Heroes come in all stripes, including a freshly minted second lieutenant who had the courage to take control of a bomber from his superior officer.
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Death by P-38: When America Killed Japan’s Top Admiral
Admiral Yamamoto, commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Combined Fleet, was the Harvard-educated, poker-playing mastermind of the December 7, 1941, attack.
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Boyington’s Bastards: The Legendary Black Sheep Squadron
From Marine Corps orphans to top-scoring fighter pilots, the fabled Black Sheep followed pugnacious “Pappy” Boyington to fame.
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Operation Bodenplatte: Last Gasp of the Luftwaffe
In the early morning hours of the first day of 1945, Allied pilots in northwest Europe might have expected to see pink elephants before they saw Nazi aircraft. Since the Normandy invasion, Royal Air Force and U.S. Army Air Forces fighters had largely driven the Luftwaffe from the skies.
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The Missile With a Man In It
The breathtakingly sleek Lockheed F-104 Starfighter was designed for a purpose that was too far ahead of its time.
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Build Your Own “Arizona” Kingfisher
Until recently, about the only place to find a Vought OS2U Kingfisher model was […]
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KAL 902 is Down: When the Soviets Attacked an Airliner
In a controversial Cold War incident, a Korean Air Lines 707 was downed by a missile from a Soviet fighter, killing two passengers and touching off a diplomatic firestorm.
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A B-29 Crew Got Lost and Crash-Landed on a Frozen Greenland Lake. It Led to an Ill-Fated Recovery Effort 48 Years Later.
On a North Pole mission, the Kee Bird crew lost their bearings and had to set the plane down in Greenland before running out of fuel. Kee Bird would lie on the lake, in good condition, for nearly a half-century.
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When Lindbergh Tested His Spirit of St. Louis
Recently discovered photos of the Spirit of St. Louis test flights shed light on the “Lone Eagle’s” preparations for his celebrated transatlantic flight.
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What Happened to America’s First Passenger Airship?
Roy Knabenshue’s dirigible offered sightseeing flights around Los Angeles and Chicago, garnering frequent press coverage, then disappeared without a trace.