December 8

What happened on December 8 in aviation and space history.

• December 8, 1941

  Attack on Clark Field and first B-17 missions in the Pacific

  Accident — On the same day as the Pearl Harbor attack (8 December, Philippine time), Japanese aircraft destroyed much of the Far East Air Force's 35 B-17s on the ground at Clark Field, after a chain of contradictory decisions delayed authorization for a counterstrike. Days earlier, on 7 December, a flight of 12 B-17s transiting to the Philippines had arrived over Pearl Harbor in the middle of the attack. On 10 December, Lieutenant Colin Kelly became a war hero after holding his burning B-17 steady so his crew could bail out near Clark Field.