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Walter E. Truemper
Walter Edward Truemper (October 31, 1918 – February 20, 1944) was a United States Army Air Forces officer in World War II and a recipient of the U.S. military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor. He and his crewmate, Staff Sergeant Archibald Mathies, were posthumously awarded the medal for attempting to save the life of their wounded pilot by staying aboard and trying to land their damaged aircraft. Truemper, Mathies, and the pilot were killed when the aircraft crashed following a third unsuccessful landing attempt. Biography Born on October 31, 1918, in Aurora, Illinois, Truemper was one of 10 children. He attended business college and worked as an accounting clerk before enlisting in the United States Army from Aurora on June 23, 1942. He served for a few months with the 174th Field Artillery at Camp Bowie, Texas, until he entered flying training. He took pre-flight training at Ellington Field, Texas; flexible gunnery at Harlingen, Texas; and advanced navigation at Hond ...
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Aurora, Illinois
Aurora is a city in the Chicago metropolitan area located partially in DuPage County, Illinois, DuPage, Kane County, Illinois, Kane, Kendall County, Illinois, Kendall, and Will County, Illinois, Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located primarily in DuPage and Kane counties, it is the List of cities in Illinois#Most populous places, second most populous city in Illinois, after Chicago, and the List of United States cities by population, 144th most populous city in the United States. The population was 197,899 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, and was 180,542 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 Census. Founded within Kane County, Aurora's city limits have expanded into DuPage, Kendall, and Will counties. Once a mid-sized manufacturing city, Aurora has grown since the 1960s. From 2000 to 2009, the U.S. Census Bureau ranked the city as the 46th fastest growing city with a population of over 100,000. In 1908, Aurora adopted the nickname "City of Lights" ...
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Hondo, Texas
Hondo is a city in and the county seat of Medina County, Texas, United States. According to the 2010 Census, the population was 8,803. It is part of the San Antonio Metropolitan Statistical Area. History Original inhabitants of the area, now Medina County, were the Coahuiltecan people. Non-indigenous settlers to the area came from Alsace-Lorraine, Germany, Belgium and Mexico. Many family-owned businesses, farms, and ranches are still owned by descendants of the non-indigenous families. The first Spaniard to explore the area was Cabeza de Vaca in the early 1530s, some 40 years after Columbus arrived in the New World. The city of Hondo was first settled in 1881 and incorporated in 1942. Hondo was the scene of two bank robberies in the early 1920s. The crooks were the famed Newton Gang, the most successful outlaws in U.S. history. Both bank heists occurred the same night. In 1930, the local Hondo Lions Club erected the now somewhat famous sign reading "This is God's Country, Do ...
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Yokota Air Base
, is a Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) and United States Air Force (USAF) base in the Tama Area, or Western Tokyo. It occupies portions of Akishima, Fussa, Hamura, Mizuho, Musashimurayama, and Tachikawa. The base houses 14,000 personnel. It occupies a total area of and has a runway. It features the JASDF Air Defense Command Headquarters (ADC headquarters) since 26 March 2012. The headquarters of United States Forces Japan is also located there. Other base facilities are the broadcast center for the American Forces Network Tokyo radio service and a detachment of Pacific Air Forces' Band of the Pacific. History Tama Airfield The facility which houses Yokota Air Base was originally constructed by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) in 1940 as Tama Airfield, and used as a flight test center. During World War II Yokota became the center of Japanese Army Air Forces flight test activities and the base was the site of the first meeting between Japanese and Italian wartime allies ...
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Elmendorf Air Force Base
Elmendorf Air Force Base is a United States Air Force (USAF) facility in Anchorage, Alaska. Originally known as Elmendorf Field, it became Elmendorf Air Force Base after World War II. It is the home of the Headquarters, Alaskan Air Command (ALCOM), Alaskan NORAD Region (ANR), Eleventh Air Force (11 AF), the 673d Air Base Wing, the 3rd Wing, the 176th Wing and other tenant units. In 2010 it was amalgamated with nearby Fort Richardson to form Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The adjacent facilities were officially combined by the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission. Its mission is to support and defend U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific region and around the world by providing units who are ready for worldwide air power projection and a base that is capable of meeting United States Pacific Command's theater staging and throughput requirements. Units The installation hosts the headquarters for the United States Alaskan Command, 11th Air Force, U.S. Army Alaska, and ...
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Naval Station Great Lakes
Naval Station Great Lakes (NAVSTA Great Lakes) is the home of the United States Navy's only recruit training, boot camp, located near North Chicago, Illinois, North Chicago, in Lake County, Illinois. Important tenant commands include the Recruit Training Command, Training Support Center and Navy Recruiting District Chicago. Naval Station Great Lakes is the largest military installation in Illinois and the largest training station in the Navy. The base has 1,153 buildings situated on and has of roadway to provide access to the base's facilities. Within the naval service, it has several different nicknames, including "The Quarterdeck of the Navy", or the more derogatory "Great Mistakes". It is also referred to as "second boot camp" while at Training Support Command. The original 39 buildings built between 1905 and 1911 were designed by Jarvis Hunt. The base functions similarly to a small city, with its own fire department, Naval Security Forces (Police), and public works departme ...
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Lackland Air Force Base
Lackland Air Force Base is a United States Air Force (USAF) base located in Bexar County, Texas. The base is under the jurisdiction of the 802d Mission Support Group, Air Education and Training Command (AETC) and an enclave of the city of San Antonio. It is the only site for USAF and United States Space Force enlisted Basic Military Training (BMT). Lackland AFB is part of Joint Base San Antonio (JBSA), an amalgamation of Fort Sam Houston, Randolph AFB and Lackland AFB, which were merged on 1 October 2010.Joint Base San Antonio 502d ABW
JBSA was established in accordance with congressional legislation implementing the recommendations of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission. The legi ...
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Flight Engineer
A flight engineer (FE), also sometimes called an air engineer, is the member of an aircraft's flight crew who monitors and operates its complex aircraft systems. In the early era of aviation, the position was sometimes referred to as the "air mechanic". Flight engineers can still be found on some larger fixed-wing airplanes and helicopters. A similar crew position exists on some spacecraft. In most modern aircraft, their complex systems are both monitored and adjusted by electronic microprocessors and computers, resulting in the elimination of the flight engineer's position. In earlier days, most larger aircraft were designed and built with a flight engineer's position. For U.S. civilian aircraft that require a flight engineer as part of the crew, the FE must possess an FAA Flight Engineer Certificate with reciprocating, turboprop, or turbojet ratings appropriate to the aircraft. Whereas the four-engine Douglas DC-4 did not require an FE, the FAA type certificates of subsequent f ...
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Squadron (aviation)
A squadron in air force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an a ..., army aviation, or naval aviation is a Military unit, unit comprising a number of military aircraft and their aircrews, usually of the same type, typically with 12 to 24 aircraft, sometimes divided into three or four flight (military unit), flights, depending on aircraft type and air force. Land-based squadrons equipped with heavier type aircraft such as long-range bombers, cargo aircraft, or air refueling tankers have around 12 aircraft as a typical authorization, while most land-based fighter equipped units have an authorized number of 18 to 24 aircraft. In naval aviation, sea-based and land-based squadrons will typically have smaller numbers of aircraft, ranging from as low as four for early warning t ...
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Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater of Operations and dropped more bombs than any other aircraft during World War II. It is the third-most produced bomber of all time, behind the four-engined Consolidated B-24 Liberator and the multirole, twin-engined Junkers Ju 88. It was also employed as a transport, antisubmarine aircraft, drone controller, and search-and-rescue aircraft. In a USAAC competition, Boeing's prototype Model 299/XB-17 outperformed two other entries but crashed, losing the initial 200-bomber contract to the Douglas B-18 Bolo. Still, the Air Corps ordered 13 more B-17s for further evaluation, then introduced it into service in 1938. The B-17 evolved through numerous design advances but from its inception, the USAAC (later, the USAAF) promoted the aircraft a ...
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Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as well as the second most populous city in the area of the former East Germany after (East) Berlin. Together with Halle (Saale), the city forms the polycentric Leipzig-Halle Conurbation. Between the two cities (in Schkeuditz) lies Leipzig/Halle Airport. Leipzig is located about southwest of Berlin, in the southernmost part of the North German Plain (known as Leipzig Bay), at the confluence of the White Elster River (progression: ) and two of its tributaries: the Pleiße and the Parthe. The name of the city and those of many of its boroughs are of Slavic origin. Leipzig has been a trade city since at least the time of the Holy Roman Empire. The city sits at the intersection of the Via Regia and the Via Imperii, two important medieval trad ...
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RAF Polebrook
Royal Air Force Station Polebrook or more simply RAF Polebrook is a former Royal Air Force station located east-south-east of Oundle, at Polebrook, Northamptonshire, England. The airfield was built on Rothschild estate land starting in August 1940. It was from Polebrook that the United States Army Air Forces' Eighth Air Force carried out its first heavy bomb group (Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress) combat mission on 17 August 1942, and from which Major Clark Gable flew combat missions in 1943. History RAF Polebrook was the first airfield to be completed out of a number in the Northamptonshire/Huntingdonshire area which were laid down for RAF Bomber Command during late 1940 and early 1941. Like other airfields in the construction program at the time, Polebrook was built by George Wimpey & Co., Limited. The initial construction was of three runways, the concrete runway lengths were 08-26 at 1,280 yards, 14-32 at 1,200 yards and 02-20, 1,116 yards. In addition, thirty square hards ...
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Eighth Air Force
The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Forces Strategic – Global Strike, one of the air components of United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). The Eighth Air Force includes the heart of America's heavy bomber force: the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, the Rockwell B-1 Lancer supersonic bomber, and the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress heavy bomber aircraft. Established on 22 February 1944 by the redesignation of VIII Bomber Command at RAF Daws Hill in High Wycombe, England, the Eighth Army Air Force (8 AAF) was a United States Army Air Forces combat air force in the European Theater of World War II (1939/41–1945), engaging in operations primarily in the Northern Europe area of responsibility; carrying out strategic bombing of enemy targets in France, the Low Countrie ...
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