly at 800 miles per hour at 35,000 feet for two to five minutes. On 16 March 1945, the U. S. Army Air Forces Flight Test Division and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics contracted with the Bell Aircraft Company to build three XS-1 aircraft to obtain flight data on conditions in the transonic speed range.
The aircraft's designers built a rocket plane after considering alternatives. Turbojets could not achieve the required performance at high altitude. An aircraft with both turbojet and rocket engines would be too complex; the X-1 was, in principle, a "bullet with wings", its shape resembling a Browning.50-caliber machine gun bullet, known to be stable in supersonic flight. The shape was followed to the extent of seating its pilot behind a sloped, framed window inside a confined cockpit in the nose, with no ejection seat. Swept wings were not used; as the design might lead to a fighter the XS-1 was intended to take off from the ground, but the end of the war made the B-29 Superfortress available to carry it into the air. After the rocket plane experienced compressibility problems during 1947, it was modified with a variable-incidence tailplane following technology transfer with the United Kingdom. Following conversion of the X-1's horizontal tail to all-moving, test pilot Chuck Yeager verified it experimentally, all subsequent supersonic aircraft would either have an all-moving tailplane or be "tailless" delta winged types.
The rocket engine was a four-chamber design built by Reaction Motors Inc. one of the first companies to build liquid-propellant rocket engines in the U. S. After considering hydrogen peroxide and aniline, nitromethane as fuels, the rocket burned ethyl alcohol diluted with water with a liquid oxygen oxidizer, its four chambers could be individually turned on and off, so thrust could be changed in 1,500 lbf increments. The fuel and oxygen tanks for the first two X-1 engines were pressurized with nitrogen, reducing flight time by about 1 1⁄2 minutes and increasing landing weight by 2,000 pounds, but the rest used gas-driven turbopumps, increasing the chamber pressure and thrust while making the engine lighter. Bell Aircraft chief test pilot Jack Woolams became the first person to fly the XS-1, he made a glide-flight over Pinecastle Army Airfield, in Florida, on 25 January 1946. Woolams completed nine more glide-flights over Pinecastle, with the B-29 dropping the aircraft at 29,000 feet and the XS-1 landing 12 minutes at about 110 miles per hour.
In March 1946 the #1 rocket plane was returned to Bell Aircraft in Buffalo, New York for modifications to prepare for the powered flight tests. Four more glide tests occurred at Muroc Army Air Field near Palmdale, flooded during the Florida tests, before the first powered test on 9 December 1946. Two chambers were ignited, but the aircraft accelerated so that one chamber was turned off until reignition at 35,000 feet, reaching Mach 0.795. After the chambers were turned off the aircraft descended to 15,000 feet, where all four chambers were tested. After Woolams' death on 30 August 1946, Chalmers "Slick" Goodlin was the primary Bell Aircraft test pilot for the X-1-1, he made 26 successful flights in both X-1s from September 1946 through June 1947. The Army Air Forces was unhappy with the cautious pace of flight envelope expansion and Bell Aircraft's flight test contract for airplane #46-062 was term
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States from 1945 to 1953, succeeding upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt after serving as vice president, he implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe, established the Truman Doctrine and NATO. Truman was elected to the United States Senate in 1934 and gained national prominence as chairman of the Truman Committee aimed at waste and inefficiency in wartime contracts. Soon after succeeding to the presidency he authorized the first and only use of nuclear weapons in war. Truman's administration renounced isolationism, he rallied his New Deal coalition during the 1948 presidential election and won a surprise victory that secured his own presidential term. Truman oversaw the Berlin Airlift of 1948; when Communist North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, he gained United Nations approval for the large policy action known as the Korean War. It saved South Korea but the Chinese intervened, driving back the UN/US forces and preventing a rollback of Communism in North Korea.
On domestic issues, bills endorsed by Truman faced opposition from a conservative Congress, but his administration guided the U. S. economy through the post-war economic challenges. In 1948 he submitted the first comprehensive civil rights legislation and issued Executive Orders to start racial integration in the military and federal agencies. Allegations of corruption in the Truman administration became a central campaign issue in the 1952 presidential election and accounted for Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower's electoral victory against Democrat Adlai Stevenson II. Truman's financially difficult retirement was marked by the founding of his presidential library and the publication of his memoirs; when he left office, Truman's presidency was criticized, but scholars rehabilitated his image in the 1960s and he is ranked as one of the best presidents. Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri, on May 8, 1884, the oldest child of John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen Young Truman, his namesake was Harrison "Harry" Young.
His middle initial "S" honors Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. A brother, John Vivian, was born soon followed by sister Mary Jane. Truman's ancestry is English and less Scotch-Irish, German or French. John Truman was a livestock dealer; the family lived in Lamar until Harry was ten months old, when they moved to a farm near Harrisonville, Missouri. The family next moved to Belton, in 1887 to his grandparents' 600-acre farm in Grandview; when Truman was six, his parents moved to Independence, so he could attend the Presbyterian Church Sunday School. He did not attend a traditional school. While living in Independence, he served as a Shabbos goy for Jewish neighbors, doing tasks for them on Shabbat that their religion prevented them from doing on that day. Truman was interested in music and history, all encouraged by his mother, with whom he was close; as president, he solicited political as well as personal advice from her. He rose at five every morning to practice the piano, which he studied more than twice a week until he was fifteen.
Truman worked as a page at the 1900 Democratic National Convention in Kansas City. After graduating from Independence High School in 1901, Truman enrolled in Spalding's Commercial College, a Kansas City business school, he made use of his business college experience to obtain a job as a timekeeper on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, sleeping in hobo camps near the rail lines. He took on a series of clerical jobs, was employed in the mail room of The Kansas City Star. Truman and his brother Vivian worked as clerks at the National Bank of Commerce in Kansas City, he returned to the Grandview farm in 1906, where he lived until entering the army in 1917 after the beginning of the Great War. During this period, he courted Bess Wallace. Truman said he intended to propose again, but he wanted to have a better income than that earned by a farmer. To that end, during his years on the farm and after World War I, he became active in several business ventures, including a lead and zinc mine near Commerce, Oklahoma, a company that bought land and leased the oil drilling rights to prospectors, speculation in Kansas City real estate.
Truman derived some income from these enterprises, but none proved successful in the long term. Truman is the only president since William McKinley not to earn a college degree. In addition to having attended business college, from 1923 to 1925 he took night courses toward an LL. B. at the Kansas City Law dropped out after losing reelection as county judge. He was informed by attorneys in the Kansas City area that his education and experience were sufficient to receive a license to practice law. However, he did not pursue it. While serving as president in 1947, Truman applied for a license to practice law. A friend, an attorney began working out the arrangements, informed Truman that his application had to be notarized. By the time Truman received this information he had changed his mind, so he never sought notarization. After rediscovery of Truman's application, in 1996 the Missour
California
California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U. S. the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento; the Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, the country's second most populous, after New York City. California has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, its largest county by area, San Bernardino County; the City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. California's $3.0 trillion economy is larger than that of any other state, larger than those of Texas and Florida combined, the largest sub-national economy in the world. If it were a country, California would be the 5th largest economy in the world, the 36th most populous as of 2017.
The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies, after the New York metropolitan area. The San Francisco Bay Area PSA had the nation's highest GDP per capita in 2017 among large PSAs, is home to three of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people. California is considered a global trendsetter in popular culture, innovation and politics, it is considered the origin of the American film industry, the hippie counterculture, fast food, the Internet, the personal computer, among others. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are seen as global centers of the technology and entertainment industries, respectively. California has a diverse economy: 58% of the state's economy is centered on finance, real estate services and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.
S. state. California is bordered by Oregon to the north and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; the state's diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the east, from the redwood–Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. Although California is well-known for its warm Mediterranean climate, the large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains. Over time and wildfires have become more pervasive features. What is now California was first settled by various Native Californian tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries; the Spanish Empire claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its successful war for independence but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War.
The western portion of Alta California was organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850. The California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom; the word California referred to the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico. The name derived from the mythical island California in the fictional story of Queen Calafia, as recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo; this work was the fifth in a popular Spanish chivalric romance series that began with Amadis de Gaula. Queen Calafia's kingdom was said to be a remote land rich in gold and pearls, inhabited by beautiful black women who wore gold armor and lived like Amazons, as well as griffins and other strange beasts. In the fictional paradise, the ruler Queen Calafia fought alongside Muslims and her name may have been chosen to echo the title of a Muslim leader, the Caliph. It's possible.
Know ye that at the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California close to that part of the Terrestrial Paradise, inhabited by black women without a single man among them, they lived in the manner of Amazons. They were robust of body with great virtue; the island itself is one of the wildest in the world on account of the craggy rocks. Shortened forms of the state's name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000; the Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups were diverse in their political organization with bands, villages, on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash and Salinan.
Trade, intermarriage a
Jet aircraft
A jet aircraft is an aircraft propelled by jet engines. Whereas the engines in propeller-powered aircraft achieve their maximum efficiency at much lower speeds and altitudes, jet engines and aircraft achieve maximum efficiency at speeds close to or well above the speed of sound. Jet aircraft cruise at faster than about Mach 0.8 at altitudes around 10,000–15,000 metres or more. Frank Whittle, an English inventor and RAF officer, developed the concept of the jet engine in 1928, Hans von Ohain in Germany developed the concept independently in the early 1930s, he wrote in February 1936 to Ernst Heinkel, who led the construction of the world's first turbojet aircraft and jet plane Heinkel He 178. However, it can be argued that the English engineer A. A. Griffith, who published a paper in July 1926 on compressors and turbines deserves credit. After the first instance of powered flight, a large number of jet powerplants were suggested. René Lorin, Harris proposed systems for creating a jet efflux. In 1910 the Romanian inventor Henri Coandă filed a patent on a jet propulsion system which used piston-engine exhaust gases to add heat to an otherwise pure air stream compressed by rotating fan blades in a duct.
It was installed in his Coandă-1910 but this craft never flew. Rocket-powered jet aircraft were pioneered in Germany; the first aircraft to fly under rocket power was the Lippisch Ente, in 1928. The Ente had been flown as a glider; the next year, in 1929, the Opel RAK.1 became the first purpose-built rocket plane to fly. The turbojet was invented in the 1930s, independently by Frank Whittle and Hans von Ohain; the first turbojet aircraft to fly was the Heinkel He 178 V1 first prototype of the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, on August 27, 1939 in Rostock. The first flight of a jet-engined aircraft to come to public attention was the Italian Caproni Campini N.1 motorjet prototype that flew on August 27, 1940. It was the first jet aircraft recognised by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Campini had proposed the motorjet in 1932; the British experimental Gloster E.28/39 first took to the air on May 15, 1941, powered by Sir Frank Whittle's turbojet. The United States produced the Bell XP-59A using two examples of a version of the Whittle engine built by General Electric, which flew on October 1, 1942.
The Meteor was the first production jet as it entered production a few months before the Me 262, which itself had been in development since before the start of the war as Projekt 1065. The first operational jet fighter was the Messerschmitt Me 262, manufactured by Germany during World War II, which entered service on 19 April 1944 with Erprobungskommando 262 at Lechfeld just south of Augsburg, it was the fastest conventional aircraft of World War II – although there were faster aircraft propelled by unconventional means, such as the rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet. The Messerschmitt Me 262 had first flown on April 18, 1941, with initial plans drawn up by Dr Waldemar Voigt's design team in April 1939, but mass production did not start until early 1944 with the first squadrons operational that year, too late for a decisive effect on the outcome of the war. Around this time, mid 1944, the United Kingdom's Gloster Meteor was being committed to defence of the UK against the V-1 flying bomb – itself a pulsejet-powered aircraft and direct ancestor of the cruise missile– and ground-attack operations over Europe in the last months of the war.
In 1944 Germany introduced into service the Arado Ar 234 jet reconnaissance and bomber, though chiefly used in the former role, with the Heinkel He 162 Spatz single-jet light fighter premiering as 1944 ended. USSR tested its own Bereznyak-Isayev BI-1 in 1942, but the project was scrapped by Joseph Stalin in 1945; the Imperial Japanese Navy developed jet aircraft in 1945, including the Nakajima J9Y Kikka, a modified, smaller version of the Me 262 that had folding wings. By the end of 1945, the US had introduced their first jet fighter, the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star into service and the UK its second fighter design, the de Havilland Vampire; the US introduced the North American B-45 Tornado, their first jet bomber, into service in 1948. Although capable of carrying nuclear weapons it was used for reconnaissance over Korea. On November 8, 1950, during the Korean War, United States Air Force Lt. Russell J. Brown, flying in an F-80, intercepted two North Korean MiG-15s near the Yalu River and shot them down in the first jet-to-jet dogfight in history.
The UK put the English Electric Canberra into service in 1951 as a light bomber. It was designed to fly faster than any interceptor. BOAC operated the first commercial jet service, from London to Johannesburg, in 1952 with the de Havilland Comet jetliner; this innovative aircraft travelled far faster and higher than the propeller aircraft, was much quieter and had stylish blended wings containing hidden jet engines. However, due to a design defect, use of aluminium alloys, the aircraft suffered catastrophic metal fatigue which led to several crashes; the series of crashes gave time for the Boeing 707 to enter service in 1958 and this came to dominate the market for civilian airliners. The underslung engines were found to be advantageous in the event of a propellant leak, so the 707 looked rather different from the Comet: the 707 has a shape, the same as that of contemporary aircraft, with marked commonality still evident today for example with the 737 and A340. Turbofan aircraft began ente
World War II
World War II known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries; the major participants threw their entire economic and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China, it included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, the only use of nuclear weapons in war. Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, was at war with China by 1937, though neither side had declared war on the other. World War II is said to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom.
From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Finland and the Baltic states. Following the onset of campaigns in North Africa and East Africa, the fall of France in mid 1940, the war continued between the European Axis powers and the British Empire. War in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz, the long Battle of the Atlantic followed. On 22 June 1941, the European Axis powers launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the largest land theatre of war in history; this Eastern Front trapped most crucially the German Wehrmacht, into a war of attrition. In December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States as well as European colonies in the Pacific. Following an immediate U. S. declaration of war against Japan, supported by one from Great Britain, the European Axis powers declared war on the U.
S. in solidarity with their Japanese ally. Rapid Japanese conquests over much of the Western Pacific ensued, perceived by many in Asia as liberation from Western dominance and resulting in the support of several armies from defeated territories; the Axis advance in the Pacific halted in 1942. Key setbacks in 1943, which included a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy, Allied victories in the Pacific, cost the Axis its initiative and forced it into strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained its territorial losses and turned toward Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in Central China, South China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands; the war in Europe concluded with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945.
Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945 and the refusal of Japan to surrender under its terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August respectively. With an invasion of the Japanese archipelago imminent, the possibility of additional atomic bombings, the Soviet entry into the war against Japan and its invasion of Manchuria, Japan announced its intention to surrender on 15 August 1945, cementing total victory in Asia for the Allies. Tribunals were set up by fiat by the Allies and war crimes trials were conducted in the wake of the war both against the Germans and the Japanese. World War II changed the political social structure of the globe; the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The Soviet Union and United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the nearly half-century long Cold War. In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia.
Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic expansion. Political integration in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities and create a common identity; the start of the war in Europe is held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred and the two wars merged in 1941; this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935; the British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the fo
Andrews Air Force Base
Andrews Air Force Base is the airfield portion of Joint Base Andrews, under the jurisdiction of the United States Air Force. In 2009, Andrews Air Force Base merged with Naval Air Facility Washington to form Joint Base Andrews. Andrews is the home base of two Boeing VC-25A aircraft with the call sign Air Force One when the president is on board, that serve the President of the United States; the host unit at Andrews is the 11th Wing, assigned to the Air Force District of Washington. It is responsible for maintaining emergency reaction rotary-wing airlift and other National Capital Region contingency response capabilities critical to national security, for organizing, training and deploying combat-ready forces for Air and Space Expeditionary Forces; the wing commander is Colonel Kenneth R. Rizer; the Command Chief Master Sergeant is Chief Master Sergeant Anthony Brinkley. For statistical purposes the base is delineated as a census-designated place by the U. S. Census Bureau; as of the 2010 census, the resident population was 2,973.
Union American Civil War troops used a country church near Camp Springs, Maryland for sleeping quarters and on 25 August 1941, President Roosevelt directed use of the land for an airfield. Camp Springs Air Base was designated on 5 September 1942, construction began on 16 September 1942; the Maryland World War II Army Airfield of the 1st Air Force was "designated a sub-base of Headquarters, Baltimore AAFld, late Nov 1942"—the 901st Quartermaster Company became the base operating unit on 14 December 1942. Camp Springs Army Air Base opened on 2 May 1943, the airfield became operational 2 May 1943 when the first Republic P-47 Thunderbolts arrived. After the 367th Fighter Squadron was stationed at Camp Springs on 21 April 1943. On 6 June 1943 the Camp Springs headquarters gained command of 4 sub-bases: Baltimore AAFld, Dover Army Airfield, Millville Army Airfield, Philadelphia Municipal Airport became sub-bases of Camp Springs AAB; the airfield had 5,500 feet runways by 1944 when the 90th Fighter Control Squadron was formed, the last Camp Springs combat units departed for World War II combat on 10 April 1944.
Camp Springs was expanded to become the initial headquarters of Continental Air Forces —the 161st AAF Base Unit became the "Andrews Field" operating unit on 16 April 1945. Andrews Field was named on 7 February 1945 in honor of Lt Gen. Frank Andrews and in 1946, Andrews was a sub-base of Bolling Field. Strategic Air Command headquarters transferred from Bolling Field to Andrews; the command of CONAF's Radar Bomb Scoring detachments transferred to Andrews on 17 March 1946 when the "263 AAF BU" was assigned to Carswell AFB). Andrews was transferred from the Army to the Air Force in 1947, it was a Headquarters Command installation from 1947 through 1952 and again after 1957. Headquarters Military Air Transport Service controlled the base during the interim period; the year 1947 marked the arrival of the first permanently assigned jet-powered aircraft, the F-80 Shooting Star, at Andrews. The long-lived and versatile training version of the F-80, the T-33, still played an important role in proficiency flying programs at Andrews more than 30 years later.
Andrews Air Force Base was designated on 24 June 1948, in June 1950, Andrews became involved in combat readiness training for B-25 Mitchell medium bomber crews. Combat readiness training and proficiency flying for military pilots assigned non-flying duties in the Washington area have remained two key elements in the local mission since the establishment of the base. HQ Air Research and Development Command moved to Andrews from Baltimore, 24 June 1958. With the construction of new facilities beginning in 1959, Andrews had become by early 1962 the primary USAF flight installation serving the Washington, DC, area with the closing of the runway at Bolling AFB. Andrews' air defense role was strengthened in the 1950s with the latest in fighter-interceptor hardware appearing on the flight line. F-94 Starfires, F-102 Delta Daggers and F-106 Delta Darts formed the backbone of the three fighter interceptor squadrons which operated from the base until 1963. In the late 1950s Andrews began an annual open air show on base.
This event evolved into the Department of Defense Joint Services Open House, an annual event that now brings more than 700,000 visitors to the base every year. The open house is held every year over Armed Forces Day weekend. In the years since 1959, Andrews' flight operations and importance have increased greatly. In 1961, the last of the Military Air Transport Service's flying units at Washington National Airport transferred to Andrews; this was followed a year by the transfer to Andrews of all fixed-wing flying activities from Bolling Air Force Base. Andrews has become established as the main port of entry for foreign military and government officials en route to Washington and the United States. In July 1961, the official presidential aircraft was stationed here, known as "Air Force One" when the president is on board. Before 1961, the presidential airplane had been kept at Washington National Airport and Bolling AFB. In 1963, the Naval Air Facility established at the former NAS Anacostia in 1919, moved to Andrews.
The NAF handles Naval VIP flight operations. The Marine Corps detachment that flies the FA-18 Hornet is located here. In a major reorganization, Headquarters Command, U. S. Air Force, was disbanded 1 July 1976, restructured under the Military Airlift Command as the 76th Airlift Division
