February 8, 1965. The Air Force performs its first retaliatory
 air strike in North Vietnam. A North American F-100 Super Sabre
 flies cover for attacking South Vietnamese fighter aircraft, sup-
 pressing ground fire in the target area.
     February 18, 1965. First Air Force jet raids are flown against
 an enemy concentration in South Vietnam. American pilots fly Martin
 B-57 Canberra bombers and North American F-100 fighters against the
 Viet Cong in South Vietnam, near An Khe.
     March 1, 1965. An unarmed Boeing LGM-30B Minuteman I ICBM is
 successfully launched from an underground silo ten miles north of
 Newell, S.D. It is the first time a site other than Vandenberg AFB
 or Cape Kennedy AFS, Fla., is used for an ICBM launch.
     March 2, 1965. Capt. Hayden J. Lockhart, flying an F-100 in a
 raid against an ammunition dump north of the Vietnamese demilitariz-
 ed zone, is shot down and becomes the first Air Force pilot to be
 taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese. He will not be released
 until February 12, 1973.
     March 23, 1965. Air Force Maj. Virgil I. Grissom becomes the
 first astronaut in the manned spaceflight program to go aloft a
 second time, as he and Navy Lt. Cmdr. John W. Young are launched on
 the first Gemini mission, Gemini 3. This three-orbit, four-hour,
 fifty-three-minute shakedown flight is also the first time a space-
 craft's orbit is changed in space.
     May 1, 1965. Using two Lockheed YF-12As, three Air Force crews
 set six class and absolute records at Edwards AFB, Calif. Col.
 Robert Stevens and RSO Lt. Col. Daniel Andre set the recognized
 absolute speed record with a mark of 2,070.115 mph over the 10.1-
 mile straight course.
     May 10, 1965. Tactical control of aircraft in battle areas is
 assigned to the Air Force by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
     June 3-7, 1965. Air Force Maj. Edward H. White makes the first
 US spacewalk. He and Air Force Maj. James A. McDivitt, set a space
 endurance record as Gemini 4 stays aloft for ninety-seven hours and
 thirty two seconds in sixty-two orbits. The Gemini 4 mission is the
 first US spaceflight to be controlled from the Manned Spaceflight
 Center in Houston, Tex.
     June 18, 1965. SAC B-52s are used for the first time in Vietnam,
 when twenty-eight aircraft strike Viet Cong targets near Saigon.
 (9th and 20th Bomb Squadrons. Jim)
     July 10, 1965. Capt. Thomas S. Roberts, with his back-seater
 Capt. Ronald C. Anderson, and Capt. Kenneth E. Holcombe, and his
 back-seater Capt. Arthur C. Clark, both flying McDonnell Douglas
 F-4C Phantom IIs, shoot down two MiG-17s, the first Air Force air-
 to-air victories of the Vietnam War.
     August 11, 1965. Flying in North American F-100D Super Sabres,
 the Thunderbirds, the Air Force's aerial demonstration squadron,
 fly their 1,000th show at Waukegan, Ill.
     August 21-29, 1965. The Gemini 5 crew of Air Force Lt. Col. L.
 Gordon Cooper and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Conrad carry out the US's
 first long-duration spaceflight, ending one orbit short of eight
 full days.
     October 1, 1965. Dr. Harold Brown is sworn in as Secretary of
 the Air Force.
     October 18, 1965. New York's Air National Guard 107th Tactical
 Fighter Group becomes the first tactical guard unit to be deployed
 in peacetime to the Pacific for a joint-service exercise.
     December 15, 1965. In a first for the US space program, the
 crews of Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 redezvous in space.  Unlike the
 Soviets who had earlier managed to get two spacecraft in close
 proximity to one another in orbit, the Gemini 6 crew of Navy Capt.
 Walter Schirra and USAF Maj. Tom Stafford maneuver to within four
 inches of Gemini 7.
     January 1, 1966. The Military Air Transport Service is redesig-
 nated the Military Airlift Command (MAC). (For Robert S. Macnamara.
 Jim)
     January 1, 1966. Military airlift units of the Air National
 Guard (ANG) begin flying about seventy-five cargo flights a month
 to Southeast Asia. These flights are in addition to the more than
 100 overseas missions a month flown by the ANG in augmenting the
 Military Airlift Command's global airlift mission.
     January 17, 1966. A B-52 loaded with four hydrogen bombs col-
 lides with a KC-135 while refueling near Palomares, Spain. Seven of
 the eleven crew members involved are killed. Three of the four wea-
 pons are quickly recovered. The fourth, which falls into the Medi-
 terranean Sea, is not recovered until early spring.
     January 23, 1966. The Military Airlift Command completes Oper-
 ation Blue Light, the airlift of the Army's 3d Brigade, 25th Infan-
 try Division, from Hawaii to Pleiku, South Vietnam, to offset the
 buildup of Communist forces there. The airlift begins on December
 23, 1965, and its 231 C-141 sorties move approximately 3,000 troops
 and 4,700 tons of equipment.
     February 28, 1966. The US space program suffers its first fatal-
 ities, as the Gemini 9 prime crew of Elliot See and Charles Basset
 are killed as their Northrop T-38 crashes in Saint Louis, Mo., in
 bad weather. They were on a trip to inspect their spacecraft at the
 McDonnell Douglas plant at Lambert Field.
     March 4, 1966. A flight of Air Force F-4C Phantoms is attacked
 by three MiG-17s in the first air-to-air combat of the war over
 North Vietnam. The MiGs make unsuccesful passes before fleeing to
 the sanctuary of the Communist capital area.
     March 10, 1966. Maj. Bernard F. Fisher, a 1st Air Commando
 Squadron A-1E pilot, lands on the A Shau airstrip, after it has
 been overrun by North Vietnamese regulars, to rescue downed A-1E
 pilot Maj. D. Wayne "Jump" Myers. Major Fisher is later awarded the
 Medal of Honor for his heroic act.
     March 16, 1966. The Gemini 8 crew, Neil Armstrong and USAF Maj.
 David R. Scott, successfully carry out the first docking with
 another vehicle in space.
 End of Part-25
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