May 1 in U.S. military history
[Featured image: President George W. Bush after a successful trap aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) in a S-3B Viking assigned to the Blue Wolves of Sea Control Squadron Three Five (VS-35) designated “NAVY 1”. Although not a carrier pilot like his father, former president George H.W. Bush, he did fly the F-102 Delta Dagger interceptor for the Texas Air National Guard.]
1898: U.S. Navy Commodore George Dewey’s Asiatic Squadron steams single file into Manila Bay and destroys the out-armored and out-gunned Spanish fleet in the Philippines. Despite the support of shore batteries, the Spanish lose all seven of their vessels and only six American sailors are wounded. The Spanish-American War will effectively end in August, and Spain will cede control of the islands to the United States.
1943: When his B-17 bomber is hit by German flak and Sgt. Maynard H. “Snuffy” Smith loses power in his ball turret gun, he climbs out to assist the other airmen. With a fire now burning in the fuselage, three of the crew had already bailed out. Smith treats two severely wounded comrades and begins fighting the fire that was melting holes in the aircraft.
For the next 90 minutes, Smith alternates between caring for the wounded, extinguishing the fire, and manning the .50 caliber guns against attacking German fighters. The plane makes it safely back to England, but breaks in half upon landing from the fire and 3,500 bullets and pieces of shrapnel. Smith is awarded the Medal of Honor.
1945: Eighth Air Force B-17s drop 700 tons of food over German-occupied Holland, whose residents are suffering from famine. The Germans told the Allies that their bombers would not be targeted so long as they remained within approved air corridors. Over the next week, Over the next week, Operation CHOW HOUND delivers 7,000 tons of food, bringing an end to the “Hunger Winter.”
1960: CIA pilot – and U.S. Air Force captain – Francis Gary Powers takes off from a military airbase in Pakistan on a secret reconnaissance overflight mission of the Soviet Union. His U-2 spy plane, flying some 70,000 feet above Russia, is hit by a surface-to-air missile. Powers ejects safely and is held in a Soviet prison until his famous exchange on a Berlin bridge nearly two years later.
Powers, who began working for the CIA in 1956, stayed with the agency for several years before moving on to become a test pilot for Lockheed. He perished in a helicopter crash while flying a Los Angeles news chopper in 1977.
2003: George W. Bush becomes the first president to make an arrested landing when the S-3 Viking dubbed “Navy One” touches down on the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) following its 10-month combat deployment. Bush delivers a speech on the deck of the aircraft carrier announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq.
Although the insurgency would drag on for years, the 21-day conventional campaign against Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime is over.