Blasts from the Past: A look at stories from the pages of National Defense as NDIA and the magazine approach their 100th anniversary.

It was June-July 1921, about 70 miles east of Cape Charles, Virginia, where the Army and the Navy got together to blow up some captured German boats and one decommissioned U.S. battleship. The organizer: Army Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell.

The test was organized to see if airplanes could be used to drop ordnance on ships, sink them, and return safely to their land base, according to the September-October 1921 issue of Army Ordnance, the predecessor of National Defense.

A submarine, the U-117, was the first to go down in 16 minutes after an onslaught of a dozen 170-pound bombs dropped by three F-5-L seaplanes. Army bombers and SE-5 pursuit planes armed with fragmentation bombs next took out the German Destroyer G-102 in what was called the "most spectacular of the entire series."

The decommissioned USS Iowa got off easier for it wasn't meant to be sunk. Dummy bombs were used instead. The challenge for the pilots was to find the radio-controlled battleship. Army dirigibles and Navy seaplanes first had to locate it in a 25,000-square-mile area off Delaware and Virginia. It only took them two...