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640th Bombardment Squadron
The 640th Bombardment Squadron is an inactive United States Army Air Forces unit. After training with Douglas A-20 Havocs in the United States the squadron deployed to the European Theater of World War II, where it engaged in combat until the Surrender of Germany. It was last assigned to the 409th Bombardment Group at Westover Field, Massachusetts, where it was inactivated on 7 November 1945. History The 640th Bombardment Squadron was activated in June 1943 at Will Rogers Field, Oklahoma and equipped with Douglas A-20 Havocs as one of the four original squadrons of the 409th Bombardment Group. The squadron trained under Third Air Force in Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana.Maurer, ''Combat Units'', pp. 294–295 The squadron deployed to the European Theater of Operations in March 1944, where it became part of IX Bomber Command of Ninth Air Force. The 640th initially flew sweeps over Occupied France from its base in England, attacking coastal defenses, V-1 flying bomb and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas A-26 Invader
The Douglas A-26 Invader (designated B-26 between 1948 and 1965) is an American twin-engined light bomber and ground attack aircraft. Built by Douglas Aircraft Company during World War II, the Invader also saw service during several major Cold War conflicts. A limited number of highly modified United States Air Force aircraft served in Southeast Asia until 1969. It was a fast aircraft capable of carrying a large bomb load. A range of guns could be fitted to produce a formidable ground-attack aircraft.Wheeler 1992, p. 82. A redesignation of the type from A-26 to B-26 led to confusion with the Martin B-26 Marauder, which first flew in November 1940, some 20 months before the Douglas design's maiden flight. Although both aircraft were powered by the widely used Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp 18-cylinder, double-row radial engine, they were completely different and separate designs, with some 5,300 Marauders produced to 2,503 Invaders. Design and development The A-26 was Dou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
V-1 Flying Bomb
The V-1 flying bomb (german: Vergeltungswaffe 1 "Vengeance Weapon 1") was an early cruise missile. Its official Ministry of Aviation (Nazi Germany), Reich Aviation Ministry () designation was Fi 103. It was also known to the Allies as the buzz bomb or doodlebug and in Germany as (cherry stone) or (maybug). The V-1 was the first of the (V-weapons) deployed for the terror bombing of London. It was developed at Peenemünde Army Research Center in 1939 by the at the beginning of the Second World War, and during initial development was known by the codename "Cherry Stone". Because of its limited range, the thousands of V-1 missiles launched into England were fired from V-1 flying bomb facilities, launch facilities along the French (Pas-de-Calais) and Dutch coasts. The Wehrmacht first launched the V-1s against London on 13 June 1944, one week after (and prompted by) the successful Operation Overlord, Allied landings in France. At peak, more than one hundred V-1s a day were fire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of The Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive (military), offensive military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war in Europe. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region between Belgium and Luxembourg. The primary military objectives were to deny further use of the Belgian port of Antwerp to the Allies and to split the Allied lines, which potentially could have allowed the Germans to encirclement, encircle and destroy the four Allied forces. Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, who since December 1941 had assumed direct command of the German army, believed that achieving these objectives would compel the Western Allies to accept a peace treaty in the Axis powers' favor. By this time, it was palpable to virtually the entire German leadership including Hitler himself that they had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Close Air Support
In military tactics, close air support (CAS) is defined as air action such as air strikes by fixed or rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets near friendly forces and require detailed integration of each air mission with fire and movement of these forces and attacks with aerial bombs, glide bombs, missiles, rockets, autocannons, machine guns, and even directed-energy weapons such as lasers.''Close Air Support''. United States Department of Defense, 2014. The requirement for detailed integration because of proximity, fires or movement is the determining factor. CAS may need to be conducted during shaping operations with Special Operations Forces (SOF) if the mission requires detailed integration with the fire and movement of those forces. A closely related subset of air interdiction (AI), battlefield air interdiction, denotes interdiction against units with near-term effects on friendly units, but which does not require integration with friendly troop movements. The ter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Third Army
The United States Army Central, formerly the Third United States Army, commonly referred to as the Third Army and as ARCENT, is a military formation of the United States Army which saw service in World War I and World War II, in the 1991 Gulf War, and in the coalition occupation of Iraq. It is best known for its campaigns in World War II under the command of General George S. Patton. Third Army is headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina with a forward element at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. It serves as the echelon above corps for the Army component of CENTCOM, US Central Command, whose area of responsibility (AOR) includes Southwest Asia, some 20 countries of the world, in Africa, Asia, and the Persian Gulf. Activation and World War I The Third United States Army was first activated as a formation during the First World War on 7 November 1918, at Chaumont, France, when the General Headquarters of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) issued General Order 198 organizi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Advanced Landing Ground
Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs) were temporary advance airfields constructed by the Allies during World War II during the liberation of Europe. They were built in the UK prior to the invasion and thereafter in northwest Europe from 6 June 1944 to V-E Day, 7 May 1945. Unlike the permanent airfields built in the United Kingdom and designed for the strategic bombardment of Germany, the tactical combat airfields on the continent were temporary, often improvised airfields to be used by the tactical air forces to support the advancing ground armies engaged on the battlefield. Once the front line moved out of range for the aircraft, the groups and squadrons moved up to newly built ALGs closer to the ground forces and left the ones in the rear for other support uses, or simply abandoned them. Overview When the Allies invaded Normandy on D-Day, Royal Air Force Airfield Construction Service engineers were among those in the initial assault waves. Their mission was to rapidly construc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-aircraft Warfare
Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes Surface-to-air missile, surface based, subsurface (Submarine#Armament, submarine launched), and air-based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements, and passive measures (e.g. barrage balloons). It may be used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries, the main effort has tended to be homeland defence. NATO refers to airborne air defence as counter-air and naval air defence as anti-aircraft warfare. Missile defense, Missile defence is an extension of air defence, as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight. In some countries, such as Britain and Germany during the World War II, Second World War, the Soviet Union, and modern NATO a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint-Lô
Saint-Lô (, ; br, Sant Lo) is a commune in northwest France, the capital of the Manche department in the region of Normandy.Commune de Saint-Lô (50502) INSEE Although it is the second largest city of Manche after , it remains the of the department. It is also of an |
Operation Cobra
Operation Cobra was the codename for an Offensive (military), offensive launched by the United States First United States Army, First Army under Lieutenant General Omar Bradley seven weeks after the D-Day landings, during the Invasion of Normandy, Normandy campaign of World War II. The intention was to take advantage of the distraction of the Nazi Germany, Germans by the British and Canadian attacks around Caen in Operation Goodwood,Trew, p. 64 and thereby break through the German defenses that were penning in their forces while the Germans were unbalanced. Once a corridor had been created, the First Army would then be able to advance into Brittany, rolling up the German flanks once free of the constraints of the bocage country. After a slow start, the offensive gathered momentum and German resistance collapsed as scattered remnants of broken units fought to escape to the Seine. Lacking the resources to cope with the situation, the German response was ineffectual and the entire N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caen
Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Comparateur de territoire INSEE, retrieved 20 June 2022. making Caen the second largest urban area in and the 19th largest in France. It is also the third largest commune in all of Normandy after and Rouen. It is located inland ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artillery Battery
In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit or multiple systems of artillery, mortar systems, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, etc., so grouped to facilitate better battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion for its constituent gunnery crews and their systems. The term is also used in a naval context to describe groups of guns on warships. Land usage Historically the term "battery" referred to a cluster of cannon in action as a group, either in a temporary field position during a battle or at the siege of a fortress or a city. Such batteries could be a mixture of cannon, howitzer, or mortar types. A siege could involve many batteries at different sites around the besieged place. The term also came to be used for a group of cannon in a fixed fortification, for coastal or frontier defence. During the 18th century "battery" began to be used as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France (and later western Europe) and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front. Planning for the operation began in 1943. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted a substantial military deception, codenamed Operation Bodyguard, to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings. The weather on D-Day was far from ideal, and the operation had to be delayed 24 hours; a further postponement would have meant a delay of at least two weeks, as the invasion planners had requirements for the phase of the moon, the tides, and the time of day that meant only a few days each month were d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
