80th Anniversary of World War II: Army Aviation: The Pacific Theater
Looking Back, May 2025 By Mark Albertson 80th Anniversary of World War II: Army Aviation: The Pacific Theater Combat conditions in the Pacific Theater of Operations differed from those in the European Theater. From the start, the war in the West was, for the most part, of a conventional type: Infantry, artillery, armor, used on a scale not seen in the Pacific. From the North African Desert, onto Sicily, up the Italian boot and across the French countryside into Germany, armies were employed on a level conducive to the precepts of maneuver and mobility, combining ground power with airpower as...
Learn MoreOperation: KIKUSUI
Looking Back, April 2025 By Mark Albertson Operation: KIKUSUI * * * * * “We are 16 warriors manning the bombers. May our death be as sudden as the shattering of glass, . . . from the letter of a Kamikaze pilot.”[2] * * * * * It was 80 years ago, April 1, 1945, that Operation: ICEBERG commenced. GIs and marines waded ashore to nary the expected opposition, unlike at Tarawa, Saipan, Guam, Peleliu and a half a hundred other places. The marines struck out for the northern half of the island, encountering light resistance; while the Army, moving...
Learn MorePutting the House in Order: Part V: TRENDS AIRPOWER
Looking Back, March 2025 By Mark Albertson Putting the House in Order Part V: TRENDS AIRPOWER “Close Air Support: Experience of three decades has changed the concept and practice of close air support. In some advanced forces, including those of the U.S. aircraft are dedicated to the support of the maneuver arms in recognition of the fact that the battlefield will provide an abundance of targets that can be destroyed by close air support. “US tactical aircraft are far more powerful than those of 1945. The USAAF P-47 of WWII, for instance, could fly 100 miles to a target, stay...
Learn MorePutting the House in Order: Part IV: The Helicopter and Conventional War
Looking Back, February 2025 By Mark Albertson Putting the House in Order Part IV: The Helicopter and Conventional War The makeover of Army Aviation in the wake of the Second Indochina War was actually a continuation of a process that had been ongoing during the 1950s; when the U.S. Army, seeking to make itself useful on the nuclear battlefield of Europe, attempted the use of light aircraft and helicopters to shuttle ground troops to and from various quarters of the battlefield; along the lines of the Marine Corps with the Vertical Assault Concept, but which unlike the Army, was acclimating...
Learn MorePutting the House in Order: Part III: Picking up the Pieces
Looking Back, January 2025 By Mark Albertson Putting the House in Order Part III: Picking up the Pieces To win the hearts and the minds of the Home Front, the military had to recreate itself. One of the first ports of call was dispensing with the draft, and replacing same with a Total Force Policy. “Following the experience of fighting in an unpopular war in Vietnam, the 1973 Total Force Policy was designed to involve a large portion of the American public by mobilizing the National Guard from its thousands of locations throughout the United States when needed. The Total...
Learn MorePutting 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...
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