During a high-altitude raid over Japan, B-29 gunner Sgt Krantz’ observation blister was shot away and he dangled for 15 minutes before being pulled back up and suffering from frost bite.

The Vickers EFB1, aka the Destroyer, was unsuccessful, but it was the world’s first fighter aircraft with the gun in the extreme nose of the aircraft.

Today in 1935, the crash of the USS Macon (ZRS-5) near Big Sur would be the death knell of the Navy’s dirigible program.

Today in 1939, First Lieutenant Benjamin Scovill (“Ben”) Kelsey took the prototype Lockheed XP-38 on a record-breaking transcontinental flight and crashes.

Today in 1952, U.S. Air Force officials ordered the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, an eight-jet heavy bomber, into full-scale production.