This week in naval, aviation history, By Bill Swanson

(EXCERPT) SENIOR WRITER

Dec. 11, 1941: John G. Magee Jr., a 19-year-old American serving with
the Royal Canadian Air Force, is killed when his Spitfire collides
with a trainer flown, By a student, near Roxholm, England. He left
behind a poem published two years after his death, and composed during
a Spitfire high-altitude test, called High Flight, now perhaps the
most famous poem about aviation: "Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds
of earth/And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings... Put out my
hand and touched the face of God."

Dec. 12, 1918: The U.S. Navy dirigible C-1, built by Goodyear, makes
the first successful demonstration of what was called the "parasite"
concept, taking aloft a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny biplane to 2,500 feet and
then releasing it. At the time the Germans and the British had been
testing such a system for a year.

1942: After the troopship President Coolidge hits a mine in the
Solomons Islands, Capt. Henry Nelson steers the ship onto a reef, to
delay the sinking. Soon the ship slides off the reef and capsizes;
however, only two of the more than 4,000 troops have been lost, thanks
to Nelson's quick thinking.

Dec. 13, 1814: During the War of 1812, 50 British ships carrying 7,500
troops and Gen. Edward Pakenham arrive at Lake...

U.S. and friendly nation laws prohibit fully reproducing
copyrighted material. In abidance with our laws this report
cannot be provided in its entirety. However, you can read it
in full today, 17 Dec 2003, at the following URL. (COMBINE
the following lines into your web browser.) The
subject/content of this report is not necessarily the
viewpoint of the distributing Library. This report is provided
for your information and discussion.

http://www.dcmilitary.com/navy/teste...s/26616-1.html

---------------------------
Otis Willie
Associate Librarian
The American War Library
http://www.americanwarlibrary.com