One GI aptly called these bottles of wine, "headaches in a bottle."
German Soldiers & Civilians cross the River Elbe using the partially destroyed bridge at Tangermünde to escape advancing Soviet forces and surrender to US Personnel between May 4-7 1945
LIFE Magazine Archives - William Vandivert Photographer
April 30th,1962, the first official flight of Article 121, a few days after its first unofficial flight, the Lockheed A-12, serial number 60-6924's left the dry lake bed of Area 51, aka Groom Lake, Nevada, on its first officially “official” flight.
Lockheed test pilot Louis Wellington “Lou” Schalk, Jr. pulled back on the controls as the 72,000-pound titanium craft, and climbed to 30,000 feet while testing onboard systems and handling characteristics. The "article" was described as very stable and extremely responsive.
During development at Skunk Works, one of the biggest difficulties facing the engineers, was the necessity of using titanium for the skin of the A-12. Titanium Metals Corporation, had very limited reserves of the precious alloy, so the CIA conducted a worldwide search using third parties and dummy companies, and finally managed to purchase the base metal from one of the world's leading exporters, whom would also happen to be the least supportive of the project...had they known. That country was none other than the Soviet Union.