Putting the House in Order: Part II: The Israeli Model
Looking Back, December 2024 By Mark Albertson Putting the House in Order Part II: The Israeli Model Lieutenant General Hamilton H. Howze, in his book, A Cavalryman’s Story, chapter 22, related his experiences in a visit to Israel in 1967. He offered that he learned a lot about the Six-Day War, June 5-10, 1967: “I would, with my background also mention the use of maybe a dozen Israeli Air Force light two-seater Bell OH-13 helicopters, made available to the Army. The Middle East desert, almost everywhere has a roll to it. Flying only a few feet off the ground these...
Learn MorePutting the House in Order: Part I: Less is More
Looking Back, November 2024 By Mark Albertson Putting the House in Order Part I: Less is More To establish a tradition, therefore, which will prove effective, if only a threat of what is to follow afterwards is displayed, the Air Force must, if called upon to administer punishment, do it with all its might and in the proper manner. One objective must be selected—preferably the most accessible village of the most prominent tribe which it is desired to punish. All available aircraft must be collected. . . . The attack with bombs and machine guns must be relentless and unremitting...
Learn MoreRemembering the Air Observation Post Fliers
Looking Back, October 2024 By Mark Albertson Remembering the Air Observation Post Fliers October 1978, Air Observation Post fliers held a reunion at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. During World War II, it was the Air OPs who planted that seed for what would later become Army Aviation. Commander was Colonel (later brigadier general) William Wallace Ford. An artilleryman who became a flier, Ford was the first Director of Air Training and formed the Army’s first Air Observation Post for the Field Artillery. He will be inducted into the Army Aviation Hall of Fame in 1975, as being representative of the Pre-1942...
Learn More50 Years Ago: 11th Air Assault Division (Test)
Looking Back, August 2024 By Mark Albertson 71st Anniversary of Army Aviation 50 Years Ago: 11th Air Assault Division (Test) This month’s Looking Back is from the February 28, 2013 issue of Army Aviation.[1] It is rewritten as an extended version. * * * * * If we are successful, the Air Mobile Concept will be a dynamic advance for the Army.If we are not, we will go back to flying Piper Cubs.If we have that much left, and the Army and the country as a whole will lose one of the things that . . . can mean the...
Learn More80th Anniversary of World War II: Army Aviation: France
Looking Back, August 2024 By Mark Albertson 80th Anniversary of World War II: Army Aviation: France It was Major Delbert Bristol from First Army who planned the Air Observation Post operations for OVERLORD. His primary task was to get his planes and pilots across the Channel and on to the Continent. He decided against the LST carrier as used at Sicily. The LST could launch but not recover aircraft; therefore was not conducive to continued air operations off shore. There was, of course, the escort carrier. A baby flattop could provide that platform for continued Air Observation Post operations, launching...
Learn MoreInsight: Soviet VTOL Technology
Looking Back, July 2024 By Mark Albertson Insight: Soviet VTOL Technology: What They have Done, What They Are Doing, And Why, by United Aircraft’s Sergei Sikorsky[1] Insight: Soviet VTOL Technology. As a fellow member of your association, I appreciate the invitation to address you today in a subject of much interest, not only to me personally but I think to all of us, There are not going to be any major surprises. Possibly some of the things I have to say may not coincide with what is current thinking among some quarters. I offer them only as points for later...
Learn MoreOperation: OVERLORD
Looking Back, June 2024 By Mark Albertson 80 Years Ago: Operation: OVERLORD “D-Day has come. Early this morning the Allies began the assault on the northwestern face of Hitler’s European fortress. The first official news came just after half-past nine, when Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force issued Communique Number One. This said: Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France. This is the BBC Home Service—and here is a special bulletin read by John Snagge.”[1] * * * * *...
Learn More“Jackie”
Looking Back, May 2024 By Mark Albertson “Jackie” Her date of birth seems to be an open question, ranging anywhere from 1906 to 1911[1] Date of death is fixed, though, as of August 10, 1980. So is the place of origin, a small mill town in Florida, Muscogee. And so was the name she was born with, Bessie Lee Pittman. The Pittman family was mired in poverty. Mr. Pittman, a journeyman worker, moved his family of seven from town to town throughout Florida and Georgia. However Bessie, by the time she was eight, was working in a cotton mill, “where...
Learn MoreParochial Thinking / Seeds of Contention
Looking Back, March 2024 By Mark Albertson Parochial Thinking / Seeds of Contention On June 4, 1920, the National Defense Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson. The Act saw fit to organize the United States Army as an aggregate of three subdivisions: The Regular Army, National Guard and the organized reserves of civilians or Officers’ and Enlisted Reserve Corps. The Regular Army was to have a manpower strength of 17,726 officers and 280,000 enlisted. Of course, this was dependent upon Congress and whether it appropriated enough money for a ground force of even this size. And this...
Learn MoreAir Defense Tactics of Soviet Airborne Units
Looking Back, February 2024 By Mark Albertson Air Defense Tactics of Soviet Airborne Units By Thomas M. Salisbury, III Edited by Mark Albertson [Thomas M. Salisbury, III, an Intelligence Analyst with the Red Team, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, HQDA, attended the Virginia Military Institute and served in the U.S. Army Security Agency from 1966 to 1970.] * Army Aviation, pages 49-52, Vol. 29, No. 11, Army Aviation Publications, Inc., Westport, Ct., November 30, 1980. * * * * * Soviet military journals categorize the primary threat to parachute and heliborne assault forces on landing to...
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