Part 13
     November 10, 1944. Thirty-six B-25s of Fifth Air Force attack a
 Japanese convoy near Ormoc Bay, Leyte, sinking three ships.
     December 15, 1944. Bound for France, famed bandleader Maj. Glenn
 Miller and two others take off from England in a Noorduyn C-64 Norse-
 man and are never heard from again. Several possible causes for the
 disappearance have been formulated, but none is ever proven.
     December 15, 1944. President Roosevelt signs legislation creat-
 ing the five-star ranks of General of the Army and Admiral of the
 Fleet.
     December 17, 1944. The 509th Composite Group, assembled to carry
 out atomic bomb operations, is established at Wendover, Utah.
     December 17, 1944. On the forty-first anniversary of the Wright
 brothers' historic first flight, Maj. Richard I. Bong, America's
 leading ace of all time, records his fortieth and final aerial
 victory.
     December 21, 1944. Gen. H.H. Arnold becomes General of the Army-
 -the first airman to hold five-star rank.
     December 26, 1944. Maj. Thomas B. McGuire, Jr., records four
 aerial victories in a single mission in the southwest Pacific. These
 kills bring Major McGuire's victory total to thirty-eight, making
 him the second leading American ace of all time. Major McGuire, a
 Medal of Honor recipient, is killed in combat twelve days later.
     January 20, 1945. Army Air Forces Maj. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay suc-
 ceeds Brig. Gen. Haywood "Possum" Hansell as commander of XXI Bomber
 Command in the Mariana Islands.
     February 3, 1945. A total of 959 B-17 crews carry out the
 largest raid to date against Berlin by American bombers.
     February 19, 1945. The Marine V Amphibious Corps, with air and
 sea support, lands on Iwo Jima. The capture of this small spit of
 volcanic rock has important considerations for the Army Air Forces,
 as the island's three airfields will be used as emergency landing
 fields for Marianas-based B-29s and as a base for fighter operations.
 By March 26, the island will be secured, at a cost of more than
 19,000 Japanese and 6,520 American lives.
     February 20, 1945. Secretary of War Henry Stimson approves plans
 to establish a rocket proving ground near White Sands, N.M.
     February 25, 1945. B-29 crews begin night incendiary raids on
 Japan; 334 aircraft drop 1,667 tons of firebombs and destroy fifteen
 square miles of Tokyo.
     March 9, 1945. In a change of tactics in order to double bomb
 loads, Twentieth Air Force sends more than 300 B-29s from the Mari-
 anas against Tokyo in a low-altitude, incendiary night raid,
 destroying about one-fourth of the city.
     March 11, 1945. The greatest weight of bombs dropped in a USAAF
 strategic raid on a single target in Europe falls on Essen, Germany,
 as 1,079 bomber crews release 4,738 tons of bombs.
     March 14, 1945. The first Grand Slam (22,000-pound) bomb is
 dropped from an Avro Lancaster flown by Royal Air Force Squadron
 Leader C.C. Calder. Two spans of the Bielefeld railway viaduct in
 Germany are destroyed.
     March 18, 1945. Some 1,250 US bombers, escorted by 670 fighters,
 deal Berlin its heaviest daylight blow--3,000 tons of bombs on
 transportation and industrial areas.
     March 27, 1945. B-29 crews begin night mining missions around
 Japan, eventually establishing a complete blockade.
     April 9, 1945. The last B-17 rolls off the line at Boeing's
 Seattle, Wash., plant.
     April 10, 1945. The last Luftwaffe wartime sortie over Britain
 is made by an Arado Ar-234B pilot on a reconnaissance mission out
 of Norway.
     April 10, 1945. Thirty of fifty German Me-262 jet fighters are
 shot down by US bombers and their P-51 escorts. The German fighters
 shoot down ten bombers--the largest loss of the war in a single
 mission to jets.
     April 17, 1945. Flak Bait, a Martin B-26B Marauder, completes a
 record 200th bombing mission. The aircraft, which has now flown more
 missions over Europe than any other Allied aircraft in World War II,
 will go on to complete two more missions.
     April 23, 1945. Flying Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateers, Navy crews
 from VPB-109 launch two Bat missiles against Japanese ships in
 Balikpapan Harbor, Borneo. This is the first known use of automatic
 homing missiles during World War II.
     May 8, 1945. V-E Day. The war ends in Europe.
     June 22, 1945. Okinawa is declared captured by US forces. The
 price paid to capture this island--16,000 men, thirty-six ships, and
 800 aircraft--is a key consideration in the decision to use the
 atomic bombs on Japan.
     June 26, 1945. B-29 crews begin nighttime raids on Japanese oil
 refineries.
     July 16, 1945. The world's first atomic bomb is successfully
 detonated at Trinity Site, a desert location near Alamagordo, N.M.
 The weapon (referred to as "the gadget") is the prototype of the
 "Fat Man" plutonium bomb and has an explosive yield of nineteen
 kilotons.
     August 6, 1945. The "Little Boy" (uranium) atomic bomb is dropped
 on Hiroshima from the B-29 Enola Gay, commanded by Col. Paul W.
 Tibbets, Jr.
     August 6, 1945. Maj. Richard I. Bong, America's all-time leading
 ace, is killed in a P-80 accident. He had forty confirmed victories.
     August 9, 1945. The "Fat Man" atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki
 from the B-29 Bockscar, commanded by Maj. Charles W. Sweeney.
     August 14, 1945. Lt. Robert W. Clyde (pilot) and Lt. Bruce K.
 Leford (radar operator) record the last aerial victory of World War
 II. Flying a Northrop P-61 nicknamed Lady in the Dark, the crew gets
 behind a Nakajima Oscar, and, in an attempt to escape from its pur-
 suer, the Japanese fighter crashes into the Pacific without a shot
 being fired.
--- DB 1.39/004487
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