Sweepings from the Dustbin of Military History

**Zoe Brain** · 04-15-2014 08:04

I heartily recommend Al Nofi's CiC page. Lates issue : https://www.strategypage.com/cic/docs/cic435a.asp

Some gems from previous issues:

When the German submarine U-459 shot down an RAF "Wellington" bomber in the Bay of Biscay on July 24, 1943, the stricken airplane crashed on its deck, which detonated one of the depth charges it was carrying, thus causing the u-boat to sink.

During the 1930s the RAF often turned down applicants for flight training who didn’t hunt wildfowl, because "The principles of deflection shooting against wildfowl and airplanes were exactly the same," though "Airplanes could sometimes return your fire."

The first combat use of an airplane appears to have occurred on November 1, 1911, when a Lt. Garetti of the Italian Air Service dropped a hand-held bomb whilst his 130 horse power Etrich monoplane was cruising along at 600 feet above a Libyan village.

After spending some time in the trenches in France and Italy disguised as a man, in 1915 Marie Marvingt (1875-1963), a French athlete, mountaineer, and aviation pioneer, openly qualified as a military pilot and undertook bombing missions over German-held territory, becoming the first woman to receive the Croix de Guerre for an air mission, after a raid on an enemy military installation at Metz.