airhead
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɛːhɛd/
ipa: /ˈɛɹˌ(h)ɛd/
Forms: form: airheads
Etymology: From air + head (“foremost, topmost, or leading part”), sense 1 (“area of hostile territory seized for use as an airbase”) by analogy with beachhead and bridgehead.
Senses: examples: text: The only difference between an airhead and a beachhead is that an airhead covers 360 degrees whereas a beachhead usually covers 180 degrees. An airhead is two beachheads back to back with the reinforcements and resupply coming by air instead of by sea. [...] [T]o handle their mountainous proportions there must be in the airhead a sufficient number of trained and equipped airhead service troops.
ref: 1946 December, James M[aurice] Gavin, “Airborne Armies of the Future: Part One”, in Infantry Journal: A Magazine for the Ground Combat Forces, volume LIX, number 6, Washington, D.C.: Infantry Journal, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 24:
text: In another war airheads will be more important than beachheads. Neither one will work unless we can keep it adequately supplied. The successful combat air force will require a huge transport fleet for air lift.
ref: 1948 August 28, W. B. Courtney, “Air Transport: The Answer to Air Power”, in Walter Davenport, editor, Collier’s, volume 22, number 9, Springfield, Oh.: Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, subtitle, page 26:
text: The initial airhead may in fact be a series of smaller airheads which, after landing, join up in combat structure as mutually supporting in a tactical sense.
ref: 1957, Army, volume 8, Arlington, Va.: Association of the United States Army, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 27:
text: The French quickly massed a division-sized force of airborne soldiers within the airhead. During the 55-day siege, over 4,000 reinforcements were parachuted into Dien Bien Phu.
ref: 1990 April, Robert H. Scales, Jr., “The First Indochina War”, in Firepower in Limited War, Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, →ISBN, page 54:
text: Following the success of this raid, [Orde] Wingate realised that transport aircraft in radio contact with troops on the ground had revolutionised jungle warfare. He advocated a total restructuring of the Allied offensive so that instead of an overland advance, it would seize airheads and leapfrog forward by air to Hanoi, in Indochina.
ref: 2007, David Isby, “CBI 1942–44”, in C-47/R4D Skytrain Units of the Pacific and CBI (Osprey Combat Aircraft; 66), Oxford, Oxfordshire: Osprey Publishing, →ISBN, page 27:
text: He [Wilhelm Bittrich] commanded the 2nd S.S. Panzer Corps in Normandy and assisted in the wiping out of the British airhead at Arnhem in 1944.
ref: 2007, Patrick Watson, “The Month of February”, in Watson’s Really Big WWII Almanac, volume I (January to June), [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 225:
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: An area of hostile territory that has been seized for use as an airbase to ensure the further safe landing of troops and materiel.
glosses: A (usually temporary) landing area for aircraft for supplying a non-military operation.
examples: text: [T]he mine then becomes exposed to the most fearful results, where the workings have been opened, by the Air being driven backwards along the Airhead into the reservoirs of Gas formed in the upper cavities of the workings, and issuing into the Gate-road charged with the Gas to the firing point, causing an explosion, of which many familiar instances might be adduced.
ref: 1851 April 23, Benjamin Gibbons, “On the Ventilation of Mines”, in Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Proceedings, Birmingham: Published by the Institution [of Mechanical Engineers], […], →OCLC, page 13:
topics: business
mining
glosses: Alternative form of air-head (“a horizontal channel providing ventilation in a mine.”).
Coordinate terms: topics: military
war
government
politics
word: beachhead
topics: military
war
government
politics
word: bridgehead
topics: military
war
government
politics
word: railhead