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Sun Valley Serenade

1500 ft

Bikar Atoll - atoll forest species

Watch Standing Manual

Emergencies Manual


 * Google "Lt. Col. James A. Shannon, Distinguished Service Cross"
 * James Andrew Shannon, Harvard Crimson
 * Shannon, Arlington Cemetery
 * Shannon, Find-A-Grave
 * Shannon, Together We Served

James Andrew Shannon (May 1879—8 October 1918) was an American army officer. Educated and trained at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Shannon served in the cavalry during the Philippine-American War and the Punitive Expedition in Mexico, where he came to the attention of Brigadier General John J. Pershing. Shannon was noted for his effective work in command of the expedition's Apache Scouts unit.

After serving as head of the Reserve Officers Training Corps detachment at Harvard University, Shannon was assigned during the early months of U.S. participation in World War I as a staff officer in the 42nd "Rainbow" Division. Shortly after arriving in France in May 1918, Shannon was detached to the headquarters staff of the American Expeditionary Force, organizing and commanding its personnel section, and promoted to lieutenant colonel.

When the United States began offensive operations in September 1918, Shannon went to the front to take temporary command of an infantry regiment of the 28th Division, following which Pershing recommended him for promotion to full colonel and assigned him command of the division's 112th Infantry Regiment. "Leading from the front," Shannon conducted a reconnaissance of the lines with a small patrol in preparation for an attack against a strong German defensive position, and then led his regiment in the attack the next day. Wounded in the neck by a shell fragment, he died of his wounds. Shannon was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry in leading the reconnaissance patrol.

187th AHC stories

To prevent or alleviate the effects of combat fatigue, the AAF developed policies of rotating combat crews between the theaters of operations and the United States (Zone of the Interior, or "ZI"). Chronic replacement limitations caused by conflicting demands for personnel to fill the ranks of new units (exacerbated in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater by the strategic goal of defeating Germany first) and operational requirements demanding maximum unit strength and effectiveness caused the modification of basic AAF policy several times during the war. The problem first came to light when Lt. Gen. George H. Brett sought rotation for aircrews in the Southwest Pacific Area that had been fighting continuously since 8 December 1941, but the deployment of large numbers of combat units overseas in the summer and fall of 1942 soon made a rotation  policy an imperative in most theaters.

Initially the War Department on 1 July 1942 established a one-year tour of duty for all AAF combat crews, but a simple, uniform policy for all types of crews in all theaters was both unrealistic and unworkable under conditions prevailing early in the war. The policy was never put into effect and instead field commanders developed their own criteria for determining completion of tours. While varying substantially between theaters and numbered air forces within theaters, most of these programs attempted to establish fixed tours of duty based on numbers of missions or sorties, combat flying hours, time in theater, the character of operations, or combinations of these factors. Nonetheless, Headquarters AAF did not interfere with theater programs but did prohibit rotation of any healthy combat personnel to the ZI until their replacements had arrived in the unit.

After studying the situation in the early part of 1943, the War Department decided to officially sanction the practices by rescinding the one-year tour policy on 29 May and granting theater commanders authorization to determine rotation policies. It also changed replacement procedures by assigning each theater a percentage of its authorized strength for both attrition and rotation purposes, based on its tactical situation, calculated monthly. However the continuing shortage of replacements forced commanders to lengthen the tours they had established, to the detriment of aircrew morale.

By January 1944 nearly all tactical units had been organized, trained, and scheduled for deployment, which along with an overall loss rate that was less than predicted and becoming better as the relative strengths of the opposing air forces turned in favor of the Allies, eased the strain on the replacement system. Arnold began a program to build reserves in tactical units for the invasion of northern France and other offensives planned for the summer of 1944 that would not only increase aircraft strengths but provide enough personnel for multiple crews for each aircraft. However the buildup was hampered by the various theater rotation policies, particularly in the numbered air forces fighting in Europe, which arbitrarily returned veteran crews without regard for sufficient replacements, operational needs or their actual capacity for continued combat flying. An unanticipated side effect was that many personnel also believed that completion of a tour of duty exempted them permanently from further combat service, which was never the case at any time during World War II.

As a result Arnold issued a directive on 16 February 1944 that ordered commanders worldwide to immediately rescind any policies that arbitrarily set fixed "goals" for completion of combat tours and instead evaluate rotations based on all factors affecting unit strength and individual combat efficiency. He also directed that the impression that no airman would be required to serve more than one tour of combat be "unmistakably corrected." At the time all the numbered air forces had in-theater rest camps for short term relief from flying, usually one week, but the efficacy of such camps only served to delay the decline in individual combat efficiency. The policy of "maximum service" ordered by Arnold led Lt. Gen. Ira Eaker to recommend periods of up to 60 days leave in the ZI for rest and rehabilitation as a substitute for rotation. The AAF approved a plan for 30 days leave for highly-stressed crews that began in the ETO in April 1944, followed by the Pacific's Seventh Air Force in July, but Headquarters AAF soon considered the program so counterproductive to its desired rehabilitative purpose that it denied extension of it to the Far East Air Forces in August.

The strategic situation and flow of replacements for the AAF had improved to the extent that in September 1944 Arnold, without rescinding his "no fixed tours" policy, clarified his position on rotation, stating that his objective was to provide enough replacement crews that rotation "based on war weariness" became unnecessary. Field commanders in all theaters followed up by revising their rotation policies, instituting "guidelines" that had the effect of again of defining what constituted a tour of duty for the remainder of the war.

Flying the Line

FAA chronology rescinding the one-year tour policy and authorizing theater commanders to determine May 1, 1939: The Civil Aeronautics Authority completed a $7 million airways modernization and improvement program begun Jul 1, 1937. The Federal Airways System now covered 25,500 miles and included a total of 231 radio range stations, 100 ultra-high-frequency cone-of-silence markers, and 21 ultra-high-frequency fan markers. The program also involved modernization of all the full-power radio ranges to permit simultaneous voice and range broadcasts.


 * Five figure 8’s around pylons, keeping all parts of machine inside a circle whose radius is 300 feet.
 * Climb out of a square field 900 feet on a side and attain 500-feet altitude, keeping all parts of the machine inside of square during climb.
 * Climb 3,000 feet, kill motor, spiral down, changing direction of spiral, that is, from left to right, and land within 150 feet of previously designated mark.
 * Land with dead motor in a field 800 feet by 100 feet, assuming said field to be surrounded by a 1O-foot obstacle.
 * From 500 feet altitude land within 100 feet of previously designated point with dead motor.
 * Cross-country triangular flight without landing, of approximately 60 miles, passing over the following points: starting from North Island, over Del Mar, La Mesa, Coronado Heights.
 * Straightaway cross-country flight of about 90 miles without landing from the vicinity of Santa Ana, California, to North Island, California.

Roger Miller's account of the 1st Aero Squadron

TEN YEAR BOOK, West Point Class of 1912

A Case of mistaken identity: col. edgar staley gorrell

The Origins of American Strategic Bombing Theory: Transforming Technology into Military Doctrine (2015)

Frear Committee hearings Aug 4

Frear committee Nov 7

A_Case_of_Mistaken_Identity_-Colonel_Edgar_Staley_Gorrell]