Over Pola Harbor, Austria, five Austrian Albatros fighters and two seaplanes jump five US Navy aircraft. Three of the Americans are forced out of the fight, leaving an enlisted pilot, Charles Hammann, and Ensign George Ludlow, both flying Macchi M-5 seaplanes. Ludlow shoots down one enemy, but is forced down only five miles from the harbor. Hammann lands in the 15-foot swell and picks up Ludlow. Hammann’s aircraft, which had been damaged, cartwheels on landing back at his base at Porto Corsini, Italy, but both aviators are rescued. Less than 10 months later, now-Ensign Hamman is killed, ironically in an M-5, while evaluating foreign aircraft at Hampton Roads, Va. He is posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 1920, the only World War I Naval officer so honored.
In the wake of a major Chinese military shakeup, the head of U.S. Space Command warned of China’s “breathtakingly fast” advances in space during visits to Japan and South Korea. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting’s trip to the Indo-Pacific is his first overseas visit since taking command of SPACECOM in January.