No. 38 Squadron is a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) transport unit.
Formed in 1943, the squadron ferried supplies and personnel during World
War II between Australia and combat zones in New Guinea and Borneo,
using Douglas Dakota aircraft. It was deployed to Singapore from 1950 to
1952, supplying Commonwealth forces engaged in the Malayan Emergency. It
started flying de Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribous (pictured) in 1964.
Throughout Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, the squadron
prepared aircrew for operational service with No. 35 Squadron, and
maintained a detachment in Papua and New Guinea to provide pilots with
experience flying in tropical conditions. During the 1980s it provided
search and rescue capabilities within Australia, working with Australian
Army units. From 1999 until 2001, a detachment was deployed to East
Timor as part of the Australian-led peacekeeping force in the newly
independent nation. The squadron continued to fly the ageing Caribous
until 2009, when it was re-equipped with eight Beechcraft King Air 350
aircraft. Currently stationed at RAAF Base Townsville, Queensland, it is
responsible for light transport tasks and for training RAAF pilots to
operate King Airs.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._38_Squadron_RAAF>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1816:
HMS Whiting became wrecked on the Doom Bar, a treacherous
shoal off the coast of Cornwall, England, that has caused over 600 known
shipwrecks.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_Bar>
1862:
American Civil War: Confederate forces captured the Union
garrison at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, taking more than 12,000 prisoners.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Harpers_Ferry>
1916:
Tanks, the "secret weapons" of the British Army during the
First World War, were first used in combat at the Battle of the Somme in
Somme, Picardy, France.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme>
1935:
Nazi Germany enacted the Nuremberg Laws, which deprived German
Jews of citizenship, and adopted a new national flag emblazoned with a
swastika.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Germany#Nazi_Germany>
1963:
A bomb planted by members of the Ku Klux Klan exploded in the
16th Street Baptist Church, an African American Baptist church in
Birmingham, Alabama, US, killing four children and injuring at least 22
others.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_Baptist_Church_bombing>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
scream queen:
(informal) An actress who appears in many horror films.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scream_queen>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The demagogue is usually sly, a detractor of others, a professor
of humility and disinterestedness, a great stickler for equality as
respects all above him, a man who acts in corners, and avoids open and
manly expositions of his course, calls blackguards gentlemen, and
gentlemen folks, appeals to passions and prejudices rather than to
reason, and is in all respects, a man of intrigue and deception, of sly
cunning and management, instead of manifesting the frank, fearless
qualities of the democracy he so prodigally professes. The man who
maintains the rights of the people on pure grounds, may be distinguished
from the demagogue by the reverse of all these qualities. He does not
flatter the people, even while he defends them, for he knows that
flattery is a corrupting and dangerous poison. Having nothing to
conceal, he is frank and fearless, as are all men with the consciousness
of right motives. He oftener chides than commends, for power needs
reproof and can dispense with praise. He who would be a courtier under a
king, is almost certain to be a demagogue in a democracy.
--The American Democrat
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_American_Democrat>