Russian history and culture has long fascinated Westerners, but only in the twentieth century has Russia had an impact on people everywhere. Why is this true? Why is the Soviet period of Russian history extraordinary in Russia's millennium-long existence? Several reasons come to mind. In the twentieth century Russia has served as a dramatic example of the challenges encountered by all late modernizing societies. For a time, the Soviet Union seemed to incorporate the dreams of both Marxism and nationalism. It offered an unprecedented developmental path to modernization while maintaining both...

America's mind's eye carries all too many painful pictures of terrorist actions against her: the collapsed Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, a gaping hole at the waterline of USS Cole, and shocked, bleeding casualties sitting in the streets of the U.S. embassy in Kenya, as well as fire blossoming from New York City's Twin Towers. Another enduring image is the shredded walls of Khobar Towers where nineteen airmen gave their final full measure on June 25, 1996. This account of the Khobar Towers bombing, so eloquently narrated by Dr. Perry Jamieson, tells the story of the horrific attack and the...

In 1959 the United States Air Force Academy's Department of History began the Harmon Memorial Lecture Series on Military History in memory of Lt. Gen. Hubert R. Harmon, first superintendent and "father" of the Academy. The series supported two goals: to further encourage the awakened interest in military history that evolved after World War II and to stimulate cadets to develop a lifelong interest in the history of the military profession. Each year thereafter, a committee of nationally known civilian historians and Academy representatives selected an outstanding military historian to be the...

The United States military space program began at the end of World War II when a few people realized that space flight was now achievable and could be employed to military advantage. Science and technology in the form of advanced radar, jet propulsion, ballistic rockets such as the V-2, and nuclear energy had dramatically altered the nature of war. Army Air Forces Commanding General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold wrote in November 1945 that a space ship "is all but practicable today" and could be built "within the foreseeable future." The following month the Air Force Scientific Advisory Group...

The volume at hand, Training to Fly: Military Flight Training, 1907-1945, is an institutional history of flight training by the predecessor organizations of the United States Air Force. The U.S. Army purchased its first airplane, built and successfully flown by Orville and Wilbur Wright, in 1909, and placed both lighter- and heavier-than-air aeronautics in the Division of Military Aeronautics of the Signal Corps. As pilots and observers in the Air Service of the American Expeditionary Forces, Americans flew combat missions in France during the Great War. In the first postwar decade, airmen...

PART 1 of 2 Medical Support of the Army Air Forces In World War II has been prepared to fill a gap in the medical history of that period. Its purpose is to present a unified narrative of the total performance of the AAF medical service in support of the Air Forces combat mission. Fundamentally a reference book, this volume is based almost exclusively upon unpublished documents in custody of the U. S. Air Force, with occasional citation of published sources. Since this volume, like other comparable military publications in World War II, is based upon masses of archival material, the project...

WHEN JAPAN ATTACKED PEARL HARBOR on December 7, 1941, and Germany and Italy joined Japan four days later in declaring war against the United States, intelligence essential for the Army Air Forces to conduct effective warfare in the European and Pacific theaters did not exist. Piercing the Fog tells the intriguing story of how airmen built intelligence organizations to collect and process information about the enemy and to produce and disseminate intelligence to decision makers and war fighters in the bloody, horrific crucible of war. Because the problems confronting and confounding air...

Some Tuskegee Airmen statistics: More than 989 missions of the 99th, 100th, 301st, and 302nd Fighter Squadrons for the Twelfth Air Force; 500 missions of the 99th Fighter Squadron by early June 1944; at least 311 missions of the 332d Fighter Group for the Fifteenth Air Force (June 1944-May 1945); 179 bomber escort missions of the 332d Fighter Group for the Fifteenth Air Force; 172 heavy bomber escort missions of the 332d Fighter Group for the Fifteenth Air Force; 112 aerial victories of the 99th Fighter Squadron and the 332d Fighter Group combined during World War II; 96 Distinguished Flying...

The first paper tells the story of GPS. It is not only a story of scientific and technical achievement, but also one of suspense that illustrates the difficulties of introducing revolutionary technologies. The failures and successes in that program attest to the vision and perseverance of the people who made it happen. The GPS finally solved the problem that had challenged seafarers since antiquity. It has also enabled a multitude of civilian and military applications. The second paper looks at a development that has revolutionized the employment of air power. The use of laser research and...

The first paper tells the story of GPS. It is not only a story of scientific and technical achievement, but also one of suspense that illustrates the difficulties of introducing revolutionary technologies. The failures and successes in that program attest to the vision and perseverance of the people who made it happen. The GPS finally solved the problem that had challenged seafarers since antiquity. It has also enabled a multitude of civilian and military applications. The second paper looks at a development that has revolutionized the employment of air power. The use of laser research and...