Christmas Day 1935 turned out to be a busy one for the 23rd and 72nd Bombardment Squadrons of the U.S. Army Air Corps in Hawaii. Stationed at Luke Field on Ford Island, inside Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, the soldiers spent the holiday preparing for an unusual mission: dropping live ordnance on an erupting volcano.
On the orders of the Hawaiian Division’s intelligence officer, groundcrews made sure the 10 Keystone B-3 and B-6 biplane bombers were ready for the first-of-its-kind operation. The squadrons would fly from Oahu to the big island of Hawaii and
