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david leigh-smith
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On This Day...December 9th.

December 9, 2018 · in News · · 9 · 2.3K

Despite losing almost half of his port wing to a Chinese fighter plane (possibly a collision with another Japanese fighter), pilot Kanichi Kashimura was able to nurse his Claude (Mitsubishi A5M) 450 miles to the north to safely land (after four attempts and finally ripping the tail off the aircraft) at his base near Nanjing, China. December 9th, 1937.

Dr. Henry Walden (dentist) built and flew America’s first monoplane, the ‘Walden III’ on December 9th, 1909 in Mineola, Long Island, Walden left the ground and flew for only a few hundred feet, before landing the aircraft safely.

A P40 Warhawk, damaged in a taxiing collision with another P40, at Bellows Field, Oahu, today in 1941.

Nice reference photo(s) of an Avenger (TBF-1) landing (sort of) on Auxiliary Carrier USS Card (ACV-11). The Avenger bounced over the arresting cables, crashed the barrier, coming to rest in a bofor’s tub, 9 Dec 1942 off San Diego, California.

Another nice reference photo. Marine C. McClure servicing the Brownings in the starboard wing of an F4U-1 Corsair on Bougainville, Dec 9, 1943.

December 9th, 1951 marked the first flight of Italy’s Fiat G.80. Consider this photo was taken only forty years after the flight of Henry Walden’s first American monoplane, and only eighteen years later we went to the moon...

War poster declaring support for America against Japan immediately post Pearl.

Reader reactions:
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9 responses

  1. David, once again a nice set of photos. As you mention above, the speed at which aeronautics developed and then progressed into aerospace technology was incredible.

    • When I sat in my in-laws' living room and watched Armstrong step onto the moon, sitting next to me was my wife's grandmother, who could remember as a girl being told about the Wright Brothers' flight. That's how fast things went.

  2. Estimulante la colección de fotos he historias.El cartel de apoyo sensacional.Gracias David, sigue así.

  3. That photo of the damaged Claude was so amazing there was a very popular stamp made of it for domestic mail in Japan.

    • The Claude made me think of the Skyraider damaged in a mid air at Duxford and the Israeli F-15 also damaged in a mid air (losing the entire starboard wing in the process). Both making it back to terra firma with the pilots alive. Next thoughts were of naval planes that have survived a flight with folded wings. Amazing stories all...

  4. How did that go,America and England, bonded together, divided by a common language.

  5. Ha, they’ve been saying the same thing about the Scots and English for centuries, Robert.

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