This is a list of aviation-related events from 1944:
Events
January
United States Coast Guard pilot Lieutenant, junior grade, Stewart Graham makes the first helicopter flight from a merchant ship in convoy in the North Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the United States Department of the Navys development of the helicopter as an antisubmarine warfare weapon. The Douglas Aircraft Company submits a proposal to the United States Army Air Forces for a Mach 1-capable research aircraft. During the month, land-based American aircraft drop about of bombs each on Mili Atoll, Maloelap, Wotje and Roi-Namur. Mili is attacked almost every day; Maloelap and Wotje are bombed the most heavily. To lead the Germans to believe that the next Allied amphibious operation would be in the area rather than at Anzio, Allied fighters attack targets around Civitavecchia, Italy and Allied bombers attack targets in northern Italy right up to the Italian border with France. Soviet forces clear German forces from Leningrad's Shosseynaya Airport (the future Pulkovo Airport). The airport has been closed since 1941; it will resume cargo and mail flights in 1945 after its runways are repaired and scheduled passenger flights in February 1948. January 1 – The U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) establish the United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe (USSAFE). USSAFE is to exercise operational control of the USAAFs Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces. January 1/2 – 421 British Avro Lancaster bombers attack Berlin. German night fighters intercept them, and 28 Lancasters (6.7 percent of the force) do not return. January 2/3 – 383 British bombers raid Berlin. German night fighters mostly intercept them over the target and 27 Lancasters, are lost. January 2 – Japanese antiaircraft guns shoot down three United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberators over Maloelap during a daylight raid, forcing B-24s to switch to night raids in which their bombing is much less accurate. January 2–13 – Allied aircraft systematically attack rail communications in central Italy in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Germany from supplying and reinforcing its forces fighting in southern Italy. January 3 Flying an F4U Corsair, United States Marine Corps ace Gregory "Pappy" Boyington is shot down over Rapopo Airfield, New Britain, with 24 kills to his credit. Thought to have died, he received a "posthumous" Medal of Honor on 15 March; in fact, he survives and spent 20 months as a prisoner-of-war at Rabaul and in Japan. When a German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter shoots off part of the right wing of the U.S. Army Air Forces B-17F Flying Fortress Snap! Crackle! Pop! over Saint-Nazaire, France, sending the burning bomber into a fatal spin, its ball turret gunner, Staff Sergeant Alan Magee, jumps or is thrown from the plane without a parachute and falls four miles (6.4 km), plunging through the glass ceiling of the Saint-Nazaire train station. He miraculously survives, and spends the rest of World War II as a prisoner of war. Amid snow squalls and strong, gusting winds that had grounded all other aircraft in the area, United States Coast Guard Commander Frank A. Erickson pilots a Sikorsky HNS-1 helicopter from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, to Battery Park in Manhattan, where he picks up two cases containing over 40 units of blood plasma that are lashed to the helicopter's floats. He then flies on to deliver the plasma to Sandy Hook, New Jersey, where it is used to treat survivors from the United States Navy destroyer , which had capsized and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean off New York Harbor that morning after a series of violent internal explosions. It is the first time in history that a helicopter has flown in such adverse weather conditions and history's first "lifesaving" flight by a helicopter. January 4 An operation by American aircraft based at Tarawa Atoll lays mines in the channel at Jaluit, forcing Japanese shipping to cease use of the atolls lagoon and the withdrawal of most Japanese seaplanes there. 539 bombers of the U.S. Army Air Forces Eighth Air Force raid Kiel and Münster, Germany, escorted by 155 fighters. Nineteen bombers and two fighters are lost. The bombers and fighters combined claim 12 German aircraft shot down, 13 probably shot down and 10 damaged. January 4/5 – 80 British bombers raid two German V-1 flying bomb launch sites in the Pas de Calais and at Bristillerie without loss. January 5 235 Eighth Air Force bombers escorted by 111 fighters raid the shipyard and industrial areas in Kiel with the loss of 10 bombers and seven fighters. The bombers and fighters claim 63 German aircraft shot down, seven probables and 21 damaged.