Charles L. Kelly

Major Charles Livingston Kelly (10 April 1925 – 1 July 1964) was a United States Army helicopter pilot and medical evacuation unit commander during the Vietnam War. Because of the central role he played in the development of early battlefield evacuation techniques during the war—and the central role his death on the battlefield played in cementing those techniques in Army doctrine at a time they were being questioned by line commanders—he earned the sobriquet "The Father of Dustoff."
Early life.
Charles Livingston Kelly was born on 10 April 1925 in Wadley, Georgia, the eldest of three sons born to Charlton L. Kelly and Ruth Amelia Moore Kelly. His father died when he was six years old, and his mother never remarried. He was raised in Sylvania, Georgia.
World War II.
Kelly dropped out of high school and lied about his age in order to enlist in the Army at the age of 15. He used a birth date of 22 December 1922 and enlisted under the name "Charles L. Kelley." He reported for active duty at Fort Screven, Georgia, on 25 February 1941 for 1 year of service as an army medic. As enlistment contracts at that time included an "or duration plus six months" clause, Kelly left the service as a corporal on 3 August 1945. He served overseas with the 30th Infantry Division and, although he was listed as a medic as late as May 1944, he was serving as an infantryman when he was wounded by an artillery shell fragment during the battle for Aachen, Germany. Kelly's injury was a severe one, a compound fracture of the fibula which kept him hospitalized for treatment and recovery from the time he was wounded in October 1944 until June 1945. Patrick Henry Brady, who served under Kelly in the Republic of Vietnam, said that Kelly's experience as a wounded infantryman was what would later drive him as a medical evacuation pilot.
Post-war activities.
After his discharge from the Army, Kelly returned to Sylvania, Georgia. He completed his education at the Sylvania High School, participating in the senior play and graduating in 1947 as the class President. He was also active in the Sylvania Junior Chamber of Commerce, where he served as Secretary-Treasurer, and in the George Alexander Post of the American Legion. It was also during this time that he courted, and married, Jessie Hillis of Sylvania.
Following his graduation from high school, Kelly enrolled in the Georgia Teachers College in Statesboro, Georgia, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1950. He then followed that by obtaining a Master of Arts in Geology from the George Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee.
After obtaining his master's degree, Kelly taught for a short time in Warm Springs, Georgia before applying for a commission in the Army. He accepted a commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Reserve on 25 October 1951 and was ordered to active duty—the customary career path for a Medical Service Corps Officer at the time. He accepted a Regular Army commission in the Medical Service Corps on 16 June 1954.
Assignments.
The table below lists Kelly's assignments with details where available. His service as Commander of the 57th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance) in the Republic of Vietnam is covered in greater detail in subsequent sections.
The 57th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance) in Vietnam.
Kelly is often erroneously credited with being the first commander of the 57th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance) in the Republic of Vietnam, or of selecting the callsign "Dustoff" for the 57th. Neither is true.
The 57th Medical Detachment was activated at Fort Sam Houston on 6 April 1953. The detachment departed Fort Sam Houston on a permanent Change of station move on 5 November 1957, arriving at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland on 20 November 1957. The detachment, under the command of Captain John P. Temperilli, Jr., MSC, was alerted for overseas movement on 15 February 1962 and departed the Continental United States aboard the USNS Croatan on 8 March 1962 and arrived in the Republic of Vietnam on 26 April 1962, bringing with it the first five UH-1s to deploy to Vietnam. Upon arrival the detachment, among the very first units of the Army Medical Department to arrive in Vietnam, was placed under the command and control of the 8th Field Hospital, whose commander was also assigned the role of Surgeon, United States Army Support Command, Vietnam.
Temperelli was replaced on 26 February 1963 by Major Lloyd E. Spencer. It was Spencer who would select the callsign "Dustoff" for the 57th.
During its first year in country, the 57th worked without a tactical call sign, simply using "Army" and the tail number of the aircraft. For example, if a pilot were flying a helicopter with the serial number 62-12345, his call sign would be "Army 12345." The 57th communicated internally on any vacant frequency it could find. Major Spencer decided that this improvised system needed to be replaced by something more formal. He visited the Navy Support Activity, Saigon, which controlled all the call signs in South Vietnam. He received a Signal Operations Instructions book that listed all the unused call signs. Most, like "Bandit," were more suitable for assault units than for medical evacuation units. But one entry, "Dust Off," epitomized the 57th's medical evacuation missions. Since the countryside then was dry and dusty, helicopter pickups in the fields often blew dust, dirt, blankets, and shelter halves all over the men on the ground. By adopting "Dust Off," Spencer found for Army aeromedical evacuation in Vietnam a name that lasted the rest of the war.
Although unit callsigns at the time were rotated periodically to preserve operations security, it was determined that having a fixed callsign for medical evacuation—and a fixed frequency—would be more advantageous for medical evacuation operations, and so the 57th's callsign was not changed as it normally would have been at the end of the period for the Signal Operations Instructions.
One of the earliest arriving Army Medical Department units in theater, the 57th was also the longest serving, leaving theater on 9 March 1973, less than three weeks before the final exit of US troops, for its new home at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where it would remain until it was inactivated in the mid-2000s. Its service qualified it for 17 of the 18 campaigns of the Vietnam Service Medal, and the detachment was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, five Meritorious Unit Citations, and the Gallantry Cross with Palm.
Command of the 57th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance).
Kelly logged his first flight hours in Vietnam on 6 January 1964 and assumed command of the 57th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance) at Tan Son Nhut Airbase on 11 January 1964.
Although the number of Vietnamese casualties rose in 1963, the South Vietnamese military refused to set up its own aeromedical evacuation unit. The VNAF response to requests for medical evacuation depended on aircraft availability, the security of the landing zone, and the mood and temperament of the VNAF pilots. If the South Vietnamese had no on-duty or standby aircraft ready to fly a medical evacuation mission, they passed the request on to the 57th. Even when they accepted the mission themselves, their response usually suffered from a lack of leadership and poor organization. Since South Vietnamese air mission commanders rarely flew with their flights, the persons responsible for deciding whether to abort a mission often lacked the requisite experience. As a MACV summary said: "Usually the decision was made to abort, and the air mission commander could do nothing about it. When an aggressive pilot was in the lead ship, the aircraft came through despite the firing. American advisers reported that on two occasions only the first one or two helicopters landed; the rest hovered out of reach of the wounded who needed to get aboard."
An example of the poor quality of VNAF medical evacuation occurred in late October 1963, when the ARVN 2d Battalion, 14th Regiment, conducted Operation LONG HUU II near O Lac in the Delta. At dawn the battalion began its advance. Shortly after they moved out, the Viet Cong ambushed them, opening fire from three sides with automatic weapons and 81 -mm. mortars. At 0700 casualty reports started coming into the battalion command post. The battalion commander sent his first casualty report to the regimental headquarters at 0800: one ARVN soldier dead and twelve wounded, with more casualties in the paddies. He then requested medical evacuation helicopters. By 0845 the casualty count had risen to seventeen lightly wounded, fourteen seriously wounded, and four dead. He sent out another urgent call for helicopters. The battalion executive officer and the American adviser prepared two landing zones, one marked by green smoke for the seriously wounded and a second by yellow smoke for the less seriously wounded. Not until 1215 did three VNAF H-34's arrive over O Lac to carry out the wounded and dead. During the delay the ARVN battalion stayed in place to protect their casualties rather than pursue the retreating enemy. The American adviser wrote later: "It is common that, when casualties are sustained, the advance halts while awaiting evacuation. Either the reaction time for helicopter evacuation must be improved, or some plan must be made for troops in the battalion rear to provide security for the evacuation and care of casualties."
The ARVN medical services also proved inadequate to handle the large numbers of casualties. In the Delta, ARVN patients were usually taken to the Vietnamese Provincial Hospital at Can Tho. As the main treatment center for the Delta, it often had a backlog of patients. At night only one doctor was on duty, for the ARVN medical service lacked physicians. If Dustoff flew in many casualties, that doctor normally treated as many as he could; but he rarely called in any of his fellow doctors to help. In return they would not call him on his night off. Many times at night Dustoff pilots would have to make several flights into Can Tho. On return flights the pilots often found loads of injured ARVN soldiers lying on the landing pad where they had been left some hours earlier. After several such flights few pilots could sustain any enthusiasm for night missions.
Another problem was that the ARVN officers sometimes bowed to the sentiments of their soldiers, many of whom believed that the soul lingers between this world and the next if the body is not properly buried. They insisted that Dustoff ships fly out dead bodies, especially if there were no seriously wounded waiting for treatment. Once, after landing at a pickup site north of Saigon, a Dustoff crew saw many ARVN wounded lying on the ground. But the other ARVN soldiers brought bodies to the helicopter to be evacuated first. As the soldiers loaded the dead in one side of the ship, a Dustoff medical corpsman pulled the bodies out the other side. The pilot stepped out of the helicopter to explain in halting French to the ARVN commander that his orders were to carry out only the wounded. But an ARVN soldier manning a .50-caliber machine gun on a nearby armored personnel carrier suddenly pointed his weapon at the Huey. This convinced the Dustoff crew to fly out the bodies. They carried out one load but did not return for another.
Early in 1964 the growing burden of aeromedical evacuation fell on the 57th's third group of new pilots, crews, and maintenance personnel. The helicopters were still the 1963 UH-1B models, but most of the new pilots were fresh from flight school. Kelly was described as "a gruff, stubborn, dedicated soldier who let few obstacles prevent him from finishing a task." Within six months he set an example of courage and hard work that Dustoff pilots emulated for the rest of the war, and into the 21st Century.
Kelly quickly took advantage of the 57th's belated move to the fighting in the south. On 1 March 1964 the U.S. Army Support Group, Vietnam ordered the aircraft at Pleiku and Qui Nhon to move to the Delta. Two helicopters and five pilots, now called Detachment A, 57th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance), Provisional, flew to the U.S. base at Soc Trang. Once a fighter base for both the French and the Japanese, Soc Trang was a compound roughly 1,000 by 3,000 feet, surrounded by rice paddies.
Unit statistics soon proved the wisdom of the move south: the number of Vietnamese evacuees climbed from 193 in February to 416 in March. Detachment A continued its coverage of combat in the Delta until October 1964, when the 82nd Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance) from the States took over that area. Major Kelly, who had taken command of the 57th on 11 January, moved south with Detachment A, preferring the field and flying to ground duty in Saigon.
Detachment A in Soc Trang lived in crude "Southeast Asia" huts with sandbags and bunkers for protection against enemy mortar and ground attack. The rest of the 57th in Saigon struggled along with air conditioning, private baths, a mess hall, and a bar in their living quarters. In spite of the contrast, most pilots preferred Soc Trang. It was there that Major Kelly and his pilots forged the Dustoff tradition of valorous and dedicated service.
Major Kelly and his teams also benefited from two years of growing American involvement in Vietnam. By the spring of 1964 the United States had 16,000 military personnel in South Vietnam (3,700 officers and 12,300 enlisted men). The Army, which accounted for 10,100 of these, had increased its aircraft in South Vietnam from 40 in December 1961 to 370 in December 1963. For the first time since its arrival two years ago the 57th was receiving enough Dustoff requests to keep all its pilots busy.
But Major Kelly faced one big problem when he arrived: the helicopters that the 57th had received the year before were showing signs of age and use, and Brigadier General Joseph Stilwell Jr., the Support Group commander, could find no new aircraft for the detachment. Average flight time on the old UH-1Bs was 800 hours. But this did not deter the new pilots from each flying more than 100 hours a month in medical evacuations. Some of them stopped logging their flight time at 140 hours, so that the flight surgeon would not ground them for exceeding the monthly ceiling.
The new team continued and even stepped-up night operations. In April 1964, the detachment flew 110 hours at night while evacuating ninety-nine patients. To aid their night missions in the Delta the pilots made a few special plotting flights, during which they sketched charts of the possible landing zones, outlined any readily identifiable terrain features, and noted whether radio navigational aid could be received. During one such flight Major Kelly and his copilot heard on their radio that a VNAF T-28, a fixed-wing plane, had gone down. After joining the search, Kelly soon located the plane. While he and his crew circled the area trying to decide how to approach the landing zone, the Viet Cong below opened fire on the helicopter. One round passed up through the open cargo door and slammed into the ceiling. Unfazed, Kelly shot a landing to the T-28, taking fire from all sides. Once down, he, his crew chief, and his medic jumped out and sprayed submachine gun fire at the Viet Cong while helping the VNAF pilot destroy his radios and pull the M60 machine guns from his plane. Kelly left the area without further damage and returned the VNAF pilot to his unit. Kelly and his Dustoff crew flew more than 500 miles that day.
On 2 April one of the Detachment A crews flying to Saigon from Soc Trang received a radio call that a village northwest of them had been overrun. Flying up to the area where the Mekong River flows into South Vietnam from Cambodia, they landed at the village of Cai Cai, where during the night Viet Cong had killed or wounded all the people. Soldiers lay at their fighting positions where they had fallen, women and children where they had been shot. The Dustoff teams worked the rest of the day flying out the dead and wounded, putting two or three children on each litter.
One night that spring Detachment A pilots Capt. Patrick Henry Brady and 2d Lt. Ernest J. Sylvester were on duty when a call came in that an A1-E Skyraider, a fixed-wing plane, had gone down near the town of Rach Gia. Flying west to the site, they radioed the Air Force radar controller, who guided them to the landing zone and warned them of Viet Cong antiaircraft guns. As the Dustoff ship drew near the landing zone, which was plainly marked by the burning A1-E, the pilot of another nearby Al-E radioed that he had already knocked out the Viet Cong machine guns. But when Brady and Sylvester approached the zone the Viet Cong opened fire. Bullets crashed into the cockpit and the pilots lost control of the aircraft. Neither was seriously wounded and they managed to regain control and hurry out of the area. Viet Cong fire then brought down the second Al-E. A third arrived shortly and finally suppressed the enemy fire, allowing a second Dustoff ship from Soc Trang to land in the zone. The crew chief and medical corpsman found what they guessed was the dead pilot of the downed aircraft, then found the pilot of the second, who had bailed out, and flew him back to Soc Trang.
A short time later Brady accompanied an ARVN combat assault mission near Phan Thiet, northeast of Saigon. While Brady's Dustoff ship circled out of range of enemy ground fire, the transport helicopters landed and the troops moved out into a wooded area heavily defended by the Viet Cong. The ARVN soldiers immediately suffered several casualties and called for Dustoff. Brady's aircraft took hits going into and leaving the landing zone, but he managed to fly out the wounded. In Phan Thiet, while he was assessing the damage to his aircraft, an American adviser asked him if he would take ammunition back to the embattled ARVN unit when he returned for the next load of wounded. After discussing the propriety of carrying ammunition in an aircraft marked with red crosses, Brady and his pilots decided to consider the ammunition as "preventive medicine" and fly it into the LZ for the ARVN troops. Back at the landing zone Brady found that Viet Cong fire had downed an L-19 observation plane. Brady ran to the crash site, but both the American pilot and the observer had been killed. The medical corpsman and crew chief pulled the bodies from the wreckage and loaded them on the helicopter. Brady left the ammunition and flew out with the dead.
By the time the helicopter had finished its mission and returned to Tan Son Nhut, most of the 57th were waiting. News of an American death traveled quickly in those early days of the war. Later, reflecting on the incident, Kelly praised his pilots for bringing the bodies back even though the 57th's mission statement said nothing about moving the dead. But he voiced renewed doubts about the ferrying of ammunition.
Brady later explained what actually happened behind the scenes. Upon landing, Brady was met by Kelly and called aside. Expecting to be sternly counselled, Brady was surprised when Kelly simply asked why he had carried in ammunition and carried out the dead. Brady replied that the ammunition was “preventive medicine” and that the dead “were angels,” and he couldn't refuse them. Kelly simply walked back to the group involved in that day's missions and told them that it was the type of mission he wanted the 57th to be flying. Brady realized the significance of Kelly's statement, as Kelly would be responsible for any fallout from Brady's actions.
In fact, the Dustoff mission was again under attack. When Support Command began to pressure the 57th to place removable red crosses on the aircraft and begin accepting general purpose missions, Kelly stepped up unit operations. Knowing that removable red crosses had already been placed on transport and assault helicopters in the north, Kelly told his men that the 57th must prove its worth-and by implication the value of dedicated medical helicopters-beyond any shadow of doubt.
While before the 57th had flown missions only in response to a request, it now began to seek missions. Kelly himself flew almost every night. As dusk came, he and his crew would depart Soc Trang and head southwest for the marshes and Bac Lieu, home of a team from the 73d Aviation Company and detachments from two signal units, then further south to Ca Mau, an old haunt of the Viet Minh, whom the French had never been able to dislodge from its forested swamps. Next, they would fly south almost to the tip of Ca Mau Peninsula, then at Nam Can reverse their course toward the Seven Canals area. After a check for casualties there at Vi Thanh, they turned northwest up to Rach Gia on the Gulf of Siam, then on to the Seven Mountains region on the Cambodian border. From there they came back to Can Tho, the home of fourteen small American units, then up to Vinh Long on the Mekong River, home of the 114th Aviation Company (Airmobile Light). Finally, they flew due east to Truc Giang, south to the few American advisers at Phu Vinh, then home to Soc Trang. The entire circuit was 720 kilometers.
If any of the stops had patients to be evacuated, Kelly's crew loaded them on the aircraft and continued on course, unless a patient's condition warranted returning immediately to Soc Trang. After delivering the patients, they would sometimes resume the circuit. Many nights they carried ten to fifteen patients who otherwise would have had to wait until daylight to receive the care they needed. In March, this flying from outpost to outpost, known as "scarfing," resulted in seventy-four hours of night flying that evacuated nearly one-fourth of that month's 448 evacuees. The stratagem worked; General Stilwell dropped the idea of having the 57th use removable red crosses.
Although most of Dustoff's work in the Delta was over flat, marshy land, Detachment A sometimes had to work the difficult mountainous areas near the Cambodian border. Late on the afternoon of 11 April Kelly received a mission request to evacuate two wounded ARVN soldiers from Phnom Kto Mountain of the Seven Mountains of An Giang Province. When he arrived he found that the only landing zone near the ground troops was a small area surrounded by high trees below some higher ground held by the Viet Cong. Despite the updrafts common to mountain flying, the mists, and the approaching darkness, Kelly shot an approach to the area. The enemy opened fire and kept firing until Kelly's ship dropped below the treetops into the landing zone. Kelly could set the aircraft down on only one skid; the slope was too steep. Since only one of the wounded was at the landing zone, Kelly and his crew had to balance the ship precariously while waiting for the ARVN troops to carry the other casualty up the mountain. With both patients finally on board, Kelly took off and again flew through enemy fire. The medical corpsman promptly began working on the Vietnamese, one of whom had been wounded in five places. Both casualties survived.
When Kelly flew such a mission he rarely let bad weather darkness, or the enemy stop him from completing it. He fought his way to the casualties and brought them out. On one mission the enemy forced him away from the landing zone before he could place the patients on board. An hour later he tried to land exactly the same way, through enemy fire, and this time he managed to load the patients safely. The Viet Cong showed their indifference to the red crosses on the aircraft by trying to destroy it with small arms, automatic weapons, and mortars, even while the medical corpsman and crew chief loaded the patients. One round hit the main fuel drain valve and JP-4 fuel started spewing. Kelly elected to fly out anyway, practicing what he had preached since he arrived in Vietnam by putting the patients above all else and hurrying them off the battlefield. He radioed the Soc Trang tower that his ship was leaking fuel and did not have much left, and that he wanted priority on landing. The tower operator answered that Kelly had priority and asked whether he needed anything else. Kelly said, "Yes, bring me some ice cream." just after he landed on the runway the engine quit, fuel tanks empty. Crash trucks surrounded the helicopter. The base commander drove up, walked over to Kelly, and handed him a quart of ice cream.
Apart from the Viet Cong, the 57th's greatest problem at that time was a lack of pilots. After Kelly reached Vietnam he succeeded in having the other nine Medical Service Corps pilots who followed him assigned to the 57th. He needed more, but the Surgeon General's Aviation Branch seemed to have little understanding of the rigors of Dustoff flying. In the spring of 1964 the Aviation Branch tried to have new Medical Service Corps pilots assigned to nonmedical helicopter units in Vietnam, assuming that they would benefit more from combat training than from Dustoff flying.
On 15 June 1964, Kelly gave his response:
"As for combat experience, the pilots in this unit are getting as much or more combat-support flying experience than any unit over here. You must understand that everybody wants to get into the Aeromedical Evacuation business. To send pilots to U.T.T. [the Utility Tactical Transport Helicopter Company, a nonmedical unit] or anywhere else is playing right into their hands. I fully realize that I do not know much about the big program, but our job is evacuation of casualties from the battlefield. This we are doing day and night, without escort aircraft, and with only one ship for each mission. Since I have been here we have evacuated 1800 casualties and in the last three months we have flown 242.7 hours at night. No other unit can match this. The other [nonmedical] units fly in groups, rarely at night, and always heavily armed.”
He continued:
“If you want the MSC Pilots to gain experience that will be worthwhile, send them to this unit. It is a Medical Unit and I don't want to see combat arms officers in this unit. I will not mention this again. However, for the good of the Medical Service Corps Pilots and the future of medical aviation I urge you to do all that you can to keep this unit full of MSC Pilots.”
In other words, Kelly thought that his unit had a unique job to do and that the only effective training for it could be found in the cockpit of a Dustoff helicopter.
Perhaps presciently, Kelly closed his letter as follows:
“Don't go to the trouble of answering this letter for I know that you are very busy. Anyhow, everything has been said. I will do my best, and please remember ‘Army Medical Evacuation FIRST’.”
With more and more fighting occurring in the Delta and around Saigon, the 57th could not always honor every evacuation request. U.S. Army helicopter assault companies were forced to keep some of their aircraft on evacuation standby, but without a medical corpsman or medical equipment. Because of the shortage of Army aviators and the priority of armed combat support, the Medical Service Corps did not have enough pilots to staff another Dustoff unit in Vietnam. Most Army aeromedical evacuation units elsewhere already worked with less than their permitted number of pilots. Although Army aviation in Vietnam had grown considerably since 1961, by the summer of 1964 its resources fell short of what it needed to perform its missions, especially medical evacuation.
Army commanders, however, seldom have all the men and material they can use, and Major Kelly knew that he had to do his best with what he had.
Kelly had begun to realize that, although he preferred flying and being in the field to Saigon, he could better influence things by returning to Tan Son Nhut. After repeated requests from Brady, Kelly told him that he would relinquish command of Detachment A of the 57th at Soc Trang to Brady on 1 July and return to Saigon—although he then later told Brady he was extending his stay in the Delta for at least another month.
1 July 1964.
Kelly was killed in action on July 1, 1964, when, after being warned out of a "Hot" landing zone, he replied, "When I have your wounded." A bullet entered through an open cargo door and pierced his heart. Major Kelly became the 149th American to die in Vietnam.
Immediate aftermath.
The following day, an officer tossed the bullet on his desk in front of Kelly's successor, Captain Patrick Henry Brady and asked if they were going to stop flying so aggressively. Brady picked up the bullet and replied, "we are going to keep flying exactly the way Kelly taught us to fly, without hesitation, anytime, anywhere."
Kelly was returned to Sylvania on 14 July 1964 and was interred at the Screven County Memorial Cemetery, Sylvania, Georgia on 15 July 1964 following a memorial service at the Sylvania First Baptist Church. The Army provided an honor guard, a military escort, and a chaplain, and "full military honors" were provided at the graveside. Flags in the city were flown at half staff on the 14th and the 15th, draped with a black mourning stripe until after the completion of the funeral. All city offices in Sylvania were closed on the 14th and 15th, although no official proclamation of mourning was issued. As Sylvania's mayor, Ed Overstreet said, "We made no proclamation of mourning. We in Sylvania all knew Major Kelly personally and we want only to enter his funeral personally. We will let the military handle the official part."
His wife, Jessie Hillis Kelly Morris (1929–2003) and his mother,
Ruth Amelia Moore Kelly (1900–1973), were later buried nearby.
Several young war correspondents for major American wire services, news magazines, and newspapers had been prowling the Delta in 1964 looking for stories. One of them, future Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Peter Arnett had made friends with Kelly and his crews in Soc Trang, figuring that Dustoff would make a good story for his employer, the Associated Press. Instead, he ended up writing what became, in essence, Kelly's obituary, which was carried nationally on the day Kelly was buried, many with a photo of Kelly at the controls of has Dustoff aircraft. Another, unnamed author wrote a story for "Time Magazine" which ran nationally on 10 July.
Long term legacy.
The official history of the Army Medical Service Corps perhaps sums up Kelly's contributions to army aeromedical evacuation best, when it stated that:
"Kelly became a legend, revered for his aggressive leadership and fearlessness in evacuating casualties. Ironically, his loss ensured that the Army's aeromedical operations would use his mold, one characterized by unarmed single ships operated without escort aircraft by aviators who, like Kelly, were experienced in night flying. In fact, the flying skills of Dustoff crews were such that some general aviation pilots believed there was a special school to teach their flying techniques. Kelly was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, and in 1967 General Heaton dedicated the Kelly Heliport at Fort Sam Houston, Texas."
Awards, decorations and honors.
Distinguished Service Cross.
Citation:
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918 (amended by act of July 25, 1963), takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross (Posthumously) to Major (Medical Corps) Charles L. Kelly (ASN: 0-70399), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations involving conflict with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam, while serving as an Aircraft Commander of the 57th Medical Detachment, on 1 July 1964. Major Kelly demonstrated exceptional courage, strong determination, and complete disregard for his own personal safety while participating in an aerial medical mission to evacuate wounded soldiers from an area under heavy attack by hostile forces. With unique professional skill and full knowledge of the intense ground fire and the immediate proximity of the enemy, he landed the unarmed helicopter ambulance close to the wounded men in the exposed area. Although the ground advisor warned him of the grave danger and recommended departure, Major Kelly refused to leave without the wounded soldiers and succeeded in loading them aboard the helicopter moments before he was mortally wounded by hostile gun fire. Major Kelly's extraordinary heroic actions, valiant efforts, and deep concern for his fellow man are in the highest traditions of the United States Army and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army Medical Service, and the armed forces of his country.
Silver Star.
Citation:
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918 (amended by an act of July 25, 1963), takes pride in presenting the Silver Star (Posthumously) to Major (Medical Corps) Charles L. Kelly (ASN: 0-70399), United States Army, for gallantry in action in connection with military operations involving conflict with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam, while serving as an Aircraft Commander of the 57th Medical Detachment, on 19 June 1964. Major Kelly displayed professional skill, fortitude, and determination while participating in an aerial medical mission to evacuate several critically wounded Vietnamese troops. Although his first attempt to land the helicopter ambulance was prevented by intense enemy action, he returned within the hour and succeeded in maneuvering the aircraft into the area. As the small arms, automatic weapons fire, and mortar rounds fell near the aircraft, he exposed himself to the danger while assisting the wounded men on board the helicopter ambulance. When a round of ammunition hit the main fuel drain valve of the aircraft during the evacuation operations, he quickly assessed the situation and, through his decision that the patients on board be flown out immediately for medical treatment, the helicopter landed at a medical facility with a few minutes of fuel to spare. Through his courageous and unselfish actions the wounded men received timely medical aid and many lives were saved. Major Kelly's conspicuous gallantry is in the highest traditions of the United States Army and reflects great credit upon himself and the military service.
Distinguished Flying Cross.
Citation
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 2, 1926, takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross (Posthumously) to Major (Medical Corps) Charles L. Kelly (ASN: 0-70399), United States Army, for heroism while participating in aerial flight. Major Kelly distinguished himself by heroism while participating in aerial flight in action against a hostile force on 2 April 1964 in the Republic of Vietnam. Major Kelly was the aircraft commander of a helicopter ambulance on a combat support mission. He received information that an American helicopter had been hit by ground fire and was forced to land in hostile territory. He immediately flew to the area arriving just as the helicopter touched down. Disregarding his own personal safety, with full knowledge that the enemy forces had begun to attack the crew of the downed aircraft, Major Kelly landed in the middle of the enemy ground forces. Heavy fire was received during the approach and while on the ground, but Major Kelly never wavered in his efforts and determination to save the clowned crew from possible death and almost certain capture. Major Kelly's efforts resulted in the downed aircraft being flown to safety. Major Kelly's actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army.
Distinguished Flying Cross (First Oak Leaf Cluster).
Citation
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 2, 1926, takes pride in presenting a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a Second Award of the Distinguished Flying Cross (Posthumously) to Major (Medical Corps) Charles L. Kelly (ASN: 0-70399), United States Army, for heroism while participating in aerial flight in action against a hostile force on 9 April 1964 in the Republic of Vietnam. Major Kelly was the aircraft commander of a helicopter ambulance on a combat support mission. Upon receiving information of a crashed Republic of Vietnam Air Force T-28, Major Kelly immediately flew to the crash site and began a low aerial search for the downed aircraft. At this time a United States Army helicopter in the immediate area declared an emergency and was forced down into an area surrounded by Viet Cong forces. Disregarding his own personal safety, Major Kelly was determined to save the crew of the downed aircraft. Upon making his approach, Major Kelly received heavy fire from all sides, with one round passing through the cock-pit. Despite the dangers involved, Major Kelly continued into the area and landed near the downed aircraft. Upon landing, he and his aircraft crew became engaged in a heavy fire fight with the enemy forces in the vicinity. It became necessary to destroy the downed helicopter to prevent its utilization by the enemy. The rescued crew was then flown out of the area under heavy fire to safety. Due to Major Kelly's efforts, members of the aircraft crew were saved from possible death or capture. Major Kelly's actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army.
Distinguished Flying Cross (Second Oak Leaf Cluster).
Citation
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 2, 1926, takes pleasure in presenting a Second Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a Third Award of the Distinguished Flying Cross to Major (Medical Corps) Charles L. Kelly (ASN: 0-70399), United States Army, for heroism while participating in aerial flight. Major Kelly distinguished himself by heroic action on 11 April 1964, in the Republic of Vietnam. On this date, Major Kelly was serving as the pilot of a UH-1B medical helicopter involved in the evacuation of two wounded Vietnamese soldiers who were located on Co To Mountain in An Giang Province. When he arrived at the combat area, he was informed that the only place to land was on the mountain in an area approximately 25 meters by 25 meters, surrounded by trees, and overlooked by terrain known to be infested by communist Viet Cong. Darkness was falling, the weather was misting, and gusting winds prevailed. Despite these extreme hazards, and in total disregard of his own personal safety, Major Kelly brought his aircraft into the landing zone through intense hostile fire. The incline of the mountain prevented a solid landing and Major Kelly had to "hold the stick" of his aircraft to prevent its falling off the mountain. Since one of the wounded soldiers had not been carried up the mountain, Major Kelly with remarkable skill and dogged determination held his aircraft on the mountain side for twenty minutes, refusing to leave until the wounded man was aboard. This was done in spite of the fact that total darkness would soon be upon him and would make take-off from the tiny landing zone even more dangerous. His only thoughts were for the welfare of the wounded men whom he knew would surely die without prompt medical attention. With the wounded finally aboard he skillfully took off, again running a gauntlet of automatic weapons fire. The two soldiers, one of whom had been wounded five times, were saved by the prompt medical attention they received. Major Kelly's dauntless courage, professional skill, and devotion to his comrades in arms have added to the highest traditions of the United States Army and reflect great credit upon himself and the military service.
Commendations and awards.
MAJ Kelly has been awarded the following:
Kelly's awards are shown in the current Army configuration, with the Purple Heart immediately below the Bronze Star Medal instead of immediately below the Army Commendation Medal; with Bronze Numerals instead of Oak Leaf Clusters on the Air Medal, and with a Bronze Service Star on his National Defense Service Medal instead of an Oak Leaf Cluster, as would have been customary at the time of his death.
Documentary film tribute.
In 2002, the documentary film crew of "In the Shadow of the Blade" honored Kelly's story at their landing zone near Columbus, Georgia. After hearing the story of his father's courage from Vietnam Dustoff colleague Ernest Sylvester, Charles Kelly, Jr. flew in the left seat of the documentary's restored UH-1 Iroquois, emulating his father's wartime experience.


Walter J. Carr

Walter J. Carr (1896 – 1970) was an American pilot and aircraft promoter.
Biography.
He was born in 1896.
Carr learned for to fly in Chicago, Illinois, soloing in a Curtiss Pusher on 14 June 1914. Car was hired by the Humboldt Exhibition Company to demonstrate flight at fairs. In World War I Carr volunteered as a civilian flight instructor. Afterward, he performed as a barnstormer in a Curtiss Jenny. Carr formed CSC Aircraft Company in 1924 with John Coryell, Walter Savage, and Ed Savage to build a cabin biplane named the Maiden Saginaw. Later Carr became chief test pilot for the Warner Aircraft Corporation testing the Scarab engine. In 1928 Carr formed the Paramount Aircraft Corporation.
In June 1929, Carr was to participate in an endurance record with Viola Gentry flying a Cabinaire named "'The Answer". He was hospitalized with pneumonia, and was replaced with Charles Parkhurst who died in the attempt while landing in fog.
He died in 1970.


Air Creation Trek

The Air Creation Trek is a French ultralight trike, designed by Air Creation of Aubenas. The aircraft is supplied as a complete ready-to-fly-aircraft.
Design and development.
Developed from the earlier Air Creation GTE, the Trek was designed to comply with the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale microlight category, including the category's maximum gross weight of . The Trek features a cable-braced hang glider-style high-wing, weight-shift controls, a two-seats-in-tandem, open cockpit, tricycle landing gear with wheel pants and a single engine in pusher configuration.
The aircraft is made from bolted-together aluminum tubing, and is commonly fitted with the Air Creation Fun 450 wing, which has a single surface covered in Dacron sailcloth. The span Fun wing is supported by a single tube-type kingpost and uses an "A" frame weight-shift control bar. The powerplant is a Japanese, twin cylinder, air-cooled, four-stroke, dual-ignition HKS 700E engine. This engine choice provides similar reliability, smoothness and fuel economy to the Rotax 912, but at a much lower cost. With the HKS 700E engine the aircraft is designated as the "Air Creation Trek 700E".
The Trek has an empty weight of and a gross weight of , giving a useful load of . With full fuel of the payload is .
In addition to the Fun wing, the more high performance double surface Air Creation iXess wing can alternatively be fitted.


USS Pecos (AO-6)

USS "Pecos" (AO–6) was a "Kanawha"-class replenishment oiler of the United States Navy. She was commissioned in 1921 and sunk by Japanese aircraft south of Java on 1 March 1942.
Operational history.
USS "Pecos" was laid down as Fuel Ship No. 18 on 2 June 1920 at the Boston Navy Yard, Massachusetts (USA). During construction the ship was reclassified AO–6 on 17 July 1920. She was launched on 23 April 1921, sponsored by Miss Anna S. Hubbard and commissioned 25 August 1921.
During the two decades before the United States entered World War II, "Pecos" operated in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, "Pecos" was in the Philippines supporting the ships of the United States Asiatic Fleet. She departed Cavite Navy Yard on 8 December 1941 for Balikpapan, Borneo arriving there on 14 December. After filling up with oil and gasoline, the tanker continued on to Makassar in Celebes, Netherlands East Indies where she refueled American warships fighting to slow the rapid advance of Japanese forces. She departed Makassar for Darwin, Australia on 22 December 1941.
She departed Darwin on 23 January 1942 headed for Soerabaja, Java early in 1942 where she fueled Allied ships until departing on 3 February after a Japanese air raid made that port untenable. Tjilatjap then became the oiler’s base until her cargo fuel tanks were empty. She then got underway in late February 1942 toward Ceylon to refill, embarking the surviving crew of . On 27 February, off Christmas Island, when the oiler was about to receive survivors of the seaplane tender (and former aircraft carrier) from destroyers and , land-based enemy bombers attacked the three ships. After fighting them off, the U.S. ships steamed south out of enemy land-based aircraft range and completed the transfer at sea in the early morning of 1 March 1942.
"Whipple" then proceeded towards the Cocos Islands to rendezvous with the tanker "Belita", while "Edsall" was directed to return to Tjilatjap, carrying U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) pilots and ground crew who had been passengers on "Langley". The USAAF personnel were to assemble and fly 27 disassembled and crated P-40 fighters which had been shipped to Tjilatjap aboard the cargo ship . "Pecos", now carrying about 700 survivors from "Langley" and was ordered to Australia.
At noon that day, planes from the Japanese aircraft carrier located and attacked "Pecos" and struck again an hour later. For some time she sent out distress calls to any Allied ships in the area, as it was assumed the ship would probably be lost. Finally at midafternoon, a third strike sank the "Pecos". According to pilot Shinsaku Yamakawa of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the final attack was conducted by dive bombers from the aircraft carrier .
Executive Officer Lt. Commander Lawrence J. McPeake was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for valor for his actions aboard "Pecos". After the order to abandon ship was given by the ship's Captain, Commander Abernethy, Lt. Commander McPeake was seen engaging Japanese Aichi D3A1 "Val" dive bomber, which were machine-gunning survivors in the water. By some crewmembers' accounts, he was reported to have made it off the ship after it went down. Others reported him last being seen manning the machine gun. In fact, he did swim away from the vessel with another officer as it was going down. However, his body was never recovered and he was eventually listed as Killed In Action after the war.
After "Pecos" was sunk, raced to the scene and rescued 232 survivors. Many of the survivors, although visible by crew members of "Whipple", were unable to be picked up and were abandoned at sea, due to the detection of what was thought to be two enemy submarines in the area at extremely close range.


Stepan Borozenets

Stepan Nikolayevich Borozenets (; 20 August 1922 26 August 2016) was a Soviet Air Force colonel and a Hero of the Soviet Union.
Borozenets served as an Ilyushin Il-2 ground attack aircraft pilot during World War II, and was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for flying 94 sorties and destroying German equipment. Postwar, he went on to command a bomber aviation regiment before retiring in 1978. In 1995, he went to Chicago for medical treatment and remained in America until his death in 2016.
Early life.
Borozenets was born on 20 August 1922 in Aktobe in what is now Ulan District, Kazakhstan, to a Russian peasant family. He graduated from high school and the Semipalatinsk flying club.
Military career.
In April 1941 he was drafted into the Red Army and sent to the military aviation school of pilots.
In May 1941, he became a cadet at the 1st Orenburg Military Flying Academy named after Kliment Voroshilov, and he graduated in June 1943 with the rank of junior lieutenant. After completing a full course of study, he was sent to the 34th Reserve Aviation Regiment, based at the Dyadkovo airfield north of Dmitrov, Moscow Region. The regiment trained the crews of Il-2 attack aircraft for combat operations.
World War II.
In October 1943, Borozenets was assigned to 4th Assault Aviation Corps of the 4th Air Army within the
1st Belorussian Front. He later assigned to the 4th Assault Air Corps of the 2nd Belorussian Front.
As part of the non-standard reconnaissance aviation squadron of the 4th AAC, repeatedly performed aerial reconnaissance flights He participated in operations to break through the fortified zone and destroy the encircled enemy grouping during the Bobruysk Offensive, in East Prussian Operation, East Pomeranian Offensive and in the breakthrough of the enemy's fortified zone on the western bank of the Oder River.
In July 1944, in a battle near the town of Slonim, Borozenets' aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire. He was able to land the burning plane on a railway embankment that crossed the forest, while receiving serious injuries to his face and back. In February 1945, while returning from a combat mission over Poland, his squadron was attacked by a group of 52 enemy fighters. Borozenets' plane was fired upon and as a result, he was wounded and his air gunner Private Leonid Balashenko was killed.
Borozenets flew missions during the Battle of Berlin. Following V-E Day, he was stationed at Rechlin–Lärz Airfield in Berlin.
During World War II, Borozenets flew more 100 missions. He was credited with the destruction of:
By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of August 18, 1945, Lieutenant Borozenets was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal for the heroism shown in combat missions while in command on the front of the struggle against the Nazis .
Post war.
After the war, he continued to serve in the Armed Forces of the USSR. In September 1945, the 569th Assault Aviation Regiment was relocated from Rechlin to an airfield in Brzeg, Poland, where it remained until the end of 1945. Then the personnel of the regiment, leaving their aircraft, was relocated to the Transcaucasian Military District at the Nasosnaya Air Base north of Baku, Azerbaijan SSR.
In April 1946, the 199th Assault Aviation Division was disbanded. Borozenets by that time squadron commander, was offered a transfer to the post of flight commander in the 166th Guards Attack Aviation Regiment, based at the airfield in Kutaisi, Georgian SSR, flying Ilyushin Il-10 aircraft . He held the posts of flight commander, deputy squadron commander and the commander of the squadron.
In 1948 he graduated from the Tambov Higher Aviation Courses for Blind and Night Pilot Training. In September 1952, he entered and in November 1956 graduated from the command and staff faculty of the Gagarin Air Force Academy. During this time, he flew MiG-15s .
After graduating from the academy, he was sent to the 230th Bomber Aviation Regiment of the 32nd Bomber Aviation Division of the Carpathian Military District, based at the Cherlyany Airfield south-west of Lvov, Ukrainian SSR and flying Ilyushin Il-28 jet bombers, then on the Yak-28 tactical bomber. He held the positions of squadron commander, deputy commander and commander of the regiment .
In October 1965, he was transferred to the position of an officer of the combat training department of the headquarters of the 14th Air Army in Lvov. From the summer of 1967 to December 1972, he served in the Southern Group of Forces in Budapest, Hungary, as a senior officer of the combat training department of the headquarters of the 36th Air Army. From 1972 to 1990 he lived in Kharkov, Ukrainian SSR. He worked as a senior lecturer at the Department of Tactics at the Kharkov Higher Military Aviation Pilot School. He retired from military service in 1978.
Later life.
He worked as an engineer at the Kharkov Design and Research Institute PromStroyNIIProekt. From 1990 to 1995 he lived in Moscow. He took part in the 1995 Moscow Victory Day Parades, which held in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War II and the first post-Soviet military parades held in Russia.
As a result of landing his plane without landing gear on a railway track during World War II, Borozenets seriously injured his spine. He went to Chicago in 1995 for surgery to remove several intervertebral discs. However, he was unable to return to Russia because his health prevented him from flying, and Borozenets' wife and son also moved to Chicago. Retaining his Russian citizenship, he applied for the 36,410 ruble cash payment Heroes of the Soviet Union were entitled to in 2006, but his application was denied because he did not live in Russia. Borozenets appealed to the Constitutional Court of Russia, but the court ruled that veterans living outside of Russia were not eligible for the payment, although it allowed for a personal exemption.
Borozenets died on August 26, 2016 in Chicago, at the age of 94. He is buried at Sunset Memorial Lawns in Northbrook, Illinois.
References.


Transadriatica


Leif Hamre

Leif Hamre (9 May 1914 – 20 August 2007) was a Norwegian military officer and children's writer.
Biography.
He was born in Molde. He studied at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo.
Hamre was trained as a pilot in Scotland and as a navigator at Little Norway in Canada during the Second World War. He continued his military career after the war, and assumed various leading positions in the Royal Norwegian Air Force. He is regarded as a pioneer of helicopter trafficking in Norway. He organized and became head of the Air Force's helicopter service, retiring as Colonel Lieutenant in 1974.
Between 1957 and 1978, Hamre wrote six books for children and youth. He became for his action books for boys, in which he utilized his experience in aviation. He made his literary debut in 1957 with "Otter tre to kaller", which won first prize from the publishing house Aschehoug, in their competition for best book for boys. The setting in the book is a rescue operation after an aircraft accident at Finnmarksvidda, under harsh weather conditions. The book was translated into English as "Leap Into Danger" (1959). A follow-up, "Blå to – hopp ut" came in 1958. Later books are "Klart fly" from 1959, "Brutt kontakt" from 1965, "Operasjon Arktis" from 1971, and "Fly uten fører" from 1978. The books have been translated into nineteen languages.
In 2002, he was awarded the King's Medal of Merit.


List of Singapore Airlines Cargo destinations

Singapore Airlines freighters (commonly referred to as SIA Cargo) serve 19 destinations in 13 countries as of 31 December 2019. As SIA Cargo also manages the cargo holds of all Singapore Airlines and Scoot aircraft, the company additionally offers cargo product services to all destinations on the Singapore Airlines Group network.
Current destinations.
As of April 2017, Singapore Airlines Cargo operates scheduled dedicated cargo flights to the following destinations (excluding occasional ad-hoc charter services):


Air India Limited

Air India Limited is a statutory corporation that was formed as National Aviation Company of India Limited by the Government of India to oversee the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines. It is under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Civil Aviation , Government of India. The corporation was renamed as Air India Limited on 26 October 2010. It was incorporated on 30 March 2007 as a government agency based at the Air India Building in Nariman Point, Mumbai. The corporation was created to facilitate the merger of the two main state-owned airlines in India: Air India, with its subsidiary Air India Express and Indian, together with its subsidiary Alliance Air (was called Air India Regional for about 6 years from 2011 to March 2017).
Structure.
Current.
Upon completion of the merger on 26 February 2011 there is now one primary airline, Air India, with two subsidiary (Alliance Air and Air India Express) carriers providing regional and low-cost point-to-point services.
AIL carriers connect 93 destinations (60 domestic and 33 international) in 24 countries as of February 2011.
Additional subsidiaries are Hotel Corporation of India Limited, Air India Charters Limited, and Airline Allied Services Limited. In 2013, it split its engineering and cargo businesses into two separate subsidiaries, AI Engineering Services Ltd (AIESL) and AI Airport Services Limited (AIASL).


George Hopkins Williams II

George Hopkins Williams Jr. (April 7, 1915 – July 9, 2006) was an insurance executive who created the George H. Williams World War I Aviation Collection at McDermott Library at The University of Texas at Dallas.
Early life.
He was born in Frost, Texas on April 7, 1915, and had three siblings: Max Williams; Emily Williams Tooker; and Ralph Williams. He spent his youth in Waco, Texas and graduated from Baylor University in 1939. He was a veteran of World War II and attended Harvard University to study radio and electronics, and was reassigned to the 94th Signal Battalion with General Patton's Third Army in relief of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. He was also at Remagen.
Personal life.
He married Ginny Butcher and had the following children: Holly A. Williams Hays (1944-2004); Kaye Williams Peterson; and Scott Williams. He had 7 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren.
He worked in the mortgage loan division at Equitable Life insurance in Dallas. He assembled considerable material that became the cornerstone of the University of Texas at Dallas.
Career.
Williams organized and served as president of the League of World War I Aviation Historians and started the group’s publication, "Over the Front". He organized a seminar for the League of World War I Aviation Historians at University of Texas at Dallas in 1988. The last three living U.S. flying aces from World War I attended.
Death and legacy.
He died on July 9, 2006, at his home in Dallas.


Heinz Haber

Heinz Haber (May 15, 1913 in Mannheim – February 13, 1990 in Hamburg) was a German physicist and science writer who primarily became known for his TV programs and books about physics and environmental subjects. His lucid style of explaining hard science has frequently been imitated by later popular science presenters in Germany.
Biography.
Heinz Haber was born in 1913. His father, Carl Haber, was director of "Süddeutsche Zucker AG", now known as Südzucker. His older Brother Fritz Haber was an Aerospace engineer.
He started studying physics in Leipzig, Heidelberg and Berlin 1932.
In 1933, the year of its formation, he joined the Fliegersturm der SS, an organization that allowed him to learn flying as a fighter pilot.
1934 he interrupted his studies to volunteer in the German Airforce, Luftwaffe, partaking in several deployments. At the end of this part of his military service he was promoted to ltd. of the reserve. He continued his studies obtaining his doctorate, Haber voluntarily participated in World War II for the German Luftwaffe as a reconnaissance aviator in the 2. Staffel der (Nah-)Aufklärungsgruppe 41, which was active in the Invasion of Poland and later the eastern Front. He served the until he was shot down and wounded 1942, shortly after being promoted to captain. He was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class (1939) and 1st Class (1940) during his service.
He returned to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Physik, where he headed a small Potsdam-based division constructing a diffraction spectrograph.
After the end of the war, Haber — as well as several other Germans involved in military research like Wernher von Braun — was targeted by the Operation Paperclip with the aim of denying scientific expertise and knowledge to the Soviet Union and bringing researchers and scientists to the United States; Ultimately this operation resulted in a considerable contribution to the development of NASA. Haber at first stayed in the American occupied zone of Germany and lectured at Heidelberg. However, in 1946, he emigrated to the United States and joined the USAF School of Aviation Medicine at Randolph Air Force Base. Together with fellow German Hubertus Strughold, he and his brother Dr. Fritz Haber (April 3, 1912 – August 21, 1998) made pioneering research into space medicine in the late 1940s. The brothers proposed parabolic flights for simulating weightlessness.
In 1952, he became associate physicist at UCLA; in the 1950s, Haber eventually became the chief scientific consultant to Walt Disney productions. He later co-hosted Disney’s "Man in Space" with von Braun. When the Eisenhower administration asked Disney to produce a show championing the civilian use of nuclear power, Heinz Haber was given the assignment. He hosted the Disney broadcast called "Our Friend the Atom" and wrote a popular children’s book with the same title, both of which explained nuclear fission and fusion in simple terms. General Dynamics, a manufacturer of nuclear reactors, sponsored "Our Friend the Atom" and the nuclear submarine ride at Disneyland’s Tomorrowland.
In the 1960s and 1970s, he was known in Germany as a popular science spokesperson and wrote magazine columns and numerous books and presented his own TV programs like "Professor Haber experimentiert", "Das Mathematische Kabinett", "Unser blauer Planet", "Stirbt unser blauer Planet?", "Professor Haber berichtet", and "WAS IST WAS mit Professor Haber". He was founding editor of the German science magazine "Bild der Wissenschaft" from 1964 to 1990. His memorable experiments included one where the onset of a nuclear chain reaction was simulated with hundreds of mousetraps, each one having been loaded with two ping pong balls.
Heinz Haber had two children, Kai (born 1943) and Cathleen (born 1945), from his first marriage, and a third child, Marc (born 1969), from the second. His first wife Anneliese lived and son Kai lives in Tucson, Arizona, his second wife Irmgard in Hamburg, Germany.
Connection to War crimes.
Haber was a member of several Nazi organizations, although not the NSDAP. Testimonies portray Haber as an avid supporter of Hitler and the Third Reich. He collaborated with Hubertus Strughold, who had at least knowledge of these crimes. They share authorship and several years of work experience on the topic of low pressure experimentation. Faber also quoted data gathered in the deadly experiments without raising any ethical issues in his writings. During his lifetime he never spoke out against these methods of his peers even though the fact that they happened was public knowledge after the Nuremberg medical trials. His claiming to have had a long desire to emigrate to the USA in an interview for Operation Paperclip while also applying for a professorship in Germany is one of several indicators historians point to, labeling him as an adaptive opportunist.


List of Iran Air destinations

, Iran Air flies following destinations, to 39 domestic and 29 international destinations.


Charles Carpenter (lieutenant colonel)

Lt. Col. Charles "Bazooka Charlie" Carpenter (August 29, 1912 – March 22, 1966) was a United States Army officer and army observation pilot who served in World War II. He is best remembered for destroying several enemy armored vehicles in his bazooka-equipped L-4 Grasshopper light observation aircraft.
Early life and career.
Carpenter was born and raised in the town of Edgington, Illinois. He graduated from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky.
World War II service.
Upon arriving in France in 1944, Carpenter was assigned an L-4 for artillery support and reconnaissance missions. Assuming a pilot and no radio aboard, the L-4H had a remaining cargo or passenger weight capacity of approximately . The additional weight of radio and radio operator would often exceed this limit.
Inspired by other L-4 pilots who had installed bazookas as anti-tank armament on their planes, Carpenter added bazooka launchers to his plane as well.
Within a few weeks, on September 20, 1944, during the Battle of Arracourt, Carpenter was credited with knocking out a German armored car and four tanks. Carpenter's plane, bearing USAAF s/n 43-30426, was known as "Rosie the Rocketer" (a play on Rosie the Riveter), and his exploits were soon featured in numerous press accounts, including "Stars and Stripes", the Associated Press, "Popular Science", the "New York Sun", and "Liberty" magazine. Carpenter once told a reporter that his idea of fighting a war was to "attack, attack and then attack again."
After destroying his fifth enemy tank, Carpenter told a "Stars and Stripes" correspondent that the "word must be getting around to watch out for Cubs with bazookas on them. Every time I show up now they shoot with everything they have. They never used to bother Cubs. Bazookas must be bothering them a bit."
By war's end, Major Carpenter had destroyed or immobilized several German armored cars and tanks (he would be officially credited with six tanks destroyed).
Postwar service.
In 1945, Carpenter became seriously ill, and was honorably discharged from U.S. Army service in 1946. He returned to work as a history teacher at Urbana High School in Urbana, Illinois, where he worked until his death in 1966 at the age of 53.
"Rosie the Rocketer".
In October 2017, the same L-4H that then-Major Carpenter had flown in World War II was located at the "Österreichisches Luftfahrtmuseum" aviation museum at Graz Airport, and was acquired by the Collings Foundation for restoration to its WWII appearance by a restorer in La Pine, Oregon, with the restoration reported as complete on July 4, 2020. The aircraft is now on public display at the Collings Foundation's American Heritage Museum.


McClellan Field


Helijet Airways


Boy Lornsen

Boy Lornsen (7 August 1922 – 26 July 1995) was a German sculptor and author of children's literature, writing both in Standard German and in Platt.
Lornsen served as pilot and radio operator in the German Luftwaffe during World War II. After the war, he was educated as a sculptor at Hanover. He worked as a sculptor into the 1960s.
In 1967, he published his first children's book, about a boy who helps a robot with his homework, Robbi, Tobbi und das Fliewatüüt. The book was a success, and was adapted for television in 1972. Lornsen was a member of P.E.N. from 1981.
Lornsen's books were translated into numerous languages, including Greek, Japanese and Norwegian. In 1980, his "Jakobus Nimmersatt" was adapted by Japan's Nippon Animation studio into a TV special, "Nodoka Mori no Dobutsu Daisakusen" ("The Great Plan of the Animals of Placid Forest"), directed by Yoshio Kuroda; the special was released in English under two different titles, "Back to the Forest" and "Peter of Placid Forest".
Paul the Octopus was named after one of his poems: "Der Tintenfisch Paul Oktopus".


Uummannaq Heliport

Uummannaq Heliport is a heliport in Uummannaq, a town located on Uummannaq Island in the Qaasuitsup municipality in northwestern Greenland. There are no facilities in the heliport.
Airlines and destinations.
Air Greenland operates government contract flights to villages in the Uummannaq Fjord region. These mostly cargo flights are not featured in the timetable, although they can be pre-booked. Departure times for these flights as specified during booking are by definition approximate, with the settlement service optimized on the fly depending on local demand for a given day.
Uummannaq 'airport'.
Neighboring Qaarsut Airport, located on Nuussuaq Peninsula on the other side of the Uummannaq fjord is the only daily connection available from Uummannaq, serving Dash-7 aircraft of Air Greenland. It functions as a mini-hub for Uummannaq, marketed as "Uummannaq Airport" regardless of its actual location, registration, documentation, and existing booking systems.


Diversion airport

Diversion airports are airports capable of handling a particular ETOPS rated aircraft during an emergency landing and whose flying distance at the point of emergency shall not exceed the ETOPS diversion period for that aircraft.
Any airport designated as an en route diversion airport must have the facilities to safely support that particular aircraft, and weather conditions at the time of arrival must allow a safe landing with an engine and/or systems malfunctioning.
An ETOPS/LROPS flight may be conducted solely if the diversion airports are available throughout the length of the flight. Unavailability due to bad weather, for example, might require an inflight rerouting.
Common diversion airports on Atlantic routes:
Common diversion airports on Pacific routes:
Common diversion airports on Arctic Polar routes:
Common diversion airports on Indian Ocean routes:


List of defunct airlines of China

This is a list of defunct airlines of China.


Harrell Field

Harrell Field (Camden Regional Airport, or Camden Municipal Airport) is five miles northeast of Camden, in Ouachita County, Arkansas, United States. The FAA's National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2009–2013 categorizes it as a "general aviation" facility.
History.
The facility opened in August 1942 with a 4,800-foot turf runway. It began training United States Army Air Corps flying cadets under contract to Wiggings-Marden Aero Corp. It was assigned to United States Army Air Forces Gulf Coast Training Center (later Central Flying Training Command) as a primary (level 1) pilot training airfield. It had two local auxiliary airfields for emergency and overflow landings. Flying training was performed with Fairchild PT-19s and Fairchild PT-23s as the primary trainers. It also had several PT-17 Stearmans and a few P-40 Warhawks assigned.
The field was inactivated on 15 April 1944 with the drawdown of AAFTC's pilot training program. It was declared surplus and turned over to the Army Corps of Engineers on 30 September 1945. It was eventually discharged to the War Assets Administration (WAA) and became a civil airport. It appears to have closed after the war about 1951, and was later reopened.
Trans-Texas DC-3s stopped at Camden from 1953 to 1962.


USS Peary (DD-226)

USS "Peary" (DD-226) was a of the United States Navy. She was commissioned in 1920 and sunk by Japanese aircraft at Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, on 19 February 1942.
Construction and commissioning.
"Peary" was laid down by William Cramp & Sons of Philadelphia on 9 September 1919. The destroyer was launched on 6 April 1920, sponsored by Mrs. Edward Stafford daughter of Admiral Peary. The vessel was commissioned on 22 October 1920.
Service history.
Pre-World War II.
"Peary" served in the Far East from 1922 onward. With the Yangtze River Patrol from 1923 to 1931, she made annual deployments in Chinese waters protecting American interests from 1931 to the outbreak of World War II.
World War II.
"Peary" was moored at Cavite, Philippines, when news of the Pearl Harbor raid reached her and was caught in the raid on the Cavite Navy Yard, Philippines, two days later. On the early afternoon of 10 December more than 50 two-engined high level bombers appeared over Cavite and, cruising leisurely above the range of anti-aircraft fire, destroyed practically the entire base.
"Peary", tied up at a small pier, took one bomb forward which damaged the superstructure and stack and killed eight of her crew. She found herself in a precarious position, as fires began to set off torpedo warheads in a torpedo overhaul shop on the wharf next to her. towed her out. "Whippoorwill" and came alongside and their fire hoses extinguished the fire in five minutes. Her commanding officer, Commander H. H. Keith was wounded in this engagement and was relieved by Commander J. M. Bermingham.
On 26 December 1941, "Peary" was underway when the Japanese came over again and dropped several bombs near the ship.
By the morning of 27 December, "Peary" was in Campomanes Bay, Negros Island, where she decided to put in for the day. Her crew camouflaged her with green paint and palm fronds, hoping to elude Japanese patrol bombers. Five passed overhead without spotting the ship that morning and when darkness fell she set out through the Celebes Sea for Makassar Strait.
A Japanese bomber spotted "Peary" the next morning, and shadowed her until early afternoon when three other bombers joined her in a two-hour attack. The planes dropped bombs and then launched two torpedoes only from the ship. "Peary" quickly backed on one engine and both torpedoes narrowly missed the bow. Seconds later, two more missed the stern by . The bombers then withdrew.
The New Year found "Peary" at Darwin, Australia. During January and a part of February, she operated out of Darwin, principally on anti-submarine patrol. On 15–16 February, "Peary" took part in a mission to transport reinforcements and supplies to Allied forces in Dutch Timor, but this was aborted after coming under intense air attack. On 19 February 1942 Darwin experienced a massive Japanese air attack. The "Peary" was attacked by Japanese dive bombers, and was struck by five bombs. The first bomb exploded on the fantail, the second, an incendiary, on the galley deck house; the third did not explode; the fourth hit forward and set off the forward ammunition magazines; the fifth, another incendiary, exploded in the after engine room. A .30 caliber machine gun on the after deck house and a .50 caliber machine gun on the galley deck house fired until the last enemy plane flew away. Lost with the ship were 88 officers and men, including Bermingham. There were 53 enlisted survivors and one officer, Lt (j.g.) R. L. Johnson. Lieutenant W.J. Catlett, who was ashore during Peary's final battle, was tasked with writing the official US Navy report on the sinking of USS Peary. USS "Peary" was the first destroyer of the Asiatic Fleet to be sunk in World War II. She was struck from the Navy List on 8 May 1942. In July 2020 an announcement was made by the Northern Territory government that the propellers from the ship had been found some kilometres from the known wreck site, prompting further investigation into the "Peary"'s final battle.
Present day.
Memorial.
There is a memorial in Darwin in honor of the lives lost. This memorial, in Bicentennial Park, consists of a plaque and one of the 4-inch deck guns recovered from "Peary". This gun is aimed towards "Peary"s resting place in the harbor. In the words of Peter Grose, author of "An Awkward Truth: The Bombing of Darwin, February 1942", "The doomed yet magnificent reply by the destroyer USS "Peary" in Darwin harbour as Japanese dive-bombers swarmed around her deserves a place in the legend books of American military history". The memorial was visited by President Obama and Prime Minister Gillard on November 17, 2011 as part of a ceremony dedicated to the veterans of WWII, at the end of the 60th anniversary of ANZUS Presidential visit to Australia.
Wreck.
"Peary" lies in of water in Darwin Harbour, at coordinates . The wreck itself is a memorial to those who lost their lives in the first bombing raid on Australian soil and to those who defended Darwin.


Heli-Sport CH-7

The Cicaré CH-7 and Heli-Sport CH7 are a series of ultralight, kit-built helicopters based on a single-seat Argentinian design from the late 1980s. It was later developed into a tandem two-seater, and remains in production.
Design and development.
In 1989 EliSport, which became Heli-Sport in 1997, bought the rights to the Cicare CH-6, a small single-seat open cockpit helicopter designed in Argentina by Augusto Cicaré. It was developed by Josi and Claudio Barbero and, with the help of the sports car designer, Marcello Gandini who produced a new, enclosed cabin, marketed from 1992 as the CH-7 Angel. Its commercial success led to a tandem two-seat version with a stretched cabin and bigger engine, named the CH-7 Kompress and, in 2005, a further refinement designated the CH-7 Kompress Charlie.
The piston engine-powered CH-7 ultralight series use the traditional "penny-farthing" layout with two-bladed main and tail rotors. The main rotor is formed from composites and is a teetering, semi-rigid design with 6° of twist. The tail rotor is aluminium. The pod-and-boom fuselage has a fiberglass cabin built on a steel tube frame, with a long transparent forward-opening canopy. The steel frame also carries the engine, semi-exposed behind the accommodation and connected to the main rotor shaft by a belt drive. A slender aluminium boom, strengthened by a pair of long struts to the lower fuselage frame, carries both the tail rotor and swept fins. The upper fin is topped with a short horizontal tailplane, with small endplate fins, and the lower one ends with a tailskid. The CH-7 uses a simple aluminium skid undercarriage, which may be fitted with small wheels for ground handling or multi-tube inflatable floats for flying off water. In this last form the CH-7 is called the Mariner. The Kompress Charlie has faired, wide-chord carbon fibre skid legs.
The Kompress and Kompress Charlie are sold in kit form for home assembly, the manufacturers quoting a 200-hour building time. A fast-build kit, with more components pre-assembled, is claimed to require 85 hours.
The Kompress series may be fitted with a hook for lifting loads of up to 100 kg (220 lb), or fitted with spray bars for agricultural work.
Operational history.
120 Angels were built between 1992 and 1997, followed by 215 Kompress and Kompress Charlies up to May 2009. By mid-2009 the Kompress variants had logged over 30,000 flying hours with owners in 15 countries. There are dealerships in the Czech republic, France, Italy and Poland.
In 2007 the CH-7 won the Italian Helicopter Championships. It gained 3rd place in the 2009 World Air Games.
Variants.
"Information from Jane's All the World's Aircraft 2010 and manufacturer's website"


Lilium GmbH

Lilium GmbH is a German aerospace company which is the developer of the Lilium Jet, an electrically powered personal air vehicle capable of VTOL flight.
History.
Lilium GmbH was founded in 2015 by four engineers and PhD students at the Technical University of Munich, Daniel Wiegand, Sebastian Born, Matthias Meiner and Patrick Nathen. They are supported by the Business Incubation Center Bavaria, the European Space Agency (ESA), Chinese Internet company Tencent, Atomico, Obvious, LGT and Frank Thelen's investment company Freigeist Capital.
The Lilium Eagle, an unmanned two-seat proof of concept model, performed its maiden flight at the airfield Mindelheim-Mattsies near Munich in Germany on 20 April 2017. The Lilium Jet five-seater prototype Phoenix first flew in May 2019. The prototype was powered by 36 electrically-powered jacketed-propellers mounted in movable flaps that can point down for vertical takeoff and gradually moved to a horizontal position to provide forward thrust. The five-seat Lilium Jet is capable of achieving a top speed of 300km/h and targets a range of 300 km. In 2017, Lilium announced plans to launch a 5-seat Lilium Jet by 2025, aimed for the air taxi service market. At the beginning of 2019, Lilium held discussions with the Switzerland's national rail company SBB on the use of the air taxi as a means of transport between the station and at home and a letter of intent was signed. In October 2019, Lilium released footage showing the Jet in full flight, taking off vertically and transitioning to horizontal flight. Lilium also announced the completion of its first manufacturing facility in October 2019. In November 2020, Lilium announced a partnership with the developer Tavistock Development Company to build a $25 million “vertiport” in Orlando, Florida.
, the registered office of Lilium GmbH was in Weßling (Wessling) near Gilching in Bavaria, Germany. Lilium raised a new finance round of $90 million in September 2017. In May 2018, the car designer Frank Stephenson became chief designer for Lilium. He previously worked for BMW and designed various sports car brands. Also in 2018, Arnd Mueller, previously Chief Brand Marketing Officer & GM Esprit Image GmbH-Member of the Executive Management Team, became VP Marketing of Lilium. He is to build the air taxi development company and its product into an international brand. In September 2018, Yann de Vries, formerly partner at Atomico, became the new VP of corporate development Lilium. In January 2021, Lilium announced that Thomas Enders, former CEO of Airbus, will join the board.
In July 2019, Lilium announced London, UK as its base to develop its software engineering team. The engineering team is led by Carlos Morgado, former chief technology officer of Just Eat. Luca Benassi, a former Airbus executive with experience at Boeing and NASA, has been named Lilium’s chief development engineer. Yves Yemsi who worked as head of program quality for Airbus A350 aircraft has been hired as chief program officer. Dirk Gebser has joined as vice president of production.
In March 2020, Lilium raised $240 million in funding led by Tencent, with participation of previous backers such as Atomico, Freigeist and LGT.
In January 2021 it was reported that Lilium was seeking to become a listed company via the SPAC process. The company also confirmed it was redesigning its aircraft.
Former Airbus CEO, Tom Enders, joined Lilium's Board of Directors in January 2021.
Controversy.
In January 2020 Aerokurier published a controversial report into Lilium, which stated that the company could not meet its stated aircraft performance goals and would only be able to fly for two minutes at a time. The anonymously-authored report was dismissed by the company but later backed up by four well-known German aerospace academics who wrote that Lilium was "using brilliant PR to create an illusory world to attract investors."
In February 2021, Forbes published an article citing a number of former employees that stated the development of Lilium's aircraft was "dogged by problems and that the flight test campaign made minimal progress."
Awards and recognition.
In 2018, Lilium was named as the management team of the year - industrial goods as the silver Stevie winner of the Stevie Awards.
In July 2019, the Lilium five-seater Jet received a Red Dot Award: Design Concept for "Best of the Best".
In 2019, Lilium was named second in LinkedIn Germany's 'Top Startups' list.
In 2021 the Lilium Jet won the IF Gold Award in the discipline of "Professional Concept".


8th Air Support Operations Squadron

The United States Air Force's 8th Air Support Operations Squadron (8 ASOS) was a combat support unit located at Aviano AB, Italy. The 8 ASOS provided Tactical Command and Control of air power assets to the Joint Forces Air Component Commander and Joint Forces Land Component Commander for combat operations. Due to budget constraints, the 8 ASOS was disbanded in 2013.


Kuweires Military Aviation Institute

Kuweires Military Aviation Institute is an airbase and military aviation institute in Aleppo Governorate, Syria. It is situated some 30 km east of the city of Aleppo, to the northeast of Kuweires Sharqi village, between as-Safira in the West and Dayr Hafir in the East.
The base was constructed with Polish support in the late 1960s as the primary base of the Syrian air force academy. The base is home to the Military Aviation Institute (originally opened in Damascus in 1947) of the Syrian Air Forces since 1980.
Siege during the Syrian civil war.
Kuweires Airbase was defended mostly by cadets when it fell under siege by rebels in 2013. Rebel forces surrounded Kuweiris for more than a year but did not overrun it. As rebel infighting with ISIS intensified, ISIS took control of the siege around late 2013. ISIS besieged the airbase for two years, deploying heavy weapons and armoured vehicles like suicide tank VBIEDs. ISIS negotiators called up officers on the phone and urged them to surrender and shelled the base with leaflets promising safe passage, but no one defected. Twice ISIS breached the perimeter of the airbase, even reaching as far as the hardened aircraft shelters where the defenders lived, but could not capture it.
Colonel Suheil al-Hassan and his Tiger Forces finally broke the siege on November 10, 2015 as part of the Kuweires offensive. Only 300 of 1,100 soldiers survived the siege.
The Syrian government repaired the base immediately after lifting the siege, deploying a squadron of Aero L-39 Albatros fighter-bombers together with a Buk M1 surface-to-air missile system, operated by a combined Russian and Syrian crew, to defend the base.