The Night Witches: Soviet Women Who Bombed the Wehrmacht in Open-Cockpit Biplanes
The all-female 588th Night Bomber Regiment flew over 23,000 combat sorties in WWI-era Po-2 biplanes, earning the German nickname 'Night Witches.'
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The Swamp Ghost: The B-Seventeen That Slept in a Papua New Guinea Swamp for Sixty-Four Years
The Swamp Ghost is a B-17E bomber that crash-landed in a Papua New Guinea swamp in 1942 and sat preserved and largely intact for 64 years before recovery.
TaildraggerThe Dornier Do 335 Pfeil: The Fastest Piston Fighter Nobody Got to Fight
The Dornier Do 335 Pfeil was the fastest piston-engined fighter of WWII, reaching ~475 mph - but only around 40 were ever built.
TaildraggerThe Grumman F6F Hellcat: The Fighter Engineered to End Zero Supremacy
The Grumman F6F Hellcat reversed American fortunes in the Pacific by out-engineering the Zero, achieving a 19-to-1 kill ratio and accounting for over 60% of all naval air victories.
TaildraggerOperation Vengeance: The P-38 Lightnings That Killed the Architect of Pearl Harbor
On April 18, 1943, sixteen P-38 Lightnings flew 435 miles over open ocean to intercept and kill Admiral Yamamoto, the architect of Pearl Harbor, using decoded Japanese communications.
TaildraggerThe Republic P-47 Thunderbolt: The Jug That Flew Too Fast for Its Own Controls
The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt outscored every Allied fighter group in the European theater - here's why the heaviest single-engine fighter of WWII remains underappreciated.
TaildraggerThe Night Witches and the Five Eighty-Eighth Night Bomber Regiment
The Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment - the Night Witches - flew 23,000 WWII combat sorties in fabric biplanes, navigating at night by compass and clock alone.
TaildraggerBlack Thursday - The Second Schweinfurt Raid and the Day the Eighth Air Force Bled
On October 14, 1943, the Eighth Air Force launched 291 B-17s against Schweinfurt's ball bearing factories and lost 60 aircraft and 600 men in a single day.
TaildraggerThe Douglas DC-Three - The Midnight Phone Call That Built Modern Aviation
The Douglas DC-3 transformed commercial aviation in 1936 and went on to serve in WWII, the Berlin Airlift, and Vietnam - with hundreds still flying today.
Taildraggerrestoration spotlight
Glacier Girl is a P-38 Lightning recovered from 270 feet of Greenland ice in 1992 and restored to flying condition, taking to the sky again in 2002.
TaildraggerOperation Tidal Wave and the five Medals of Honor won in one afternoon over Ploesti
On August 1, 1943, 177 B-24 Liberators flew at treetop level into the most defended target in Europe, earning five Medals of Honor in a single afternoon.
TaildraggerOld Six Sixty-Six and Jay Zeamer's crew, the most decorated bomber crew in American history
The crew of B-17 'Old 666' earned two Medals of Honor and a DSC for every man - the most decorated flight in U.S. history.
TaildraggerThe V-one buzz bomb and the night the first cruise missile fell on London, June thirteenth, nineteen forty-four
On June 13, 1944, the V-1 buzz bomb struck London, becoming the first cruise missile used in combat and changing air warfare forever.
TaildraggerFlak Bait the B-twenty-six Marauder and the Smithsonian restoration of the most battle-damaged American bomber to survive the war
Flak Bait, the most battle-damaged American bomber to survive WWII, flew 207 missions and took over 1,000 flak holes before its painstaking Smithsonian restoration.
TaildraggerThe Focke-Wulf one ninety and the first flight of the Butcher Bird on June first, nineteen thirty-nine
The Focke-Wulf 190 first flew on June 1, 1939, and became one of WWII's most feared fighters thanks to Kurt Tank's radical radial-engine design.
TaildraggerThe forty-eight-hour miracle that saved USS Yorktown and turned the tide at Midway
How 1,400 shipyard workers repaired USS Yorktown in 72 hours, giving the Navy the third carrier that won the Battle of Midway.
TaildraggerThe RAF over Dunkirk on May twenty-eighth, nineteen forty and the Spitfires the Army never saw
On May 28, 1940, RAF fighters fought and died over Dunkirk in battles the soldiers below never saw.
TaildraggerThe Gremlin Special and the hidden valley rescue that used a glider snatch off a jungle floor
The 1945 Gremlin Special crash in New Guinea's hidden Baliem Valley led to one of WWII's most daring rescues using glider snatch recovery.
TaildraggerThe P-thirty-eight Lightning and Operation Vengeance, the four-hundred-mile intercept that killed Admiral Yamamoto
How sixteen P-38 Lightnings flew 400 miles at wave-top height to intercept and kill Admiral Yamamoto in 1943.
TaildraggerThe Grumman F6F Hellcat and the fighter built from a captured enemy's secrets
How a crashed Japanese Zero in Alaska's Aleutian Islands gave Grumman the intelligence to build the F6F Hellcat and turn the Pacific air war.
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