British airborne training, 1941.
British parachute units were officially created on this day in 1941, with the 1st Brigade coming into existence.
British airborne forces came about due to the British being shocked and impressed by German airborne operations in 1940. Ironically, the Germans themselves had come to the conclusion after Crete that losses were too heavy in airborne operations to be sustained, and determined not to conduct them after that. While German airborne units remained, they increasingly became merely titular as the war went on, although they retained an airborne capacity for some time. By the end of the war, they really lacked one.
In contrast, the British started up airborne forces and went first with commando units before establishing regular army formations. To some degree this is responsible for the ongoing categorization of airborne units as elite, or sort of commando like, as the British airborne became the inspiration in various ways for almost all airborne units that came after them.
The Germans reestablished the Peenemünde Army Research Center. Its origins went back to the 1930s, but it had been suspended as a facility for a time. It was reestablished on this date. The facility would be responsible for German military rocketry.
The Orson Welles Show, which went by a variety of names during its run, went on the air for the first time. The show was not the same one as the famous Mercury Theater of the Air, which was also on the radio.
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