Home > 1941 in aviation

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1941:

1 Events

• Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic Ocean.

February

• February 8February 8 is the 39th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 326 days remaining, 327 in leap years. Events 421 Constantius III becomes co-Emperor of the Western Roman Empire 1587 Mary, Queen of Scots is executed. 1622 King James I of Englan - a fleet of Junkers Ju 52The Junkers Ju 52 nicknamed "Tante Ju" (Auntie Ju) and "Iron Annie" was a civilian airliner and military transport aircraft and bomber manufactured between 1932 and 1945 by Junkers. Originally prototyped in 1930 with one engine by Ernst Zindel in the Junks is used to airlift GermanThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east troops to North Africa.
• February 10February 10 is the 41st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 324 days remaining, 325 in leap years. Events 1258 Mongols overrun Baghdad, burning it to the ground and killing 10,000 citizens. 1635 The Academie francaise in Paris is expanded - BritainThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a state in Western Europe, usually known simply as the United Kingdom the UK Britain or less accurately as Great Britain . The UK was formed by a series of Acts of Union which united the formerly uses paratroops for the first time in an attack on Tragino

March

• March 1March 1 is the 60th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (61st in leap years). There are 305 days remaining. Events BC 29 BC Horace writes the ode Occidit Daci Cotisonis agmen''. AD First thousand years 286 Maximian proclaimed junior Roman emperor. - New ZealandFor alternative meanings, see New Zealand (disambiguation). New Zealand is a country formed of two major islands and a number of smaller islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. A common Mori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa popularly translated as Land's first fighter squadron, No. 485 Squadron RAF is formed.
• March 11 - the US Congress passes the Lend-Lease bill, paving the way for the provision of (amongst other equipment) 16,000 warplanes to the UK. Later Lend-Lease arrangements will supply other Allied nations.

April

• April 15 - CAMCO signs an agreement with the Chinese government to equip and administer the American Volunteer Group in China.
• April 16 - London comes under intense bomber attack, with nearly 900 tonnes of high explosive dropped on the city.

May

• May 6 - Igor Sikorsky sets a world endurance record for helicopter flight of 1 hour 32 minutes, in a Sikorsky VS-300
• May 10 - Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland to try and negotiate an alliance with Britain against the Soviet Union
• May 20 - the Luftwaffe's largest paratroop assault sees 22,750 troops landed in Crete in Operation Merkur. The heavy losses taken mean this will also be the Luftwaffe's last such operation for the war.
• May 26 - Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm aircraft play a key role in finding and sinking the German battleship Bismarck.
• May 29 - the USAAC forms Ferrying Command to fly newly manufactured aircraft across the Atlantic to Britain.

June

• June 8 - July 8 - the British invades Syria - air combat between British and French aircraft
• June 20 - the USAAC is renamed the USAAF and placed under the command of General Henry Arnold
• June 22 - Germany invades the Soviet Union ( Operation Barbarossa). 1,200 Soviet aircraft are destroyed on the first day alone.

July

• July 18 - the first RAF aircraft equipped with radar
• July 28 - the Vichy government agrees to build German aircraft in France

August

• August 1 - the Soviet Union makes the first operational use of parasite fighters, attacking Constanza with modified Polikarpov I-16s carried into action by Tupolev TB-3 s.
• August 1 - the United States embargoes the sale of aviation fuel to Japan.

September

• September 23 - Hans-Ulrich Rudel single-handedly sinks a Soviet battleship (the Marat ) flying a Junkers Ju 87

October

• October 2 - Heini Dittmar sets a new airspeed record of 1,004 km/h (624 mph) in a Messerschmitt Me 163A. The record is unofficial because the flight (and the Me 163 programme) is kept secret.

November

• November 12 - aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is sunk by a German submarine

December

• December 7 - the Imperial Japanese Navy makes a devastatingly successful surprise attack on the US Navy fleet at Pearl Harbor. Six aircraft carriers launched a total of nearly 400 warplanes which claimed five US battleships and ten other vessels, and damaged three other battleships. The US declares war on Japan.
• December 18 - Lt Buzz Wagner becomes the first US ace of the war.
• December 22 - a radar-equipped Fairey Firefly sinks a German submarine ( U-451 ) at night, the first such victory