North-Eastern Area Command was one of several geographically based
commands raised by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World
War II. It was formed in January 1942 and controlled units in central
and northern Queensland, and Papua New Guinea. Headquartered at
Townsville, Queensland, North-Eastern Area Command's responsibilities
included air defence, aerial reconnaissance and protection of the sea
lanes within its boundaries. Its flying units, equipped with fighters,
reconnaissance bombers, dive bombers and transports, took part in the
battles of Rabaul, Port Moresby and Milne Bay in 1942, and the landings
at Hollandia and Aitape in 1944. The area command continued to operate
after the war, but its assets and staffing were much reduced. Its
responsibilities were subsumed in February 1954 by the RAAF's new
functional commands: Home (operational), Training, and Maintenance
Commands. The area headquarters was disbanded in December 1956 and re-
formed as Headquarters RAAF Townsville.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North-Eastern_Area_Command>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1631:
Mumtaz Mahal, wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, died in
childbirth; Jahan spent the next seventeen years constructing her
mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_Mahal>
1876:
Great Sioux War: A band of Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne attacked a
United States Army expedition and its Crow and Shoshone allies in the
Battle of the Rosebud.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Rosebud>
1940:
Second World War: Britain's worst maritime disaster occurred
when at least 3,000 people were killed as a result of the troopship
RMS Lancastria's sinking by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lancastria>
1985:
On board Space Shuttle Discovery, Sultan bin Salman Al Saud
became the first Arab, the first Muslim, and the first astronaut of
royal blood to fly in outer space.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan_bin_Salman_Al_Saud>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
gastrodiplomacy:
A type of cultural diplomacy where relations between representatives of
different cultures are improved by the means of gastronomy and the
promotion of national cuisines.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gastrodiplomacy>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
It has been deduced from Hitler’s great power over the masses
that the Germans are an unusually suggestible race. But in all countries
and at all times men have succumbed to the suggestive powers of unusual
personalities, even if the wielders of those powers were not always good
men in the Christian sense.
--Heinz Guderian
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Heinz_Guderian>