LT. JOHN TOWERS, U.S. NAVY, MAKES FIRST BOMBING ATTEMPT, Feb. 5, 1913
Air warfare in the U.S. got off the ground with the Navy, and Towers was one of the early aviators and most respected pilots in the military. As early as 1912, Towers rigged extra gasoline tanks to a Curtiss seaplane to set a world endurance record of six hours. A year later he was instrumental in testing planes' ability to attack as well as serve on reconnaissance missions and take aerial photography. Towers' influence would be felt for decades, as he directed Naval aviation's expansion during World War II.
E X C E R P T GERMANS RAVAGE BASQUE TOWN OF GUERNICA, April 26, 1937
"Last week the German planes came over in waves, blasting the houses from their foundations with heavy bombs, loosing showers of glittering two-pound aluminum incendiary bombs to turn the "Holy City" to a furnace. Skimming the roof tops, fighting planes followed with all machine guns popping, harrying terrified peasants through the fields, sending them sprawling in their own blood. Over 800 men, women and children were killed. The munitions factory and barracks, untouched, were later seized by advancing Rightist infantry." — TIME, May 10, 1937
E X C E R P T U.S. ARMY AIR FORCE IS FORMED, June 20, 1941
"The rising clamor for a separate, independent U.S. air force last week impelled the War Department to take action. Reporting this action to Congress, in an effort to stave off more drastic changes, Secretary of War Stimson announced:
• That the present Army Air Corps and its separately commanded striking arm (the General Headquarters Air Force) have been grouped into a unified, autonomous organization to be called The Army Air Forces." — TIME, June 30, 1941
E X C E R P T JAPAN LAUNCHES SURPRISE AIR ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR, Dec. 7 1941
"They could have been U.S. planes shuttling westward from San Diego. Civilians' estimates of their numbers ranged from 50 to 150. They whined over Waikiki, over the candy-pink bulk of the Royal Hawaiian hotel. Some were (it was reported) big four-motored jobs, some dive-bombers, some pursuits. All that they met as they came in was a tiny private plane in which lawyer Ray Buduick was out for a Sunday morning ride. They riddled the lawyer's plane with machine-gun bullets, but the lawyer succeeded in making a safe landing. By the time he did, bombs were thudding all around the city. The first reported casualty was Robert Tyce, operator of a civilian airport near Honolulu, who was machine-gunned as he started to spin the propeller of a plane." — TIME, Dec. 15, 1941
E X C E R P T AMERICANS TURN BACK JAPAN'S ATTACK ON MIDWAY ISLAND, June 4, 1942
"In the Japanese fleet of battleships, cruisers, destroyers and submarines, the capital ship was the aircraft carrier. That fleet, built around sea-borne air power had to retreat before U.S. air power in a still mightier form; the land-based airplane, now come into its own as a dominant weapon of naval warfare." — TIME, June 15, 1942
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