Home > History
Two A-4C "Skyhawk" aircraft fly past
USS Kearsarge 1964
Hercules C-130
USS Leyte (CVS-32)
Operating with a ZPG-2 blimp and an unidentified destroyer of Destroyer Squadron Twenty, during anti-submarine exercises in February 1958.
USS Bunker Hill (CV-17)
Scene on the carrier's flight deck, looking aft, while her crew was fighting fires caused by "Kamikaze" hits, off Okinawa on 11 May 1945.
Crew of the Gemini 8
Astronauts David R. Scott (left), pilot, and Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, command pilot, are the prime crew of the Gemini 8 mission. Backup crew (left to right, standing), are Astronauts Richard F. Gordon Jr., pilot, and Charles Conrad Jr., command pilot.
History
This month in Naval Aviation History:
March 1 – March 7
1942 - Naval air (VP-82) sinks first German submarine, U-656, of World War II.
1947 - Operation Highjump, air operations in Antarctica, ends.
1960 - USS Kearsarge (CVS-33) rescues 4 Russian soldiers from their landing craft 1,000 miles from Midway Island, which was drifting several weeks after their engine failed off Kamchatka Peninsula.
1963 - Navy Hercules aircraft completes 12-day rescue operation of critically ill Danish seaman from Danish freighter off the coast of Antarctic.
1973 - Women begin pilot training to U.S. Navy.
1994 - Navy issues first orders to women assigned aboard combat ship, USS Eisenhower
March 8 – March 15
1914 - Test of wind tunnel at Washington Navy Yard.
1929 - NAS Pensacola aircraft make 113 flights for flood rescue and relief.
1947 - Ensign John W. Lee becomes first African American officer commissioned in regular Navy. He was assigned to USS Kearsage.
1948 - First use of jets assigned to operational squadron (VF-5A) on board a carrier (Boxer)
1956 - In first overseas deployment of Navy missile squadron, VA-83 left on USS Intrepid.
1957 - Airship ZPG-2 lands NAS Key West after 11 day non-stop flight across the Atlantic.
1963 - USS Albany (CG-10) and aircraft from Navy Airborne Early Warning Squadron Four from Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico aid five ill crewmembers of Norwegian freighter Jotunfjell.
March 16 – March 23
1915 - "Naval Aviator" replaces former "Navy Air Pilot" for officers qualified as aviators.
1919 - Navy installs and tests Sperry gyrocompass, in first instance of test of aircraft gyrocompass.
1945 - Carriers begin 3 month Okinawa Campaign by destroying aircraft on Kyushu, Japan.
1945 - Carriers begin pre-assault strikes on Okinawa, kamikaze attacks follow.
1965 - LCDR John W. Young, USN, Pilot of Gemini 3 completed 3 orbits in 4 hours., 53 minutes at an altitude of 224 km. Recovery was by helicopters from USS Intrepid (CVS-11).
1966 - Launch of Gemini 8. Former naval aviator Neil Armstrong flew on this mission which completed 7 orbits in 10 hours and 41 minutes at an altitude of 161.3 nautical miles. Recovery was by USS Leonard F. Mason (DD-852).
March 24 – March 31
1944 - First use of torpedo squadrons from carriers to drop aerial mines (Palau Harbor).
1954 - Carrier aircraft began reconnaissance near Dien Bien Phu, Indochina.
1972 - Easter Offensive began in Vietnam.