title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend was incorporated as a city on May 22, 1865, and its first elections were held on June 5, 1865, with William G. George elected as its first mayor The official city motto, "Peace", refers to the fact that incorporation came in the month following the Confederate surrender that effectively ended the American Civil War.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Olivet African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church was founded in South Bend in March 1870, making it the first African American church in the city. Olivet AME is still an active African Methodist Episcopal Church, and celebrated its 145th anniversary in 2015.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: In 1923, the African American owner of a soda fountain received a letter signed "KKK", threatening to kill an African American man held in the city's jail and harm the rest of the city's African American population. Within a few days, over a thousand African Americans fled the city.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: In 1924, the Ku Klux Klan held a conference and planned a parade from its local headquarters at 230 S. Michigan St. In preparation, Klan members were posted around town to direct traffic. Notre Dame students, well aware of the anti-Catholic nature of the Klan, vigorously protested this intrusion, and before noon all of the Klansmen traffic directors had been "unmasked and unrobed." Notre Dame students continued the fight, with several hundred gathering outside of the Klan headquarters, throwing rocks and smashing windows in protest. Local police as well as Notre Dame officials eventually managed to convince them to return to campus. It is said that even legendary football coach Knute Rockne became involved in the struggle to calm down the students.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Other industries developed in South Bend in the early 20th century, including Birdsell Manufacturing Company, the Bendix Corporation, Honeywell, AlliedSignal, South Bend Lathe Works, the O'Brien Paint Corp., the South Bend Toy Company, South Bend Range, South Bend Bait Company, and South Bend Watch Company. Workers at the Bendix Corporation staged the first sit-in strike in American history in 1936. Fast development led to the creation of electric rail transportation throughout the area, and in 1925, the South Shore interurban streetcar service was established from downtown South Bend to downtown Chicago. South Bend was the first community in the United States to have an electrified trolley system (even though it was a few years before it was usable and profitable). The South Shore line still runs daily to and from Chicago and also is a major freight carrier in the area.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: On June 30, 1934, the Merchants National Bank in South Bend was the last bank to be robbed by the Dillinger gang.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: On September 29, 1929, South Bend completed its "track elevation program". This was a railroad infrastructure project which saw the removal of Grand Trunk Western Railroad tracks from Division Street, the removal of level crossings from Chapin to Miami streets, the creation of a modern freight layout, and the construction of Union Station. This project had been seventeen years in the making, and had been the subject of the Indiana Supreme Court case Vandalia Railroad v. South Bend, which was subsequently affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: In 1949, legendary percussionist Lionel Hampton was informed that his concert at South Bend's Palais du Royale would be a blacks-only event; he threatened to call for a boycott of the venue, and the affair proceeded as an integrated evening, which newspapers said led to all attendees breaking out in "paroxysms of ecstasy."


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: By 1950, more than half of all employment was in the manufacturing sector. Due to economic difficulties, Studebaker closed its automotive manufacturing plants in South Bend in December 1963. A general decline in manufacturing soon followed as industry was restructured nationwide. By 2000, manufacturing was only 16 percent of the local economy. Due to the severe loss of jobs, the city's population decreased by nearly 30,000 during that period.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: In 1984, South Bend community leaders began seeking a minor-league baseball team for the city. A stadium was constructed in 1986 and a 10-year player-development contract was signed with the Chicago White Sox. The team would be known as the South Bend White Sox. In 1994, the team's name was changed to the South Bend Silver Hawks, and then to The South Bend Cubs in 2015. They are a Class A minor league affiliate of the Chicago Cubs in the Midwest League.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: In 2015, the City of South Bend celebrated its 150th birthday. The yearlong festival culminated with the ceremonial illumination of the first River Lights along the St. Joseph River. Mayor Pete Buttigieg welcomed the coming of the next 150 years of South Bend's heritage accompanied by five previous South Bend mayors: Steve Luecke, Joe Kernan, Roger Parent, Peter Nemeth and Jerry Miller.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: In 2015, the city's population increased by 286, the largest one-year growth in over twenty years. The former Studebaker plant has been developed as the Ignition Park center to attract new businesses, especially in the tech industry. South Bend has also seen new development, particularly in the tech field, a decline in unemployment, and a renewal of the downtown area under Buttigieg's tenure, which has been described as a revival and South Bend as a 'turnaround city'. South Bend also was in the national spotlight during the 2019-20 Democratic presidential campaign of former mayor Pete Buttigieg.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend is located from the Michigan border and approximately equidistant from Illinois and Ohio. The city is from Chicago. The shore of Lake Michigan is away.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: According to the 2010 census, South Bend has a total area of , of which (or 99%) is land and (or 1%) is water.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The St. Joseph River flows from the east end of the city turning north near the city center, giving South Bend its name at the bend in the river. South Bend is located on the north–south continental divide, and the river flows northwest into Lake Michigan. The downtown area is located in the north-central part of the city along the St. Joseph River. Notre Dame, Indiana, is directly adjacent to the north. The city extends further north on the west side, mainly with manufacturing and distribution facilities near the South Bend International Airport. Mishawaka, Indiana, is adjacent to South Bend's east side.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend has a humid continental climate, with a Köppen climate classification of Dfa. Lake Michigan exerts a great influence on the climate of South Bend, including lake effect snow in winter and a tendency to moderate temperatures year round. June, July and August are the warmest months, with average temperatures above . Normally, 42 days with thunderstorms occur each year. The snowiest month is usually January, with snowfall normally recorded from October through April. On average, South Bend receives of snow per year. Spring and fall can be mild and overcast, but also severely stormy at times with 293 partly cloudy to cloudy days each year.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: "Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race."


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: As of the census of 2010, there were 101,168 people, 39,760 households, and 23,526 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 46,324 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 60.5% White, 26.6% African American, 0.5% Native American, 1.3% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 6.9% from other races, and 4.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 13.0% of the population.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: There were 39,760 households, of which 33.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 34.9% were married couples living together, 18.9% had a female householder with no husband present, 5.4% had a male householder with no wife present, and 40.8% were non-families. 33.3% Of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.48 and the average family size was 3.19.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The median age in the city was 33.3 years. 27.3% of residents were under the age of 18; 10% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 27.1% were from 25 to 44; 23.1% were from 45 to 64; and 12.5% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 48.4% male and 51.6% female.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Per the 2013 American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau, the following ancestries were reported: African-American - 26%, German - 14.8%, Irish - 10.4%, Polish - 8.2%, English - 5.0%, American - 3.3%, Italian - 2.6%, Hungarian - 2.4%, French - 2.0%, Dutch - 1.4%, Swedish - 1.1%, Belgian - 0.9%.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend's location on the St. Joseph River led to an industrial-based economy in the late 19th century and early-to-mid-20th century. In 1923, industrialist and entrepreneur Vincent H. Bendix selected South Bend as the site of his new manufacturing plant for automotive parts. He chose South Bend primarily because it was on a rail line midway between Chicago and Detroit, the two automotive manufacturing centers of the United States at the time. Eventually, the Bendix corporation built a vast manufacturing complex on its South Bend acreage served by the major railroads, including a huge shipping and receiving building where railroad cars could enter at one end, unload, and depart at the opposite end.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: By the end of World War II, manufacturing began to diminish. The Studebaker plant, which had at one time employed 45,000 persons, closed in 1963; its engine block plant shuttered the following year. Parts of the Bendix factory complex were later acquired and divided between Honeywell Corporation and Bosch Corporation, respectively. Honeywell Aerospace continues to manufacture aviation products at its former Bendix facility. In 2010, Bosch announced that it would cease all operations at its Bendix plant location in South Bend by the end of 2011. Bosch vacated the building entirely in October 2012. Curtis Products of South Bend moved into the building in May 2013.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Since the 1960s, education, health care, and small business have come to the forefront of South Bend's economy, though the city has never regained the level of prosperity it enjoyed before that time. Nearby University of Notre Dame is a large contributor to the local economy. The university is the second largest employer in the city and in St. Joseph County, employing 6,086 people.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Health care is another major contributor to the South Bend economy. In 2012, Memorial Health System announced that it was merging with Elkhart General Hospital, located in Elkhart County, to form Beacon Health System. Beacon is the largest employer in the city and in St. Joseph County, employing 7,088 people. Other notable businesses include Honeywell, Bosch, and PEI Genesis. AM General, Crowe Horwath, and Tire Rack all have corporate headquarters in South Bend.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Efforts are under way to spur economic growth in South Bend. The St. Joe Valley Metronet is a dark fiber optic network that encircles South Bend and Mishawaka that allows for strong telecommunications connectivity. The South Bend Metronet, named Zing, is bringing more high-tech firms to the city and surrounding area. This telecommunications network has allowed for the advent of various data centers in South Bend, which serves as a hub between Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit, and Cincinnati. In 2015, the City of South Bend announced it would provide free wireless internet access via the Metronet in the city's downtown and East Bank areas.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The Union Station Technology Center was purchased from the city in 1979 and is currently Northern Indiana's largest data center. There are currently plans to extend the data center into a fully operating high-tech data hub in the old Studebaker "Ivy Tower" assembly plant next door, creating what will be called the Renaissance District.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Innovation Park and Ignition Park, dual-certified technology parks, have attracted technology businesses to South Bend. Located across the street from the University of Notre Dame, Innovation Park was completed in 2009 and houses innovative researchers from companies and the university. Ignition Park, located just south of the downtown area, is planned to become home to of high-tech space on of land previously owned by the Studebaker Corporation. The first tenant, Data Realty, moved into the location in the fall of 2012. The second building in the new park, a research and testing facility for massive turbo machinery, is part of a partnership between the city, General Electric, Great Lakes Capital, Indiana Michigan Power, University of Notre Dame, and the state of Indiana.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Redevelopment is underway for some of the abandoned industrial facilities, with the abandoned Oliver Corporation buildings being the most recent example of reclaimed property. The city also faced programs with large swaths of vacant housing after the decline of the manufacturing industry. In 2013, 1,347 homes were vacant or abandoned. The city created the Vacant and Abandoned Properties Initiative in February 2013, which aimed to take care of 1,000 vacant or abandoned homes in 1,000 days, either through demolition, repairs, or some other satisfactory means.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The Smart Street Initiative, a 20-year plan to make the city safer for pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists, began in 2013 with the conversion of one-way streets to two-way streets, to bring more businesses to the area, create shorter travel routes, and to reduce speeding. The other part of the initiative is the West Side Main Streets Plan, a revitalization plan for the Lincoln Way West and Western Avenue corridor focusing on guiding business owners, residents, and developers to improve the street front by offering a reimbursement on exterior improvements from the city and the Urban Enterprise Association.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: In 2012, Kiplinger's Personal Finance ranked South Bend eighth in the "Ten Best Cities for Cheapskates". South Bend was also ranked among the 40 hottest real estate markets for business by Expansion Management magazine, and Smart+Connected Communities Institute featured South Bend as one of the top ten cities worldwide that is reinventing themselves through technology.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend was influenced by a large influx of Polish Catholic immigrants in the late 19th century. Dyngus Day is widely celebrated on the Monday after Easter and it is the beginning of the city elections campaign season. Fat Tuesday is also celebrated in South Bend, with "paczkis" being a staple food product in the city for the day. The city and surrounding county have 23 Catholic churches, 11 Catholic schools and three Catholic universities (the University of Notre Dame, Holy Cross College, and Saint Mary's College, all located in the adjacent unincorporated area of Notre Dame).


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The city hosts several annual festivals. The South Bend International Festival began ten years ago as the South Bend Reggae Festival and now features local and international musical artists who perform in African, Latino, and American cultural styles. Proceeds from the festival are given to the Pangani Foundation of South Bend, which provides medical supplies to hospitals in Malawi.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: WBYT FM – B100 (Country Station) hosts an Annual All Day Country Concert, with over 37,000 free tickets in early September.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The World Pulse Festival, broadcast by LeSEA Broadcasting network, is held annually in South Bend. It is hosted by Pulse FM, a local Christian music radio station. The event is an annual Contemporary Christian music festival, attracting more than 50,000 visitors each year.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: In 2013, a new annual festival began in South Bend called South by South Bend, named after the famous South By Southwest of Austin, Texas. The festival is a celebration of the local music scene, with local bands and artists performing on the park grounds and other public venues around the city. The goals of the festival include strengthening the bond between the communities of South Bend and Notre Dame, supporting local artistic expression, and promoting local business. In 2015, the festival was renamed Sounds by South Bend, to avoid confusion with the Austin festival and to more accurately represent the purpose of the event.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The South Bend Museum of Art is located in Century Center in downtown South Bend. The museum was opened to the public in March 1996, and features a variety of artists from South Bend and the Michiana region. Currently, over 850 works are featured in the permanent collection. The museum also offers several classes and workshops for adults and children.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The History Museum is the public name of the Northern Indiana Historical Society, the second-oldest historical society in Indiana, established in 1867 to collect and interpret the history of the northern Indiana region by St. Joseph County's leading citizens. The Oliver Mansion (also known by its original name, Copshaholm) is one of the central features of the museum. The 38-room mansion was built in 1895 and is currently listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The home was built by Joseph Doty Oliver, son of James Oliver, the founder of the Oliver Farm Equipment Company, once the largest plow manufacturer in the United States. In addition to the Oliver Mansion and the Workers Home (a 1920s Polish-American family home), the museum includes areas dedicated to the history of the St. Joseph River Valley, the University of Notre Dame, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, and the Kidsfirst Children's Museum.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The Studebaker National Museum holds a large collection of wagons and automobiles from the 150-year history of the Studebaker Corporation. The museum began as a collection of wagons and automobiles produced by Studebaker, including the presidential carriages of Lincoln, McKinley, Harrison, and Grant. The company donated the collection to the city of South Bend in 1966. The collection was housed in various locations from Century Center to its current location in downtown South Bend, adjacent to The History Museum. The two museums share one campus, and together form The Museums at Washington and Chapin. The former South Bend mansion of Clement Studebaker, named Tippecanoe Place, is now a restaurant.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center is housed in the former Engman Public Natatorium. What was once the city's first indoor swimming pool excluded and then segregated against African Americans for its first twenty-eight years. In 2010, Indiana University South Bend re-opened the building, and now offers tours and events focusing on the histories of civil rights and the experiences of African Americans, Latinos, and LGBTQ people in South Bend.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The Morris Performing Arts Center, built in 1922, included the Palace Theater, a venue for vaudeville. The theatre's heyday was in 1940 with the premiere of "Knute Rockne, All American," starring Ronald Reagan. A crowd estimated at 24,000 gathered outside. The theater was scheduled for demolition in 1959, when E. M. Morris purchased the facility and sold it to the city for one dollar, after which it was renamed the Morris Civic Auditorium. A total renovation as well as expansion of the stage area was completed in 2000. The Morris Performing Arts Center also includes the restored Palais Royale Ballroom. The center houses the Broadway Theater League and the South Bend Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra's Shanghai-born former conductor, Tsung Yeh, was the first conductor ever to hold music directorships of both a western symphony orchestra and a major Chinese orchestra.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend is also home to The South Bend Hot Patooties, a group that performs a shadowcast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The group has performed at various South Bend venues including the State Theater, Legends of Notre Dame, The Potawatomi Conservatories, and the historic Birdsell Mansion.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The South Bend Civic Theatre, founded in 1957, was for many years located at The Firehouse, 701 Portage Avenue. In 2007, a new theatre opened at 403 North Main Street in what was formerly the Scottish Rite Building. This facility includes a 209-seat main-stage auditorium and a 90-seat "black-box" studio theatre. The South Bend Civic Theatre produces more than a dozen plays per year, including several productions in its Family Series.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The Snite Museum of Art of the University of Notre Dame is a fine arts museum that contains 29,000 works of art.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The Fischoff National Chamber Music Association, sponsor of the world's largest chamber music competition, was founded in South Bend in 1973. The annual Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition is held on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Schuyler Colfax, the 17th Vice President of the United States, is interred in South Bend City Cemetery.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: A USL2 soccer franchise named in November 2019, located in South Bend. The team plays at TCU School Field with an inaugural season in Summer of 2020.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The city is home to the South Bend Cubs, a Class A Minor League Baseball team, which plays at Four Winds Field at Coveleski Stadium in downtown South Bend. In 2014, the franchise changed its name and logo to the South Bend Cubs and became affiliated with the Chicago Cubs; prior to this, it had been known as the South Bend Silver Hawks and affiliated with the Arizona Diamondbacks. In 2005, the franchise nearly moved to Marion, Illinois, but a group of investors, led by former Indiana governor and former South Bend mayor Joe Kernan, bought the Silver Hawks in order to ensure the team stayed in South Bend.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The Ballpark Synagogue is a 1901 synagogue building on the grounds of the ballpark, which serves as the team's fan store. It is the nation's only ballpark synagogue and it is available for weddings and other events. The stadium is also used for multiple community events. In 2015, the South Bend Cubs broke their previous ticket sales record, with a total of 347,678 tickets sold.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The city also hosts the South Bend Roller Girls, the city's non-profit flat-track roller derby league. Founded in March 2010, the league has worked to support fundraising for local charities, such as the Salvation Army's Adopt-A-Family program, the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, and the St. Joe County Humane Society. The South Bend Roller Girls traveling/competitive team, The Studebreakers, is named after the historic Studebaker Corporation. The team is a member of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend is home to the first artificial whitewater center in North America, the East Race Waterway, adjacent to Century Center. The East Race Waterway is one of only four operating artificial whitewater facilities in the United States, the others being Dickerson Whitewater Course (in Dickerson, Maryland), U.S. National Whitewater Center (in Charlotte, North Carolina), Adventure Sports Center International (in McHenry, Maryland), and Riversports Rapids (in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma). The East Race Waterway is one of only six such facilities to have ever been operated in the US, the others being the four aforementioned courses and the now-defunct Ocoee Whitewater Center (in Ducktown, Tennessee). Prior to the opening of Riversports Rapids, the East Race had long been the only such US facility not located in an East Coast state. The waterway is closed as of 2021 because a hydroelectric dam is being built at the source.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: During World War II, the South Bend Blue Sox All-American Girls Professional Baseball League team was formed in the city. The team participated in all the league's seasons from 1943 to 1954.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The Notre Dame Fighting Irish also provides sports activity the South Bend locale, with football, basketball, and other collegiate sports attracting fans to the region. Along with Notre Dame, South Bend was the site of the VII Special Olympics Summer World Games in 1987. Notre Dame also hosted the 1983 AAU Junior Olympics.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend's first zoo was located at Leeper Park from 1902 until 1914. The present zoo at Potawatomi Park began in 1921 when Albert R. Erskine, the president of the Studebaker Corporation, donated a single deer as the start of the zoo. The Potawatomi Zoo is the second oldest zoo in Indiana. It features more than 400 animals in its . The zoo is now operated by the Potawatomi Zoological Society. Along with the zoo, the South Bend Parks and Recreation department operates over 50 parks, golf courses, and recreational areas throughout the city. Notable parks include Rum Village Park, which has a disc golf course, mountain bike trails, hiking trails, and a nature center, and Potawatomi Park, which has the region's largest Universally Accessible Playground and an outdoors Performance Arts Pavilion and viewing area.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Near the Potawatomi Zoo are the Potawatomi Greenhouses and the Ella Morris and Muessel-Ellison Botanical Conservatories. The greenhouses were originally constructed in the 1920s, with the conservatories added in the 1960s. In 2007, the greenhouses and conservatories were in danger of closing due to increased operating costs, but a campaign by the Botanical Society of South Bend was able to raise funds to keep the facilities operating.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: While developing the 2006 City Plan, the city's 20-year comprehensive plan, citizens said the encouragement of bicycling as a form of alternative transportation was a top priority. In 2010, South Bend became one of 303 communities in the United States to be recognized as a "Bicycle-Friendly Community" by the League of American Bicyclists due to the city's "remarkable commitments to bicycling. The city has developed a long-term plan for building a South Bend Bikeway network. , of bicycle routes have been established, including of multipurpose paths separated from streets, of striped bike lanes, and of on-street routes bearing other designations.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The area is also served by the St. Joseph County Parks Dept, which maintains eight different parks and recreation areas. The Parks department serves the metro area and is headed by a permanent staff and an appointed board.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend government follows the mayor-council representative model of municipal government and, along with the St. Joseph county government, occupies the County-City Building in downtown South Bend.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The government of South Bend is led by the office of the mayor, who is elected to a four-year term and acts as chief executive for the city government. The current mayor is James Mueller.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The final elected member of the South Bend government is the city clerk, who is responsible for maintaining official city records and providing general clerical assistance to the City Council. The current clerk is Dawn M. Jones.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Michael A. Dvorak is the prosecuting attorney for the 60th Judicial Circuit, which consists of St. Joseph County. He was first elected in 2002.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend is represented in the Indiana House of Representatives by Maureen Bauer, Jake Teshka, and Ryan Dvorak, and in the Indiana State Senate by David L. Niezgodski. All members of the Indiana General Assembly representing South Bend are Democrats, except Jake Teshka, who is a Republican.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The Democratic Party is very successful in South Bend. Every South Bend mayor since 1972 has been a Democrat. As of 2021, all but one City Council member is a Democrat.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: On March 26, 2012, South Bend passed the Human Rights Ordinance, outlawing discrimination in employment, housing, or other areas against citizens based on "race, religion, color, sex, disability, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation or gender identity, or familial status." It is one of only 6 cities in Indiana to offer legal protections for citizens based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The protections are enforced by the city's Human Rights Commission, which oversees investigation and legal recourse in cases of discrimination.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: On June 16, 2015, then-Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced in a "South Bend Tribune" editorial that he is gay, becoming the first openly gay executive in the state of Indiana.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The police force in South Bend has undergone many changes and expansions in its history, starting in 1831 when the first constables were appointed. Law enforcement was reorganized and renamed multiple times throughout its history, until the department became officially known as the South Bend Police Department in 1903. Scott Ruszkowski has served as chief since 2015.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Public schools in South Bend are operated by the South Bend Community School Corporation. The corporation runs 17 primary centers (grades K–5), seven intermediate centers (mostly grades 6–8), four high schools (grades 9–12) and an alternative school (grade 9–12), serving 16,725 students during the 2019–20 school year. In 2018–19, the school district received an accountability grade overall of C. Purdue Polytechnic High Schools also maintains a campus in South Bend on Lafayette Ave.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: There are also several private schools: namely, Trinity School at Greenlawn, recipient of four Blue Ribbon Awards from the U.S. Department of Education, and The Stanley Clark School. Additionally, the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend operates 11 parochial grade schools and one high school in South Bend. This includes St. Joseph School, which is a National Register of Historic Places listing and two-time National Blue Ribbon Award recipient.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend is served by the St. Joseph County Public Library with a Main Library, and branches in Francis, German, and Lasalle townships. There are a total of ten branches of the public library system throughout the county and from which any library card holder can select. The main library reopened in November 2021 after a full remodel that took two years.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend is home to over 100 places of worship, including mostly Christian churches, three synagogues, and one mosque.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: One major daily newspaper serves the South Bend metro area: the "South Bend Tribune". It is distributed throughout the Michiana region seven days per week. The "South Bend Tribune" is owned by GateHouse Media, part of the Gannett system, which publishes 156 daily newspapers in 39 states.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend's radio stations' formats include public radio, sports radio, classical music, religious, country, classic rock, pop, and urban contemporary, among others.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: As of the 2016–17 rankings, the South Bend-Elkhart designated market area is the 96th largest market in the United States, with 310,170 homes (0.27% of the U.S. population). Most of the major television networks have affiliates in the Michiana area.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend's location around the St. Joseph River has influenced the development of its streets. While city streets mainly follow a grid plan, road development also adapted to the river's path. South Bend is connected to state and national highway systems by State Roads 2, 23, and 933; U.S. Route 20 and 31; and Interstate 80 and 90, the Indiana Toll Road. The original routes of both the Lincoln Highway and the Dixie Highway also pass through South Bend. South Bend was also a town along the intrastate Michigan Road.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Parts of Eddy Street, Sample Street, Chapin Avenue, Marion Street, and Madison Street form an incomplete loop around the downtown area; this was formerly referred to as "the innerbelt". Portions of State Roads 23 and 933 follow this route.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: For transportation around the South Bend metro area, there is the St. Joseph Valley Parkway, designated in places as US 20, US 31, and State Road 331, which bypasses South Bend to the south and west, and connects to Michigan to the north and the greater Elkhart area to the east. The Indiana Toll Road (Interstates 80 and 90) passes through northern South Bend.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend is served by a single Greyhound station. The busses had operated out of the airport until 2019, when they relocated to a leased portion of the South Street Station.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Public transportation in South Bend is controlled by Transpo (South Bend Public Transportation Corporation). Transpo operates bus routes between stations located in South Bend and Mishawaka and provides services to the towns of Osceola and Roseland, from Monday through Saturday. In 2006, the Transpo fleet switched to biodiesel fuel. In 2015, Transpo added 16 new buses powered by compressed natural gas. The Transpo facility is also the first LEED Platinum transit facility in the country. The South Street Station serves as the main hub for most passengers, with multiple platforms and buses arriving frequently. Connections can be made to the Interurban Trolley in Mishawaka.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend serves as the transportation hub for Michiana. The South Bend International Airport lies off of U.S. 31 and the Indiana Toll Road in the northwest corner of South Bend. The airport connects South Bend to larger hubs including Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, New York City, Orlando, Phoenix, Punta Gorda, Sarasota, and St. Petersburg, Florida. In April 2014, the airport changed its name from "South Bend Regional Airport" to the current "South Bend International" after receiving International designation from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Final design plans are being approved for a Federal Inspection Station and General Aviation Facility. The airport welcomed its first international arrival through the General Aviation Facility in June 2017.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The South Shore Line, an electric commuter railroad, runs from South Bend Airport station seven times a day (five on weekends) to Millennium Station in downtown Chicago. A once-daily limited-stop express service was added in 2015 on weekdays, with trains taking 1 hour and 55 minutes from South Bend to Chicago. There is a proposal to reroute or extend the existing track southeast to a new terminus downtown South Bend.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Amtrak, the national passenger rail system, provides service to South Bend Station via two trains a day, the "Lake Shore Limited" between Chicago and New York City or Boston, and the "Capitol Limited" between Chicago and Washington, D.C. A bus line connects Notre Dame and the South Bend airport to Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports, with several northwest Indiana stops.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: South Bend had electric streetcars from 1885 until the 1930s. In 2021, a group proposed the concept of building a new streetcar system, running from Notre Dame University, through South Bend, to Mishawaka.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: Electricity in South Bend is provided by Indiana Michigan Power, a subsidiary of American Electric Power. Natural gas is supplied by the Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO), a subsidiary of NiSource.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: The South Bend Water Works deliver water to residents of South Bend. The water is collected from 32 deep wells and runs through of water main to be distributed to South Bend residents. In 2008, in order to increase the efficiency of its sewer system, South Bend began the installation of an array of intelligent sensors and valves allowing it to become the first city to migrate its sewer system management to the cloud. When a section of the system is under heavy use, this system can divert flow to other, less busy, sections. This more efficient system has helped to save the city an estimated $100 million in new sewage pipes.


title: South Bend, Indiana

text: In 2015, South Bend engaged in a partnership with the University of Notre Dame to revitalize the Bowman Creek ecosystem. Bowman Creek is a tributary of the St. Joseph River in South Bend that has suffered from contamination. The Bowman Creek initiative included partners from local high schools, colleges, and business leaders focused on improvements to both the creek and the neighborhoods. The vision for the collaboration is to institute a unique water quality monitoring system, similar to South Bend's combined sewer overflow system.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: The Thing from Another World, sometimes referred to as just The Thing, is a 1951 American black-and-white science fiction-horror film, directed by Christian Nyby, produced by Edward Lasker for Howard Hawks' Winchester Pictures Corporation, and released by RKO Pictures. The film stars Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite, and Douglas Spencer. James Arness plays The Thing; he is difficult to recognize in costume and makeup due to both low lighting and other effects used to obscure his features. "The Thing from Another World" is based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell (writing under the pseudonym of Don A. Stuart).


title: The Thing from Another World

text: The film's storyline concerns a U.S. Air Force crew and scientists who find, frozen in the Arctic ice, a crashed flying saucer and a humanoid body nearby. Returning to their remote research outpost with the body still in a block of ice, they are forced to defend themselves against the still alive and malevolent plant-based alien when it is accidentally defrosted.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: In Anchorage, journalist Ned Scott (Douglas Spencer), looking for a story, visits the Alaskan Air Command officer's club, where he meets Captain Pat Hendry (Kenneth Tobey), his co-pilot Lieutenant Eddie Dykes, (a friend of Scott's), and flight navigator Ken "Mac" MacPherson. General Fogarty orders Hendry to fly to Polar Expedition Six at the North Pole, per a request from its lead scientist, Nobel laureate Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite); Carrington has radioed that an unusual aircraft has crashed nearby. With Scott, Corporal Barnes, crew chief Bob, and a pack of sled dogs, Hendry pilots a Douglas C-47 transport aircraft to the remote outpost.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: Upon arrival, Scott and the airmen meet radio operator Tex, Dr. Chapman, his wife Mrs. Chapman, a man named Lee, who is one of two cooks, and the Inuit dog handlers. Also present are scientists Vorhees, Stern, Redding, Stone, Laurence, Wilson, Ambrose, Auerbach, Olson, and Carrington. Hendry later rekindles his romance with Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan), Carrington's secretary. Several scientists fly with the airmen to the crash site, finding a large object buried beneath the ice. As they spread out to determine the object's shape, they realize that they are standing in a circle; they have discovered a flying saucer. The team attempts to melt the ice covering the saucer with thermite, but a violent reaction with the craft's metal alloy completely destroys it. Their Geiger counter, however, detects a frozen body buried nearby; it is excavated in a large block of ice and loaded aboard the C-47 transport. They fly out as an Arctic storm closes in on their site.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: Hendry assumes command of the outpost and, pending radio instructions from General Fogarty, denies Scott permission to send out his story; he also denies the scientists' demands to examine the body. Tex sends an update to Fogarty, and the airmen settle in as the storm arrives. A watch is posted; Barnes relieves McPherson and, disturbed by the creature's appearance in the clearing ice, covers it with an electric blanket, which he does not realize is plugged in. The block slowly thaws and the creature, still alive, escapes into the storm and is attacked by the sled dogs. The airmen recover the creature's severed arm after the attack.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: The scientists examine the arm, concluding that the alien is an advanced form of plant life. Carrington is convinced of its superiority to humans and becomes intent on communicating with it. The airmen begin a search, which leads to the outpost's greenhouse. Carrington stays behind with Vorhees, Stern, and Laurence, having noticed evidence of alien activity. They discover a third sled dog hidden away, which has had all of its blood drained; the carnivorous plant creature feeds on blood. Carrington and the scientists post a secret watch of their own, hoping to encounter the alien before the airmen find it.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: The next morning, the airmen continue their search. Tex informs them that Fogarty is aware of their discovery and demands further information, now prevented by the fierce storm. Stern appears, badly injured, and tells the group that the creature has killed Auerbach and Olson. When the airmen investigate, the alien attacks them; they manage to barricade it inside the greenhouse. Hendry confronts Carrington and orders him to remain in his lab and quarters.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: Carrington, obsessed with the alien, shows Nicholson and the other scientists his experiment: using seeds taken from the severed arm, he has been growing small alien plants by feeding them from the blood plasma supply at the base. Hendry finds the plasma missing when it is needed to treat Stern, which leads him to Carrington. Fogarty transmits orders to keep the creature alive, but it escapes from the greenhouse and attacks the airmen in their quarters. They douse it with buckets of kerosene and set it afire, forcing it to retreat into the storm. After regrouping, they realize that their building's temperature is falling rapidly; the furnaces have stopped working, sabotaged by the alien. They retreat to the station's generator room to keep warm, and rig an electrical "fly trap". The alien continues to stalk them, but at the last moment, Carrington attempts to communicate, pleading with the creature. It knocks him aside, walks into the trap, and is electrocuted. On Hendry's order, it is reduced to a pile of ash.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: When the weather clears, Scotty is finally able to file his "story of a lifetime" by radio to a roomful of reporters in Anchorage. He ends his broadcast with a warning: "Tell the world. Tell this to everybody, wherever they are. Watch the skies everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies...".


title: The Thing from Another World

text: In 1950, Lederer and Hecht convinced Hawks to buy the rights to "Who Goes There?". The cost ended up being $1,250.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: In an unusual practice for the era, no actors are named during the film's dramatic "slow burning letters through background" opening title sequence; the cast credits appear at the end of the film. Appearing in a small role was George Fenneman, who at the time was gaining fame as Groucho Marx's announcer on the popular quiz show "You Bet Your Life". Fenneman later said he had difficulty with the overlapping dialogue in the film.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: The film was partly shot in Glacier National Park with interior sets built at a Los Angeles ice storage plant.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: The scene where the alien is set aflame and repeatedly doused with kerosene was one of the first full-body fire stunts ever filmed.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: The film took full advantage of the national feelings in America at the time in order to help enhance the horror elements of the film's storyline. The film reflected a post-Hiroshima skepticism about science and prevailing negative views of scientists who meddle with things better left alone. In the end it is American servicemen and several sensible scientists who win the day over the alien invader.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: The film was loosely adapted by Charles Lederer, with uncredited rewrites from Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht, from the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell. The story was first published in "Astounding Science Fiction" under Campbell's pseudonym Don A. Stuart. (Campbell had just become "Astounding"s managing editor when his novella appeared in its pages.) Science fiction author A. E. van Vogt, who had been inspired to write from reading "Who Goes There?" and who had been a prolific contributor to "Astounding", had wanted to write the script.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: The screenplay changes the fundamental nature of the alien. Lederer's "Thing" is a humanoid life form whose cellular structure is closer to vegetation, although it must feed on blood to survive; reporter Scott even refers to it in the film as a "super carrot". The internal, plant-like structure of the creature makes it impervious to bullets (but not to other destructive forces). Campbell's "Thing" is a life form capable of assuming the physical and mental characteristics of any living thing it encounters; this characteristic was later realized in John Carpenter's adaptation of the novella, the 1982 film "The Thing".


title: The Thing from Another World

text: There is debate as to whether the film was directed by Howard Hawks, with Christian Nyby receiving the credit so that Nyby could obtain his Director's Guild membership or whether Nyby directed it with considerable input from producer Hawks for Hawks' Winchester Pictures, which released the film through RKO Radio Pictures Inc. Hawks gave Nyby only $5,460 of RKO's $50,000 director's fee and kept the rest, but Hawks always denied that he directed the film.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: Cast members disagree on Hawks' and Nyby's contributions: Tobey said that "Hawks directed it, all except one scene" while, on the other hand, Fenneman said that "Hawks would once in a while direct, if he had an idea, but it was Chris' show". Cornthwaite said that "Chris always deferred to Hawks ... Maybe because he did defer to him, people misinterpreted it".


title: The Thing from Another World

text: One of the film's stars, William Self, later became President of 20th Century Fox Television. In describing the production, Self said, "Chris was the director in our eyes, but Howard was the boss in our eyes". Although Self has said that "Hawks was directing the picture from the sidelines", he also has said that "Chris would stage each scene, how to play it. But then he would go over to Howard and ask him for advice, which the actors did not hear ... Even though I was there every day, I don't think any of us can answer the question. Only Chris and Howard can answer the question".


title: The Thing from Another World

text: "The Thing from Another World" was released in April 1951. By the end of that year, the film had accrued $1,950,000 in distributors' domestic (U.S. and Canada) rentals, making it the year's 46th biggest earner, beating all other science fiction films released that year, including "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "When Worlds Collide".


title: The Thing from Another World

text: Bosley Crowther in "The New York Times" observed, "Taking a fantastic notion (or is it, really?), Mr. Hawks has developed a movie that is generous with thrills and chills…Adults and children can have a lot of old-fashioned movie fun at 'The Thing', but parents should understand their children and think twice before letting them see this film if their emotions are not properly conditioned". "Gene" in "Variety" complained that the film "lacks genuine entertainment values". More than 20 years after its theatrical release, science fiction editor and publisher Lester del Rey compared the film unfavorably to the source material, calling it "just another monster epic, totally lacking in the force and tension of the original story". Isaac Asimov thought it to be one of the worst movies he had ever seen. For his part, Campbell acknowledged that an adaptation would have to change elements from the original, which he considered too scary for most audience members, and hoped that at least the movie would succeed in getting people interested in science fiction.


title: The Thing from Another World

text: The film is now considered to be one of the best films of 1951 and one of the great science fiction films of the 1950s. It garnered an 86% "Fresh" rating at the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes from 65 reviews, with the consensus that the film "is better than most flying saucer movies, thanks to well-drawn characters and concise, tense plotting". In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. Additionally, "Time" magazine named "The Thing from Another World" "the greatest 1950s sci-fi movie".


title: The Thing from Another World

text: Some critics have interpreted "The Thing from Another World" to contain commentary on the threat of Communism in America during the Cold War. Program notes from a Cinema Texas screening of the film stated that "The film is seen as being symbolic of McCarthyism and the fight against communism on the home front."


title: The Thing from Another World

text: Film critic Roger Ebert wrote about "The Thing from Another World" in a 1982 review of the John Carpenter film, "The Thing", stating "The Two 1950's versions...("The Thing from Another World" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers") were seen at the time as fables based on McCarthyism; communists, like victims of The Thing, looked, sounded, and acted like your best friend, but they were infected with a deadly secret." Film critic Nick Schager also wrote on the films' themes, stating "An early remark by one military official concerning the burgeoning Soviet presence in the North Pole reinforces the Thing's allegorical status as communist 'other' (one can deduce that Hendry fears the creature not only because it's emotionless and sexless, but also godless)."


title: Books of Blood (film)

text: Books of Blood is a 2020 American anthology horror film directed by Brannon Braga and co-written by Braga and Adam Simon. It is based on "Books of Blood" by Clive Barker and is the second film adaptation after "Book of Blood" (2009). The film premiered at the 2020 Screamfest Horror Film Festival on October 6, 2020, and was released on Hulu the following day. This was the final production by Touchstone Television before being folded into 20th Television.


title: Books of Blood (film)

text: The film tells three stories, two of which are loose adaptations from the titular horror fiction anthology: "The Book of Blood" ("Miles") and "On Jerusalem Street" (a postscript) ("Bennett").


title: Books of Blood (film)

text: Jenna is a college student suffering from mental illness. Unhappy at home, she decides to run away after becoming noncompliant with her medication. She begins to suspect that someone is following her and takes refuge at a bed and breakfast run by older couple Ellie and Sam. Jenna bonds with a fellow guest named Gavin, and with her host, Ellie. She begins to feel a connection with Ellie after experiencing delusions of bugs and continuing to see someone following her. She is horrified when she discovers that the couple have been paralysing their guests, sawing her guests eyes and ears off, and hiding them within the house. Ellie uses her skills as a former health practitioner to keep her victims


title: Books of Blood (film)

text: alive but sedated in the walls and hidden compartments of her home, in a warped belief that her actions are providing Ellie and Sam's victims with a better life.


title: Books of Blood (film)

text: Jenna is saved by her stalker, revealed to be the father of Jenna's former boyfriend who died by suicide. He is murdered by Ellie and Sam. His body is put in his car which is driven away by Sam. Jenna manages to get into the backseat of the car and subsequently ends up trapped in the car as it goes over a cliff in a fake suicide set up by Ellie and Sam to dispose of the body of Jenna's former boyfriend's father.


title: Books of Blood (film)

text: Mary is approached by a psychic named Simon, who claims that he is communicating with her dead son Miles. While she is skeptical, Mary truly wishes to speak to her son and decides that this could be a beneficial experiment for her work. The experiment is seemingly successful and the two end up becoming a couple, also launching a foundation together. This happiness does not last, as Mary eventually discovers that not only is Simon unfaithful but he also faked the entire experiment. Later a devastated Mary sees her son's ghost and watches as a message entreats her to repeat the experiment with Simon.


title: Books of Blood (film)

text: Simon is initially unwilling to participate but does so when she mentions that it is necessary to raise funding for work. She then watches as multiple ghosts appear and carve their stories into his flesh.


title: Books of Blood (film)

text: A bookseller owes money to shady people and Bennett has been hired to collect, along with his driver Steve. When he is unable to produce what is owed, the seller attempts to save his life by telling Bennett of the "Book of Blood", a rare tome worth a million dollars, that's located in an abandoned town. Bennett is intrigued by the story, but still kills the bookseller.


title: Books of Blood (film)

text: Together with Steve, Bennett travels to the abandoned town where both men experience inexplicable and supernatural phenomena. Steve is driven to shoot himself after hearing the voice of his dead mother, while Bennett is chased by their car. When he arrives at the purported location of the book, he discovers Mary, Simon, and the ghost of Miles. Bennett is unwilling to believe that Simon is the book, particularly after Mary tells him that he is now one of the stories. He is then chased outside, where he is tormented by visions until he stabs himself. Though severely wounded, Bennett manages to escape but is unfortunate in that he ends up at Ellie and Sam's home, where he is killed by Ellie.


title: Books of Blood (film)

text: Then, the scene moves to a hospitalized Jenna, who survived the crash. We have a flashback of her last phone call with her boyfriend, and we learn that she instigated him to jump from a roof. She cries as she recalls it, and we see her going back to the evil couple she ran away from, to be drugged and buried into the house with the other victims, with eyes and ears removed. Jenna is shown to be happy as she can no longer hear noises.


title: Books of Blood (film)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . Metacritic reports a score of 42 out of 100 based on seven critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Close air support

text: In military tactics, close air support (CAS) is defined as air action such as air strikes by fixed or rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets near friendly forces and require detailed integration of each air mission with fire and movement of these forces and attacks with aerial bombs, glide bombs, missiles, rockets, autocannons, machine guns, and even directed-energy weapons such as lasers.


title: Close air support

text: The requirement for detailed integration because of proximity, fires or movement is the determining factor. CAS may need to be conducted during shaping operations with Special Operations Forces (SOF) if the mission requires detailed integration with the fire and movement of those forces. A closely related subset of air interdiction (AI), battlefield air interdiction, denotes interdiction against units with near-term effects on friendly units, but which does not require integration with friendly troop movements. The term "battlefield air interdiction" is not currently used in U.S. joint doctrine. CAS requires excellent coordination with ground forces. In advanced modern militaries, that coordination is typically handled by specialists such as Joint Fires Observers (JFOs), Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs), and forward air controllers (FACs).


title: Close air support

text: The First World War was the first conflict to make extensive use of CAS, albeit using relatively primitive methods in contrast to later warfare. Even so, it was clear that coordination between aerial and ground forces via radio communication typically made such attacks more effective. Appropriately modified, the British F.E 2b fighter became the first ground-attack aircraft, while Germany produced the first purpose-built ground attack aircraft in the form of the Junkers J.I; the Sopwith Camel was another successful early platform. Both the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and the German spring offensive of 1918 made extensive use of CAS aircraft. The interwar period saw CAS doctrine continue to advance, although theorists and aviators would often clash over its strategic value. Several different conflicts, including the Polish–Soviet War, the Spanish Civil War, colonial wars in the Middle East and the Gran Chaco War, were noticeably impacted by CAS operations.


title: Close air support

text: The Second World War marked the universal acceptance of the integration of air power into combined arms warfare. Although the German "Luftwaffe" was the only force to use CAS at the start of the war, all the major combatants had developed effective air-ground coordination techniques by the conflict's end. New techniques, such as the use of forward air control to guide CAS aircraft and identifying invasion stripes, also emerged at this time, being heavily shaped by the Italian Campaign and the invasion of Normandy. CAS practices continued to advance in further conflicts, including the Korean War and the Vietnam War; major milestones including the introduction of attack helicopters and the creation of aerial gunships, such as the Bell AH-1 Cobra and the Douglas AC-47 Spooky. While many CAS aircraft have been propeller driven, several jet aircraft, such as the A-10 Thunderbolt II ("Warthog") and the Su-25 ("Frogfoot"), have been developed as well.


title: Close air support

text: The use of aircraft in the close air support of ground forces dates back to the First World War, the first conflict to make significant military use of aerial forces. Air warfare, and indeed aviation itself, was still in its infancy – and the direct effect of rifle caliber machine guns and light bombs of the First World War aircraft was very limited compared with the power of (for instance) an average fighter bomber of the Second World War, but CAS aircraft were still able to achieve a powerful psychological impact. The aircraft was a visible and personal enemy – unlike artillery – presenting a personal threat to enemy troops, while providing friendly forces assurance that their superiors were concerned about their situation.


title: Close air support

text: The most successful attacks of 1917–1918 had included planning for co-ordination between aerial and ground units, although it was relatively difficult at this early date to co-ordinate these attacks due to the primitive nature of air-to-ground radio communication. Though most air-power proponents sought independence from ground commanders and hence pushed the importance of interdiction and strategic bombing, they nonetheless recognized the need for close air support.


title: Close air support

text: From the commencement of hostilities in 1914, aviators engaged in sporadic and spontaneous attacks on ground forces, but it was not until 1916 that an air support doctrine was elaborated and dedicated fighters for the job were put into service. By that point, the startling and demoralizing effect that attack from the air could have on the troops in the trenches had been made clear.


title: Close air support

text: At the Battle of the Somme, 18 British armed reconnaissance planes strafed the enemy trenches after conducting surveillance operations. The success of this improvised assault spurred innovation on both sides. In 1917, following the Second Battle of the Aisne, the British debuted the first ground-attack aircraft, a modified F.E 2b fighter carrying bombs and mounted machine-guns. After exhausting their ammunition, the planes returned to base for refueling and rearming before returned to the battle-zone. Other modified planes used in this role were the Airco DH.5 and Sopwith Camel – the latter was particularly successful in this role.


title: Close air support

text: Aircraft support was first integrated into a battle plan on a large scale at the 1917 Battle of Cambrai, where a significantly larger number of tanks were deployed than previously. By that time, effective anti-aircraft tactics were being used by the enemy infantry and pilot casualties were high, although air support was later judged as having been of a critical importance in places where the infantry had got pinned down.


title: Close air support

text: At this time, British doctrine came to recognize two forms of air support; trench strafing (the modern-day doctrine of CAS), and ground strafing (the modern-day doctrine of air interdiction) – attacking tactical ground targets away from the land battle. As well as strafing with machine-guns, planes engaged in such operations were commonly modified with bomb racks; the plane would fly in very low to the ground and release the bombs just above the trenches.


title: Close air support

text: The Germans were also quick to adopt this new form of warfare and were able to deploy aircraft in a similar capacity at Cambrai. While the British used single-seater planes, the Germans preferred the use of heavier two-seaters with an additional machine gunner in the aft cockpit. The Germans adopted the powerful Hannover CL.II and built the first purpose-built ground attack aircraft, the Junkers J.I. During the 1918 German spring offensive, the Germans employed 30 squadrons, or "Schlasta", of ground attack fighters and were able to achieve some initial tactical success. The British later deployed the Sopwith Salamander as a specialized ground attack aircraft, although it was too late to see much action.


title: Close air support

text: During the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of 1918, CAS aircraft functioned as an important factor in ultimate victory. After the British achieved air superiority over the German aircraft sent to aid the Ottoman Turks, squadrons of S.E 5a's and D.H. 4s were sent on wide-ranging attacks against German and Turkish positions near the Jordan river. Combined with a ground assault led by General Edmund Allenby, three Turkish armies soon collapsed into a full rout. In the words of the attacking squadron's official report:


title: Close air support

text: The close air support doctrine was further developed in the interwar period. Most theorists advocated the adaptation of fighters or light bombers into the role. During this period, airpower advocates crystallized their views on the role of air-power in warfare. Aviators and ground officers developed largely opposing views on the importance of CAS, views that would frame institutional battles for CAS in the 20th century.


title: Close air support

text: The inter-war period saw the use of CAS in a number of conflicts, including the Polish–Soviet War, the Spanish Civil War, the Iraqi revolt of 1920 and the Gran Chaco War.


title: Close air support

text: The British used air power to great effect in various colonial hotspots in the Middle East and North Africa during the immediate postwar period. The newly formed Royal Air force (RAF) contributed to the defeat of the Afghan military during the Third Anglo-Afghan War by harassing Afghani troops and breaking up their formations. Z Force, an RAF air squadron, was also used to support ground operations during the Somaliland campaign, in which the Darawiish king Diiriye Guure's insurgency was defeated. Following from these successes, the decision was made to create a unified RAF Iraq Command to use air power as a more cost-effective way of controlling large areas than the use of conventional land forces. It was effectively used to suppress the Great Iraqi Revolution of 1920 and various other tribal revolts.


title: Close air support

text: During the Spanish Civil War German volunteer aviators of the Condor Legion on the Nationalist side, despite little official support from their government, developed close air support tactics that proved highly influential for subsequent Luftwaffe doctrine.


title: Close air support

text: U.S. Marine Corps Aviation was used as an intervention force in support of U.S. Marine Corps ground forces during the Banana Wars, in places such as Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. Marine Aviators experimented with air-ground tactics and in Haiti and Nicaragua they adopted the tactic of dive bombing.


title: Close air support

text: The observers and participants of these wars would base their CAS strategies on their experience of the conflict. Aviators, who wanted institutional independence from the Army, pushed for a view of air-power centered around interdiction, which would relieve them of the necessity of integrating with ground forces and allow them to operate as an independent military arm. They saw close air support as both the most difficult and most inefficient use of aerial assets.


title: Close air support

text: Close air support was the most difficult mission, requiring identifying and distinguishing between friendly and hostile units. At the same time, targets engaged in combat are dispersed and concealed, reducing the effectiveness of air attacks. They also argued that the CAS mission merely duplicated the abilities of artillery, whereas interdiction provided a unique capability. Ground officers contended there was rarely sufficient artillery available, and the flexibility of aircraft would be ideal for massing firepower at critical points, while producing a greater psychological effect on friendly and hostile forces alike. Moreover, unlike massive, indiscriminate artillery strikes, small aerial bombs would not render ground untrafficable, slowing attacking friendly forces.


title: Close air support

text: Although the prevailing view in official circles was largely indifferent to CAS during the interwar period, its importance was expounded upon by military theorists, such as J. F. C. Fuller and Basil Liddell Hart. Hart, who was an advocate of what later came to be known as 'Blitzkrieg' tactics, thought that the speed of armoured tanks would render conventional artillery incapable of providing support fire. Instead he proposed that:


title: Close air support

text: As a continental power intent on offensive operations, Germany could not ignore the need for aerial support of ground operations. Though the "Luftwaffe", like its counterparts, tended to focus on strategic bombing, it was unique in its willingness to commit forces to CAS. Unlike the Allies, the Germans were not able to develop powerful strategic bombing capabilities, which implied industrial developments they were forbidden to take according to the Treaty of Versailles. In joint exercises with Sweden in 1934, the Germans were first exposed to dive-bombing, which permitted greater accuracy while making attack aircraft more difficult to track by antiaircraft gunners. As a result, Ernst Udet, chief of the Luftwaffe's development, initiated procurement of close support dive bombers on the model of the U.S. Navy's Curtiss Helldiver, resulting in the Henschel Hs 123, which was later replaced by the famous Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka". Experience in the Spanish Civil War lead to the creation of five ground-attack groups in 1938, four of which would be equipped with "Stukas". The Luftwaffe matched its material acquisitions with advances in the air-ground coordination. General Wolfram von Richthofen organized a limited number of air liaison detachments that were attached to ground units of the main effort. These detachments existed to pass requests from the ground to the air, and receive reconnaissance reports, but they were not trained to guide aircraft onto targets.


title: Close air support

text: These preparations did not prove fruitful in the invasion of Poland, where the Luftwaffe focused on interdiction and dedicated few assets to close air support. But the value of CAS was demonstrated at the crossing of the Meuse River during the Invasion of France in 1940. General Heinz Guderian, one of the creators of the combined-arms tactical doctrine commonly known as ""blitzkrieg"", believed the best way to provide cover for the crossing would be a continuous stream of ground attack aircraft on French defenders. Though few guns were hit, the attacks kept the French under cover and prevented them from manning their guns. Aided by the sirens attached to "Stukas", the psychological impact was disproportional to the destructive power of close air support (although as often as not, the Stukas were used as tactical bombers instead of close air support, leaving much of the actual work to the older Hs 123 units for the first years of the war). In addition, the reliance on air support over artillery reduced the demand for logistical support through the Ardennes. Though there were difficulties in coordinating air support with the rapid advance, the Germans demonstrated consistently superior CAS tactics to those of the British and French defenders. Later, on the Eastern front, the Germans would devise visual ground signals to mark friendly units and to indicate direction and distance to enemy emplacements.


title: Close air support

text: Despite these accomplishments, German CAS was not perfect and suffered from the same misunderstanding and interservice rivalry that plagued other nations' air arms, and friendly fire was not uncommon. For example, on the eve of the Meuse offensive, Guderian's superior cancelled his CAS plans and called for high-altitude strikes from medium bombers, which would have required halting the offensive until the air strikes were complete. Fortunately for the Germans, his order was issued too late to be implemented, and the Luftwaffe commander followed the schedule he had previously worked out with Guderian. As late as November 1941, the Luftwaffe refused to provide Erwin Rommel with an air liaison officer for the "Afrika Korps", because it "would be against the best use of the air force as a whole."


title: Close air support

text: German CAS was also extensively used on the Eastern Front during the period 1941–1943. Their decline was caused by the growing strength of the Red Air Force and the redeployment of assets to defend against American and British strategic bombardment. Luftwaffe's loss of air superiority, combined with a declining supply of aircraft and fuel, crippled their ability to provide effective CAS on the western front after 1943.


title: Close air support

text: The Royal Air Force (RAF) entered the war woefully unprepared to provide CAS. In 1940 during the Battle of France, the Royal Air Force and Army headquarters in France were located at separate positions, resulting in unreliable communications. After the RAF was withdrawn in May, Army officers had to telephone the War Office in London to arrange for air support. The stunning effectiveness of German air-ground coordination spurred change. On the basis of tests in Northern Ireland in August 1940, Group Captain A. H. Wann RAF and Colonel J.D. Woodall (British Army) issued the Wann-Woodall Report, recommending the creation of a distinct tactical air force liaison officer (known colloquially as "tentacles") to accompany Army divisions and brigades. Their report spurred the RAF to create an RAF Army Cooperation Command and to develop tentacle equipment and procedures placing an Air Liaison Officer with each brigade.


title: Close air support

text: Although the RAF was working on its CAS doctrine in London, officers in North Africa improvised their own coordination techniques. In October 1941, Sir Arthur Tedder and Arthur Coningham, senior RAF commanders in North Africa, created joint RAF-Army Air Support Control staffs at each corps and armored division headquarters, and placed a Forward Air Support Link at each brigade to forward air support requests. When trained tentacle teams arrived in 1942, they cut response time on support requests to thirty minutes. It was also in the North Africa desert that the cab rank strategy was developed. It used a series of three aircraft, each in turn directed by the pertinent ground control by radio. One aircraft would be attacking, another in flight to the battle area, while a third was being refuelled and rearmed at its base. If the first attack failed to destroy the tactical target, the aircraft in flight would be directed to continue the attack. The first aircraft would land for its own refuelling and rearming once the third had taken off. The CAS tactics developed and refined by the British during the campaign in North Africa served as the basis for the Allied system used to subsequently gain victory in the air over Germany in 1944 and devastate its cities and industries.


title: Close air support

text: The use of forward air control to guide close air support (CAS) aircraft, so as to ensure that their attack hits the intended target and not friendly troops, was first used by the British Desert Air Force in North Africa, but not by the USAAF until operations in Salerno. During the North African Campaign in 1941 the British Army and the Royal Air Force established Forward Air Support Links (FASL), a mobile air support system using ground vehicles. Light reconnaissance aircraft would observe enemy activity and report it by radio to the FASL which was attached at brigade level. The FASL was in communication (a two-way radio link known as a "tentacle") with the Air Support Control (ASC) Headquarters attached to the corps or armoured division which could summon support through a Rear Air Support Link with the airfields. They also introduced the system of ground direction of air strikes by what was originally termed a "Mobile Fighter Controller" traveling with the forward troops. The controller rode in the "leading tank or armoured car" and directed a "cab rank" of aircraft above the battlefield. This system of close co-operation first used by the Desert Air Force, was steadily refined and perfected, during the campaigns in Italy, Normandy and Germany.


title: Close air support

text: By the time the Italian Campaign had reached Rome, the Allies had established air superiority. They were then able to pre-schedule strikes by fighter-bomber squadrons; however, by the time the aircraft arrived in the strike area, oftentimes the targets, which were usually trucks, had fled. The initial solution to fleeing targets was the British "Rover" system. These were pairings of air controllers and army liaison officers at the front but able to switch communications seamlessly from one brigade to another – hence Rover. Incoming strike aircraft arrived with pre-briefed targets, which they would strike 20 minutes after arriving on station only if the Rovers had not directed them to another more pressing target. Rovers might call on artillery to mark targets with smoke shells, or they might direct the fighters to map grid coordinates, or they might resort to a description of prominent terrain features as guidance. However, one drawback for the Rovers was the constant rotation of pilots, who were there for fortnightly stints, leading to a lack of institutional memory. US commanders, impressed by the British tactics at the Salerno landings, adapted their own doctrine to include many features of the British system.


title: Close air support

text: At the start of the War, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) had, as its principal mission, the doctrine of strategic bombing. This incorporated the unerring belief that unescorted bombers could win the war without the advent of ground troops. This doctrine proved to be fundamentally flawed. However, during the entire course of the war the USAAF top brass clung to this doctrine, and hence operated independently of the rest of the Army. Thus it was initially unprepared to provide CAS, and in fact, had to be dragged "kicking and screaming" into the CAS function with the ground troops. USAAF doctrinal priorities for tactical aviation were, in order, air superiority, isolation of the battlefield via supply interdiction, and thirdly, close air support. Hence, during the North African Campaign, CAS was poorly executed, if at all. So few aerial assets were assigned to U.S. troops that they fired on anything in the air. And in 1943, the USAAF changed their radios to a frequency incompatible with ground radios.


title: Close air support

text: The situation improved during the Italian Campaign, where American and British forces, working in close cooperation, exchanged CAS techniques and ideas. There, the AAF's XII Air Support Command and the Fifth U.S. Army shared headquarters, meeting every evening to plan strikes and devising a network of liaisons and radios for communications. However, friendly fire continued to be a concern – pilots did not know recognition signals and regularly bombed friendly units, until an A-36 was shot down in self-defense by Allied tanks. The expectation of losses to friendly fire from the ground during the planned invasion of France prompted the black and white invasion stripes painted on all Allied aircraft from 1944.


title: Close air support

text: In 1944, USAAF commander Lt. Gen. Henry ("Hap") Arnold acquired 2 groups of A-24 dive bombers, the army version of the Navy's SBD-2, in response to the success of the "Stuka" and German CAS. Later, the USAAF developed a modification of the North American P-51 Mustang with dive brakes – the North American A-36 Apache. However, there was no training to match the purchases. Though Gen. Lesley McNair, commander of Army Ground Forces, pushed to change USAAF priorities, the latter failed to provide aircraft for even major training exercises. Six months before the invasion of Normandy, 33 divisions had received no joint air-ground training.


title: Close air support

text: The USAAF saw the greatest innovations in 1944 under General Elwood Quesada, commander of IX Tactical Air Command, supporting the First U.S. Army. He developed the "armored column cover", where on-call fighter-bombers maintained a high-level of availability for important tank advances, allowing armor units to maintain a high tempo of exploitation even when they outran their artillery assets. He also used a modified antiaircraft radar to track friendly attack aircraft to redirect them as necessary, and experimented with assigning fighter pilots to tours as forward air controllers to familiarize them with the ground perspective. In July 1944, Quesada provided VHF aircraft radios to tank crews in Normandy. When the armored units broke out of the Normandy beachhead, tank commanders were able to communicate directly with overhead fighter-bombers. However, despite the innovation, Quesada focused his aircraft on CAS only for major offensives. Typically, both British and American attack aircraft were tasked primarily to interdiction, even though later analysis showed them to be twice as dangerous as CAS.


title: Close air support

text: XIX TAC, under the command of General Otto P. Weyland used similar tactics to support the rapid armored advance of General Patton's Third Army in its drive across France. Armed reconnaissance was a major feature of XIX TAC close air support, as the rapid advance left Patton's Southern flank open. Such was the close nature of cooperation between the Third Army and XIX TAC that Patton actually counted on XIX TAC to guard his flanks. This close air support from XIX TAC was credited by Patton as having been a key factor in the rapid advance and success of his Third Army.


title: Close air support

text: The American Navy and Marine Corps used CAS in conjunction with or as a substitute for the lack of available artillery or naval gunfire in the Pacific theater. Navy and Marine F6F Hellcats and F4U Corsairs used a variety of ordnance such as conventional bombs, rockets and napalm to dislodge or attack Japanese troops using cave complexes in the latter part of the Second World War.


title: Close air support

text: The Soviet Union's Red Air Force quickly recognized the value of ground-support aircraft. As early as the Battles of Khalkhyn Gol in 1939, Soviet aircraft had the task of disrupting enemy ground operations. This use increased markedly after the June 1941 Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. Purpose-built aircraft such as the Ilyushin Il-2 "Sturmovik" proved highly effective in blunting the activity of the "Panzers". Joseph Stalin paid the Il-2 a great tribute in his own inimitable manner: when a particular production factory fell behind on its deliveries, Stalin sent the following cable to the factory manager: "They are as essential to the Red Army as air and bread".


title: Close air support

text: From Navy experiments with the KGW-1 Loon, the Navy designation for the German V-1 flying bomb, Marine Captain Marian Cranford Dalby developed the AN/MPQ-14, a system that enabled radar-guided bomb release at night or in poor weather.


title: Close air support

text: Though the Marine Corps continued its tradition of intimate air–ground cooperation in the Korean War, the newly created United States Air Force (USAF) again moved away from CAS, now to strategic bombers and jet interceptors. Though eventually the Air Force supplied sufficient pilots and forward air controllers to provide battlefield support, coordination was still lacking. Since pilots operated under centralized control, ground controllers were never able to familiarize themselves with pilots, and requests were not processed quickly. Harold K. Johnson, then commander of the 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division (later Army Chief of Staff) commented regarding CAS: "If you want it, you can't get it. If you can get it, it can't find you. If it can find you, it can't identify the target. If it can identify the target, it can't hit it. But if it does hit the target, it doesn't do a great deal of damage anyway."


title: Close air support

text: It is unsurprising, then, that MacArthur excluded USAF aircraft from the airspace over the Inchon Landing in September 1950, instead relying on Marine Aircraft Group 33 for CAS. In December 1951, Lt. Gen. James Van Fleet, commander of the Eighth U.S. Army, formally requested the United Nations Commander, Gen. Mark Clark, to permanently attach an attack squadron to each of the four army corps in Korea. Though the request was denied, Clark allocated many more Navy and Air Force aircraft to CAS. Despite the rocky start, the USAF would also work to improve its coordination efforts. It eventually required pilots to serve 80 days as forward air controllers (FACs), which gave them an understanding of the difficulties from the ground perspective and helped cooperation when they returned to the cockpit. The USAF also provided airborne FACs in critical locations. The Army also learned to assist, by suppressing anti-aircraft fire prior to air strikes.


title: Close air support

text: The U.S. Army wanted a dedicated USAF presence on the battlefield to reduce fratricide, or the harm of friendly forces. This preference led to the creation of the air liaison officer (ALO) position. The ALO is an aeronautically rated officer that has spent a tour away from the cockpit, serving as the primary adviser to the ground commander on the capabilities and limitations of airpower. The Korean War revealed important flaws in the application of CAS. Firstly, the USAF preferred interdiction over fire support while the Army regarded support missions as the main concern for air forces. Then, the Army advocated a degree of decentralization for good reactivity, in contrast with the USAF-favored centralization of CAS. The third point dealt with the lack of training and joint culture, which are necessary for an adequate air-ground integration. Finally, USAF aircraft were not designed for CAS: "the advent of jet fighters, too fast to adjust their targets, and strategic bombers, too big to be used on theatre, rendered CAS much harder to implement".


title: Close air support

text: During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the US Army began to identify a dedicated CAS need for itself. The Howze Board, which studied the question, published a landmark report describing the need for a helicopter-based CAS requirement. However, the Army did not follow the Howze Board recommendation initially. Nevertheless, it did eventually adopt the use of helicopter gunships and attack helicopters in the CAS role.


title: Close air support

text: Though the Army gained more control over its own CAS due to the development of the helicopter gunship and attack helicopter, the Air Force continued to provide fixed-wing CAS for Army units. Over the course of the war, the adaptation of The Tactical Air Control System proved crucial to the improvement of Air Force CAS. Jets replaced propeller-driven aircraft with minimal issues. The assumption of responsibility for the air request net by the Air Force improved communication equipment and procedures, which had long been a problem. Additionally, a major step in satisfying the Army's demands for more control over their CAS was the successful implementation of close air support control agencies at the corps level under Air Force control. Other notable adaptations were the usage of airborne Forward Air Controllers (FACs), a role previously dominated by FACs on the ground, and the use of B-52s for CAS.


title: Close air support

text: U.S. Marine Corps Aviation was much more prepared for the application of CAS in the Vietnam War, due to CAS being its central mission. One of the main debates taking place within the Marine Corps during the war was whether to adopt the helicopter gunship as a part of CAS doctrine and what its adoption would mean for fixed-wing CAS in the Marine Corps. The issue would eventually be put to rest, however, as the helicopter gunship proved crucial in the combat environment of Vietnam.


title: Close air support

text: Though helicopters were initially armed merely as defensive measures to support the landing and extraction of troops, their value in this role led to the modification of early helicopters as dedicated gunship platforms. Though not as fast as fixed-wing aircraft and consequently more vulnerable to anti-aircraft weaponry, helicopters could use terrain for cover, and more importantly, had much greater battlefield persistence owing to their low speeds. The latter made them a natural complement to ground forces in the CAS role. In addition, newly developed anti-tank guided missiles, demonstrated to great effectiveness in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, provided aircraft with an effective ranged anti-tank weapon. These considerations motivated armies to promote the helicopter from a support role to a combat arm. Though the U.S. Army controlled rotary-wing assets, coordination continued to pose a problem. During wargames, field commanders tended to hold back attack helicopters out of fear of air defenses, committing them too late to effectively support ground units. The earlier debate over control over CAS assets was reiterated between ground commanders and aviators. Nevertheless, the US Army incrementally gained increased control over its CAS role.


title: Close air support

text: In the mid-1970s, after Vietnam, the USAF decided to train an enlisted force to handle many of the tasks the ALO was saturated with, to include terminal attack control. Presently, the ALO mainly serves in the liaison role, the intricate details of mission planning and attack guidance left to the enlisted members of the Tactical Air Control Party.


title: Close air support

text: Various aircraft can fill close air support roles. Military helicopters are often used for close air support and are so closely integrated with ground operations that in most countries they are operated by the army rather than the air force. Fighters and ground attack aircraft like the A-10 Thunderbolt II provide close air support using rockets, missiles, bombs, and strafing runs.


title: Close air support

text: During the Second World War, a mixture of dive bombers and fighters were used for CAS missions. Dive bombing permitted greater accuracy than level bombing runs, while the rapid altitude change made it more difficult for anti aircraft gunners to track. The Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" is a well known example of a dive bomber built for precision bombing but which was successfully used for CAS. It was fitted with wind-blown sirens on its landing gear to enhance its psychological effect. Some variants of the Stuka were equipped with a pair of "Bordkanone" BK 3,7 cannons mounted in under-wing gun pods, each loaded with two six-round magazines of armour-piercing tungsten carbide-cored ammunition, for anti-tank operations.


title: Close air support

text: Other than the North American A-36 Apache, a P-51 modified with dive brakes, the Americans and British used no dedicated CAS aircraft in the Second World War, preferring fighters or fighter-bombers that could be pressed into CAS service. While some aircraft, such as the Hawker Typhoon and the P-47 Thunderbolt, performed admirably in that role, there were a number of compromises that prevented most fighters from making effective CAS platforms. Fighters were usually optimized for high-altitude operations without bombs or other external ordnance – flying at low level with bombs quickly expended fuel. Cannons had to be mounted differently for strafing – strafing required a further and lower convergence point than aerial combat did.


title: Close air support

text: Of the Allied powers that fought in the Second World War, the Soviet Union used specifically designed ground attack aircraft more than the UK and US. Such aircraft included the Ilyushin Il-2, the single most produced military aircraft at any point in world history. The Soviet military also frequently deployed the Polikarpov Po-2 biplane as a ground attack aircraft.


title: Close air support

text: The Royal Navy Hawker Sea Fury fighters and the U.S. Vought F4U Corsair and Douglas A-1 Skyraider were operated in a ground attack capacity during the Korean War. Outside of the conflict, there were numerous other occasions that the Sea Fury was used as a ground attack platform. Cuban Sea Furies, operated by the "Fuerza Aérea Revolucionaria" ("Revolutionary Air Force"; FAR), were used to oppose the US-orchestrated Bay of Pigs Invasion to attack incoming transport ships and disembarking ground forces alike. The A-1 Skyraider also saw later use, especially throughout the Vietnam War.


title: Close air support

text: In the Vietnam War, the United States introduced a number of fixed and rotary wing gunships, including several cargo aircraft that were refitted as gun platforms to serve as CAS and air interdiction aircraft. The first of these to emerge was the Douglas AC-47 Spooky, which was converted from the Douglas C-47 Skytrain/Douglas DC-3. Some commentators have remarked on the high effectiveness of the AC-47 in the CAS role. The USAF developed several other platforms following on from the AC-47, including the Fairchild AC-119 and the Lockheed AC-130. The AC-130 has had a particularly lengthy service, being used extensively during the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War and the US military intervention in Libya during the early twenty-first century. Multiple variants of the AC-130 have been developed and it has continued to be modernised, including the adoption of various new armaments.


title: Close air support

text: Usually close support is thought to be only carried out by fighter-bombers or dedicated ground-attack aircraft, such as the A-10 Thunderbolt II ("Warthog") or Su-25 ("Frogfoot"), but even large high-altitude bombers have successfully filled close support roles using precision-guided munitions. During Operation Enduring Freedom, the lack of fighter aircraft forced military planners to rely heavily on US bombers, particularly the B-1B Lancer, to fill the CAS role. Bomber CAS, relying mainly on GPS guided weapons and laser-guided JDAMs has evolved into a devastating tactical employment methodology and has changed US doctrinal thinking regarding CAS in general. With significantly longer loiter times, range, and weapon capacity, bombers can be deployed to bases outside of the immediate battlefield area, with 12-hour missions being commonplace since 2001. After the initial collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, airfields in Afghanistan became available for continuing operations against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. This resulted in a great number of CAS operations being undertaken by aircraft from Belgium (F-16 Fighting Falcon), Denmark (F-16), France (Mirage 2000D), the Netherlands (F-16), Norway (F-16), the United Kingdom (Harrier GR7s, GR9s and Tornado GR4s) and the United States (A-10, F-16, AV-8B Harrier II, F-15E Strike Eagle, F/A-18 Hornet, F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, UH-1Y Venom).


title: Close air support

text: The use of information technology to direct and coordinate precision air support has increased the importance of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in using CAS. Laser, GPS, and battlefield data transfer are routinely used to coordinate with a wide variety of air platforms able to provide CAS. Recent doctrine reflects the increased use of electronic and optical technology to direct targeted fires for CAS. Air platforms communicating with ground forces can also provide additional aerial-to-ground visual search, ground-convoy escort, and enhancement of command and control (C2), assets which can be particularly important for low intensity conflict.


title: V/H/S/2

text: V/H/S/2 (originally titled S-VHS) is a 2013 found footage horror anthology film produced by Bloody Disgusting and Roxanne BenjaminThe second installment in the "V/H/S" franchise, it comprises four found footage segments linked together by a fifth frame narrative. "V/H/S/2" features a largely different group of directors: Jason Eisener, Gareth Evans, Timo Tjahjanto, Eduardo Sánchez, and Gregg Hale, and franchise returnees Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard.


title: V/H/S/2

text: The film is presented as an anthology of short horror films, built into a frame narrative which acts as its own short horror film. Each short film is linked together with the concept of found footage (each segment is from the VHS tapes found in the first film).


title: V/H/S/2

text: A college student's mother requests that private investigators Larry and his girlfriend Ayesha look into the disappearance of her son Kyle. After breaking into Kyle's dorm, they discover a large stack of VHS tapes and a laptop that is still recording video. On the laptop recording, Kyle discusses the VHS tapes, and Larry tells Ayesha to watch the tapes while he inspects the house. As Ayesha watches the first tape, a figure peers from the shadows.


title: V/H/S/2

text: In a doctor's office, Herman Middleton is fitted with an ocular implant to replace his right eye, damaged in a car accident. The doctor informs Herman that he may experience some "glitches" as the implant is still in its experimental stage. As he leaves the clinic, Herman notices a young red-haired woman staring at him intently. Returning home, Herman plays video games, then goes to make a cup of tea. He returns from the kitchen to find his game controller far from where he left it, and his teakettle then suddenly crashes to the ground. Later, Herman sees what appears to be the outline of a figure lying under the sheets on his bed, but when he pulls back the sheets, the bed is empty, but when he looks up, he comes face to face with a bleeding, seemingly undead man, and flees to the bathroom. After phoning his doctor to demand he address the problem, Herman emerges from the bathroom and encounters the man again, this time with a young girl who also appears to be dead. Herman runs back to the bathroom, and endures a night of banging on the door from the other side. He ends up sleeping in the bathtub overnight.


title: V/H/S/2

text: The next day, the red-haired girl from the hospital comes to his house, saying she is experiencing a similar situation. Giving her name as Clarissa, she explains that she was born deaf and had a cochlear implant installed in her ear, giving her the ability to hear new frequencies, including those of ghosts. Herman suggests removing the implant, but Clarissa says that doing so will only keep Herman from seeing the ghosts, not get rid of them. As Clarissa claims that the ghosts will get stronger and more dangerous the longer one pays attention to them, an overweight, bloodied man in his underwear appears behind her. Herman alerts her to his presence, but Clarissa says she already knows he is there and that he is her uncle, who according to her "wasn't a nice person". Clarissa initiates sex with Herman to divert his attention away from the ghosts.