brickhistory

Oh, ok. Many thanks. I had that part in my book. I was hoping the article had more about the diving, etc. Again, thank you.

That helps (doh! on me), but I'm still looking for a full up translation if possible.

Can anyone read/translate French? If so, I'd be grateful for a transcript of the linked story: French news story re WWII fighter I helped a French maritime archeologist [sic] ID the wreck of a US fighter, actually a borrowed British plane called the Beaufighter. This particular squadron, the 417th NFS ( much later commanded by Chuck Yeager and eventually becoming one of the F-117 squadrons) had a bad string of crashes while based near Marseille, France.* In the general area where this wreck was found, there were two possible suspects. One where the crew ditched and got out, one where the crew didn't. I helped (think checking records, not diving on the site) match the site to the plane where the crew made it. Along the way, there was an interlude with the Joint Personnel Recovery folks who also helped. That would be an interesting, rewarding gig to help find/ID American KIAs so they could finally come home. Anyway, I'd like to read the story. Can't speak a lick of French (not that great with English). Anybody able/willing to help? * Turns out the squadron's gas was pumped from tankers to 55 gallon drums on the docks of Marseille. The dockworkers often times didn't bother to put the lids on the barrels until the delivery truck actually showed up. Water contamination down nearly a dozen airplanes from the squadron with several dead aircrew as a result.

Never let a tragedy go to waste... A two-fer. Scoring against the 2d and 1st Amendments: Glad he and others get to decide for me what I want, not just what I need. Tell me again of your disgust for me for pondering the very realistic consequences from this numbnut's action? Most of this will be a lot of furor (word of the day) and not much action, but I'm still pretty sure that law-abiding gun owners will face even more restrictions based upon unlawful action.

WTF? Either you misunderstood my intent or I didn't do a good enough job conveying it. The victims of this tragedy are the result of one (possibly more) sad sack's actions in his use of a gun. I am sorry he was taken alive. I hope he suffers before meeting an untimely end. I hope, but would not be surprised, that the rest of us who possess firearms legally and use them the same way, are not tarred with a "all guns" are bad brush with resulting constraints. What's to b1tch about in that?

Hopefully the following won't completely hijack this thread, but I fully expect the anti-gun crowd to use this as a way to force registration/ban/limit the 2d Amendment. As noted earlier, now that one of Congress' members has been shot, the rights of the citizens won't really be of importance. I do regret the shooting of the congresswoman (man, talk about an overachiever couple - congresswoman and USN fighter pilot/astronaut.) and the others, particularly the little girl, but those that choose to own/use firearms lawfully are going to be the ones who get the blowback from this. Hope not, but I'm too cynical to think otherwise.

Also, while each situation is different, it's not always considered rude by the family of the deceased to either want to know more or provide them info if you have it. I found that many families had no idea of Dad/Uncle/Cousin role in the war (pick one) and were surprised, but very pleased, to know. The old guys often never told their stories because they thought no one would be interested and/or they wanted to forget. I have occassionally contacted families if I have something on a relative - go through the funeral home, explain who you are and what you have/want, ask the home to contact the family. That way there's no pressure for anybody to accept or decline. I've never had a family decline to talk/receive the info. Nice rifle historically. Interesting to note the crude serial stamping on the receiver. Quantity vs. quality - the age-old debate. What do they shoot like as far as recoil? M1 or 1903? Accuracy?

M2, copy all. I haven't shot anything 9mm since the last time on a USAF M9 in 2006. Didn't get back into shooting anything until earlier this year. I really want to get the Walther P99 in 9mm Luger, although it is available in .40 as well. But I figured I could get a wider variety of other pistols in 9mm as compared to a .40. Again in the interests of simplified ammo supply chain. Reasonable line of thinking or not? I don't see another .380 in my future and only keeping a box or two of ammo for this one around. How'd you get into the Russian firearms kick? An odd bit of curiousity was finding out that one of my favorites, the .44 is based on a turn of the 20th century Russian cartridge as well.

Walther PK380 After getting and shooting the Walther P22 .22LR and really enjoying it, as well as saving up for a Walther P99 in 9mm (still saving), I found a good deal on gunbroker for the mid-size PK380 chambered in the self-explanatory .380 acp. It is a polymer-frame, steel slide semi-auto holding 8+1 rounds. Won the auction on Sunday, paid the dealer on Monday, had the gun on Thursday. Went for a test drive this morning. The pistol came with one clip, a plastic key (more on this later), an external lock, and a plastic foam cut-out carrying case. Using Federal FMJ 95gr. ammo, I put 200 rounds through the pistol. It points very naturally and is pretty accurate right out of the box (which it came out of pretty greasy. Bits of thick lube oozing out of the slide and the ambidextorous safety). At 7, 15, and 25 yards aimed fire, everything was inner 9 or 10 ring. The front sight is fixed, the rear sights adjustable for windage. At 7 yards rapid fire center of mass work, everything stayed 8 ring or better. Those more experienced/practiced will undoubtedly do better. Like the P22, the PK380 has a remarkably comfortable, ergonomic grip. It feels good in the hand, not awkward or boxy at all. I had one FTE "stovepipe," and four failures for it to fire although going double-action, i.e., squeezing the trigger again with no other corrective action made the appropriate "bang." There is no choice in grip backstraps as in the P22 or the P99 so one size fits all. Operating the gun is cumbersome. The instructions are 2/3s "don't shoot yourself" and 1/3 practical instruction of care/feeding/cleaning of the weapon. Like the P22, the bottom rear third of the trigger guard is the magazine release. Unlike the P22, the PK380 does not have a slide release. There is no way to bring the slide forward unless there is a magazine in the well. So loading the weapon consists of (with the slide locked to the rear) inserting a loaded magazine, pulling the slide back slightly with the off-hand and releasing it. You are now ready to go. A thumbable switch/button would be much better. To safe the gun, you place the safety to "S," retard the hammer while pulling the trigger. A block rotates in front of the firing pin during this evolution. Moving the slide forward requires a magazine in the gun. It won't go forward without one. The worst part of this gun is field-stripping it. It requires a separate tool - the plastic "key" mentioned above. Insert the key, rotate counter-clockwise 135 degrees, drop the locking band on the underside of the frame, slide the slide forward until clear. This is an automatic fail in my opinion. You should not need an external tool to be able to break down a gun. All well and good if it's back home in a controlled environment cleaning it, but if at the range, a match, or God forbid, a no-kidding shooting situation, having a cheap piece of plastic required to turn a mechanism is a a bad bit of engineering to me. It breaks down fairly standard, the retaining rod and spring hooking on the front of the chamber block. Getting the spring back into the front of the slide is a three-handed manuever, but do-able. I bought the gun because I wanted to get the set, P22, PK380, and P99. While I don't regret buying this pistol, I almost do. It is not my favorite and, in addition to breaking my policy of simplified ammo logistics - cue Tom Skerrit in "Top Gun - "You broke a major rule of engagement and jeopardized your storage space." this pistol will not be a go-to gun for much of anything. It will look good in the my hoped for next year plan of a custom made gun cabinet alongside it's big and little brothers. For a plinker, I'll use the .22. For a carry, I'll use my .45 compact. 7+1 of big bullets vs. 8+1 of little in a gun only fractions of an inch difference in all dimensions. This could be a useful gun for those of smaller stature or limited hand strength. Indeed, some of the on-line reviews highlight those attributes, but for me, I'll take a bigger gun. To summarize: PROS: - Relatively inexpensive as is the ammo - Big enough to shoot comfortably unlike some of the micro-380s (KalTec, for example) which are just too small for me to hold - Small enough for concealed carry if desired - A good, accurate plinker CONS: - Better plinkers available - Requires a separate, easily lose-able plastic key to break it down - No slide release button/lever. Ejecting the magazine to move the slide forward on an empty gun is cumbersome, as is having to rack the slide with the off-side hand once a loaded clip is inserted into a slide held in the ready position by firing previously. I did learn, however, that a .380 acp is a different flavor of 9mm. This caliber is also called a 9mm Kurz while the 9mm Luger is the more commonly known 9. I did not know that.

Nice review, Timbonez. Lot of homework (900 rounds before cleaning!) done to get that one done.

Concealed carry TTPs? In the past, concealed carry for me meant putting a gun under the seat. Lately, however, I've been carrying on my person which is easy with a coat with an inside pocket. I am curious, however, as to what to do come warmer weather? How do those that use a holster keep it from showing or your shirt from riding up to reveal that you are carrying? I'd like to keep a concealed weapon concealed and not have to show my permit because somebody freaked when they saw a gun on me. Of course, in DC, where I really feel the need to carry, I can't. Gotta love gun control there... So, anyone willing to educate/share their techniques?

Walther P22 Got this one yesterday after several trips to the dealer and trying to convince myself to buy it. Finally did because the price seemed ok ($325), it felt very good in my hand for a small gun, and I want to get my wife and, eventually, my daughter comfortable with shooting and a .22LR is a better introduction than a .44 or .45. My wife, also retired USAF, hasn't shot in about 6 years and did the bare USAF minimums back in the day, so she is basically starting from scratch, in my opinion. Anyway, to the gun: It's a polymer frame, metal slide, 3.4" barrel, 10 + 1 .22 long rifle. It looks very cool to me. The slide is triangular shaped when viewed from the muzzle, rounded at the top, sloped sides to a flat bottom. Looks reminescent of the King Tiger panzer of WWII fame. More on this comparison later. I read a lot of on-line reviews on the P22, most good, a few not. The good included the ergonomically sweet grip - two choices for a backstrap for larger-ish/smaller hands. Reliability and accuracy. The bad included some comments about the slide since it is a poured-mold full of zinc not all steel, i.e., "pot metal." There have been cases of fractured slides and the like. Clips that wouldn't feed without bending the hell out of the lips. Supposedly these faults have been corrected on later numbered guns. Hope so. Gun comes with the two different sized backstraps, changeable front sights, adjustable for windage rear sights, one clip, key for an internal lock, a trigger lock, a wrench for changing out barrels (a 5" barrel and weight compensator for more serious target work is available)and a small dowel for which I did not know the purpose. My box did not contain a cleaning brush or rod, but I've got those so no worries. I put 200 rounds through it this morning with one FTF. I believe that was the manufacture of the bullet and not the gun. I tried twice to use the clip to feed that particular round, as well as one manual attempt to feed and it would not physically fit into the chamber. Other on-line comments were that lower-powered (pun intended) .22LR didn't always feed and that more zippy bullets didn't cause that problem. I used Remingtion and Winchester 40gr. and had no problems. Out to 25 yards, the guns shot very accurately. All 9 or 10 ring. Tighter groups will come from a better marksman than me, I'm sure. The magazines have a handly little slide button to aid in loading, push down a little on the button, drop the round in, lather, rinse, repeat until 10 are in. The slide release is also different. Instead of a button on the grip or frame, the back 1/3 of the lower trigger guard pushes down to drop the magazine. Not difficult to manipulate while on-target, but different from other guns. I'm neutral on this feature. I really enjoyed shooting this little gun. It's supposedly about 3/4 of the size of it's original big brother, the Walther P99, available in 9mm or .40. Prices look pretty steep on these however as they are manufactured by Walther in Germany. Smith & Wesson teamed up with Walther to both market in the U.S. those as well as a collaboration on a building a SW99 - again, 9mm, .40, and a .45 ACP. A further generation is the M&P, same calibers. The P99 carries the Walther logo, the SW99 and M&P are Smith & Wesson branded. Field stripping and cleaning were a little different. Like the King Tiger, this gun is well made but over-engineered to me and took a specific tool to do the job. Take the slide off, remove the guide rod and spring, and the barrel stays attached to the frame. Difficult to clean the frame under the barrel and getting the spring and rod back in was baffling. Looking up an on-line video showed what the dowel was for. Put it into the spring, feed the dowel through the opening in the front of the slide while pushing the slide onto the barrel, then push the slide all the way back onto the rails until it catches. The dowel is pushed out and falls during this process. Ok, I guess, as long as you don't drop the dowel and lose it. Simple enough once you get the hang of it, but having the barrel come off and the spring catch on the lip of the chamber like nearly every other semi-auto pistol would make more sense. I am now on the look out for the full-size P99, maybe a SW99. I liked this feel of this gun's grip better than any I've ever shot. Although this P22 was little small for me, I'm anticipating a full up gun will be even better. Maybe than enough to make me bring a new caliber (the 9mm) into the arsenal, something I try to avoid in the interests of ammo logistics, but this one might make me eventually. I like the gun a lot. I think it will serve the purpose in re-introducing my wife to shooting (as much as possible. She could care less, but I want her familiar enough to use one should the zombies come through the door) as well as not scaring my daughter once she's ready to shoot. Taking it apart, not so much.

In legal terms, it's called a "Blame Bush Bravado." Everything is your predecessor's fault. I hope the Navy upholds their tradition of the captain of a ship is responsible for everything, all the time. Inherited a crappy staff? Tough. You took responsibility for it when you assumed command.

"Red." Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, some other old to elderly actors. Actually pretty good movie. Retired CIA spec ops agent Willis is tagged by the bad guys to settle some old scores. Cross country run "getting the band back together." Enlists the help of a Russian, former Soviet spy, to help out. Some good lines, good action, Malkovich plays a good paranoid. Worth it if TDY, a slow day, or on Netflix.

Based on a true story, the flight described and the immediate post-war crash are actual events. I filled in the rest after numerous experiences interviewing WWII, Korean, and Vietnam veterans. Most had not talked about their experiences because they didn't think their families would be interested (definitely not true!) or that the past was just that or that it was too painful and they didn't want to bring the memories back. But they are there. This won a short story contest several years back. Now or Later I’m dying. Not unexpectedly really, but still not the way I wanted to start my day. I guess at age 79 I shouldn’t be surprised however. The big ‘C’ is eating away my liver so I’ll be gone soon. When I found out a few days ago, I was shocked of course. By now, the surprise has worn off and I think I’m ready. I had a good life – married a great gal that I really did love for nearly 55 years until she died, we had a couple of good sons, and now I’m a granddad. So far, both my kids and grandchildren have managed to stay out of jail and are making something of themselves, so I’m content on that score. I had the opportunity to live a full life. My former pilot and best friend, Bill Williams didn’t. I sometimes wonder who was more fortunate. I was looking at some old scrapbooks including ones that had my World War II photos. Like a lot of guys in my generation, that was probably the most exciting, most defining time of in my life. Everything since then has been pretty good overall, but when you put your own ass on the line for something you believe in, the sweetness of living can’t be described. I first met Bill when we ‘crewed up’ at a RAF training base in England in late 1943. I was a radar operator or R/O for the new military science of aircraft nightfighting. Science, hell, art. The Brits had pioneered the craft during their dark days of the Blitz on England during the winter of 1940-41. They cobbled together a system of ground-based radar stations providing guidance or ‘vectors’ to a nightfighter carrying its own smaller, less powerful radar until the fighter could pick up the target. Once the searching beams of the fighter detected the bogey, the R/O would then give vectors to the pilot until he could acquire a visual on the target. After identifying the target as a bad guy, the pilot would then maneuver to shoot down the Luftwaffe bomber. Sounds pretty basic in theory, but the practical application was a nightmare. If the ground radar or GCI muffed the placing of the nightfighter in relation to the target, the puny fighter radar would never see it. If the R/O couldn’t paint an accurate verbal picture to the pilot using the often-times fuzzy and obscured radar scope display of the ‘blip’ sliding closer to the fighter, and if the pilot couldn’t see the target at night, often times in horrible weather, then the bandit would get away. A not infrequent occurrence, I might add. Anyway, when the U.S. joined the war, like in most military areas, it lacked any aerial night fighting capability. The P-61 ‘Black Widow,’ a specifically designed behemoth of a twin-engined fighter was years away from being ready. In a little known aspect of the war, the U.S. approached our English cousins about ‘reverse’ Lend-Lease. So we wound up with 100 Bristol Beaufighters to fly as a nightfighter in the North African and European theaters. I would find myself in the Beaufighter, usually just called the ‘Beau.’ But I’m getting ahead of myself. I joined the newly named US Army Air Forces hoping to become a pilot. After making it through about half-way, I washed out. I was crushed but ‘there was a war on’ as we used to say. Suck it up and deal with it. The Air Force then sent me to the new radar school down at Drew Field, Florida. It was there that I learned the arcane methodology of radar interception, trying to use one aircraft to meet and destroy another in the dead of night. I made it through this course and sailed to England to undergo what we call ‘type conversion’ in my operational aircraft, the Beau. The Brits gave me a couple of months of training in the Beau and how much different it was compared to the U.S. training aircraft. The Beaufighter was a pretty big aircraft with a 57 foot wingspan and a length of more than 41 feet. It carried a crew of two, me the R/O in a raised seat with a cool little bubble canopy about two-thirds of the way back and a pilot in the extreme front end of the hulking aircraft. A big radial engine swinging a 12 foot prop perched on each wing even with the pilot. It carried a helluva wallop, four 20mm cannons in the nose underneath the pilot’s feet and six machine guns in the wing. If we ever did manage to catch a Jerry, those guns would chew him up. At the end of conversion training, they brought a bunch of new U.S pilots that had trained on the Beau at another base and all of us R/Os and put us in a room and let us figure out for ourselves who we’d ‘crew up’ with before being shipped to a fighting squadron. A shortish, kind of dumpy looking pilot kept staring at me so I finally went over to him. “You looking?” I asked rather stupidly since that was the reason we were there. “Yep,” he answered laconically. After about 30 seconds of staring at each other, we held out our hands and shook. Thus was born a partnership that would see us through the next 18 months of terror and boredom. Some guys have likened crewing up to a marriage because it was usually ‘until death do us part’ and that’s how it was for Bill and me. I never regretted one minute that act of fate. After that, we met up with the 417th Night Fighter Squadron (NFS) based at a charming, flyblown spot called Tafaroui in Algeria, North Africa. The 417th was one of four U.S. nightfighter squadrons based in the area. They shared a big-ass dirt runway, actually a huge scrapped out field, with some Free French P-39 day fighters and a squadron of B-25 medium bombers. They lived in big, round six man tents and flew night patrols every single evening and sometimes during the day when the weather was dogshit and the day boys couldn’t get it up without risking driving into the ground. Bill and I were fed into the rotation and after a couple of local area orientation flights were declared ‘ops ready.’ That meant that we were considered a fully qualified combat crew and were scheduled for missions. “Ready” is a relative term since we had flown all of 10 hours together and only two in North Africa but ‘there was a war on.’ At Tafaroui, it was damn hot and wet in the summer and unbelievably cold and wet in the winter. Thunderstorms would build all day until they released their massive stored energy in torrential downfalls that would turn the hard-packed runway into a rutted quagmire. Made for some damn bouncy taxiing and take-offs let me tell you. Landings I never minded, I was always happy to get down in one piece. Flying with Bill was always pretty good. He was conscientious if not flashy like some of the guys. We’d spend hours doing cockpit drills on the ground until we knew the location of every knob, switch and handle in the Beau. We practiced our ditching drill religiously as well. Hard-won experience from other Beau crews had shown that if you had to splash down, you had about two minutes to get out before you became a submarine. Bailing out was much easier. Both of us had hatches that swung down beneath our seats and blocked the windblast so that we could drop clean if we ever had to. We did a night flying test every evening we were ‘fragged’ or scheduled to fly. We’d take our assigned bird up and check that everything worked – radar, guns, controls, everything. If something wasn’t right, we’d land and get the maintenance guys on it. You wanted a ship you could count on if you were going to be shooting at somebody later that night. Bill and I didn’t shoot at anybody our entire time in North Africa. It wasn’t for lack of trying and we weren’t an exception. The plain truth was that most guys never saw an enemy aircraft but we all still provided a valuable service by patrolling and deterring the Luftwaffe from getting too ornery in our sector. During our year in North Africa, I became more comfortable with Bill and he with me. We got to know each other’s moods and acquired that almost symbiotic relationship in the air that we didn’t have to speak much to know what the other wanted or expected when flying. I understand that same kind of relationship is common to other partnership jobs – cops, firemen, etc. Whatever it was, we had it. Bill was not a risk taker at all. He flew the Beau by the numbers according to the manual, he didn’t try to do crazy aerobatics or see ‘just what this baby’ can do like some of the other stickboys would do. He always said he just wanted to do his bit and go home. By then, I had learned that he was the oldest boy in his family and wanted to go back to his family farm in North Carolina. “My folks didn’t raise no fool,” he’d say when we’d watch somebody else beating up the field returning from a sortie. He’d handle the infrequent aircraft emergencies well. We lost an engine once, but were at altitude so it was no big deal. If it had been at take-off, that’s a different story. The Beau was a heavy airplane with a well-deserved reputation for difficult ground handling. It wasn’t a forgiving airplane, but if you treated it with respect, it would get you home except when heavy with fuel during the take-off ground roll. If an engine packed up just after you went airborne, all the skill in the world wouldn’t keep you from settling back down and tumbling into a burning ball of molten metal. Sometimes I wished Bill had been more daring, but on the other hand, since my warm, pink bottom depended on his skill and judgment, I didn’t push him too hard. Especially when we’d see some idiot make a smoking hole in the surrounding hills of Tafaroui. Anyway, we plugged along doing our small part in the big war. As the bigger picture around us unfolded, we’d move up as the good guys advanced. We moved to a base on Corsica and then Sicily as the Italian campaign progressed. The squadron flew regularly, occasionally scoring a kill on the diminishing Luftwaffe, but Bill and I were never in the right place at the right time. No matter, we did our job and never tried to beg off a mission. When the Allies invaded Normandy in June 1944 and then southern France in August, we moved there as well. We based at Lavallon, France, a little north of Marseille until almost the end of the war. It was early December of that year when Bill and I finally scored in a mission that showed me just what kind of a man Bill was. The whole squadron was briefed on a flight profile the Germans were believed to be using to smuggle gold, artwork and other stolen loot from an area in still-occupied northern Italy to a spot near the neutral Spanish city of Barcelona. This run had become so regular that our intel guy said the bandit had picked up a nickname, “Barcelona Charlie.” The big shots, Eisenhower, etc., were worried that the Nazis would build up a strong presence in Spain and either use it as a base for guerrilla warfare or a staging post for Nazis escaping from Allied justice once we finished kicking their asses. Ike wanted this run stopped and stopped now! Bill and I flew our regularly assigned patrols for the next several nights and like all our missions to that point, nothing exciting happened. We had our area to guard and other guys looked for the high profile target. Just after Christmas, 1944, the 28th to be exact, Bill and I were fragged to work the patrol line southwest of Marseille. This was astride “Barcelona Charlie’s” escape route so maybe we’d get lucky. We took off about 5 p.m. and it was already dark and Jesus, was it cold! Snow squalls were all over the place and we bounced around for nearly two hours, freezing our asses off flying on instruments. Bill did his best to keep us on course and at our assigned altitude while I talked to ground control and scanned my scope. Finally, about 7 o’clock, the GCI site, callsign “Starlight,” radioed us that they had ‘trade’ for us. Starlight was a Brit radar station and used the vernacular to indicate that a possible bandit was headed our way. We turned onto the northeasterly heading they gave and waited while they refined the ‘picture.’ They would do their damnedest to place us about 1-2 miles back of the target so that we had the best chance to use our on-board radar to take us to a visual range. And that’s just how it worked. The only snag was that once I acquired the blip on my scope, I could see that it was way below our 12,000-foot altitude. Quickly I took over control of the intercept from Starlight by using the code word “Judy” which means, “I’ve got it, shut up talking.” (From what I understand, the US Air Force uses that same term with its mega-million dollar jet fighters and high-tech AWACS radar airplanes.) I told Bill over the intercom, “Bogey, two five zero, 2 miles, low.” That translated into “the unknown target is just slightly southwest of us at two miles distance and below us.” Bill kicked the rudder to line us up on the same course and put the nose down to dump altitude. Simultaneously, he pulled the throttles back and lowered the landing gear to keep us from getting too fast and overshooting the target in our dive. It would be really bad form to pop up in front of the bad guys. I continued refining the geometry of the intercept, trying to place us in the best spot for Bill to spot the target and if need be, open fire. That spot is usually just behind and just below the tail of the other aircraft. This gives Bill the best profile to ID the type and nationality of the other aircraft and usually is the best spot to keep the other guy from spotting you. While we closed the distance to what we hoped was Barcelona Charlie, we kept descending. Bill finally piped up, “When do you want me to start to level out?” Even though I had a set of flight instruments in my ‘back office,’ I had lost track of our altitude while concentrating on the target. I looked up and saw our altimeter passing through one thousand feet. The scope showed the target still well below us. “Keep the descent going, “ I answered. “Bogey, 11 o’clock, half mile, low.” “Roger,” Bill answered but I felt the landing gear thump back into the wheelwells as he sucked them back in by flipping the big gear knob up. He didn’t want to risk getting caught with our metaphorical shorts down when we finally did spot the target. We kept descending until we hit one hundred feet. Remember, this is at night, in crappy weather, and there is probably a enemy aircraft in front of you ready to squirt machine gun fire at you if he spots you. The tension in our Beau was thick. We both were sweating heavily by this time. Amazing how the thrill of the chase and not a little nervousness can heat you up. Finally, Bill called “Judy.” The weight for the intercept lifted from my shoulders onto his. Only if he lost sight of the target would I get back into the fight. “I ID one Ju 290,” Bill said formally. Since this was our first enemy sighting, he wanted to stay cool and follow the book. I looked up from my scope and peered out. Four in-line engines, a double tail, a long skinny fuselage with ugly gun blisters sprouting from the top and bottom; yep, sure looked like the Luftwaffe’s long range reconnaissance/transport to me. The pilot of that aircraft must have been a master. He was thundering along at about one hundred feet above the cold, angry waves of the Mediterranean and had been for several hours. Of course, the knowledge that if he were spotted, he’d get shot down probably worked wonders to hone his skills, but still it was impressive. Now, our problem was to shoot him down. Since we were so low, we were out of radio range with anybody. If we climbed to report our find, we stood a good chance of losing him or crashing ourselves while we descended again. Bill let the range creep up a little so that the Ju was in optimum gunsight range. Our cannons and machineguns were calibrated to form a cone or sweet spot about 150 yards ahead of us. If we were too close or too far, we’d probably still hit him, but our fire would be dispersed and he might escape. We wanted to knock him down on the first burst. We almost did it. Bill finally was satisfied with the firing solution and squeezed the thumb switch on the yoke. The 20mm cannons barked and the .303 machineguns chattered as he aimed at a spot at the Jerry’s number two or left inside engine. Bill connected and almost immediately the engine spouted flames. Incredibly, the German pilot retained control from a seemingly catastrophic engine failure that low over the sea. He dropped even lower and poured the coal to his remaining engines. Bill followed him down. This was a side of Bill I’d never seen, the killer with his fangs bared. Having tasted blood, Bill wasn’t about to let this prey escape. He stayed with the Ju as it descended and even began pretty aggressive evasive maneuvers. When I tore my eyes from the spectacle outside and checked our altimeter, I almost shit myself when I saw the needle bouncing around 20 feet! Bill stayed with the German, turn for turn, skid for skid, jink for jink. He scored several more bursts into the wonderfully handled German transport, finally taking out the other left hand engine. With a loss of power from both motors on that side, the incredibly brave and skillful pilot finally couldn’t control his ship anymore. The left wingtip dug into the gray, foaming sea and the aircraft cartwheeled in to the ocean. We were mesmerized by the steaming impact and almost joined our fallen prey. At literally, the last second, Bill recognized the approaching water and hauled the yoke into his lap with everything he had. We climbed like a scalded cat until we had several thousand feet of safety below us. With the adrenaline ebbing and reality setting in, we were somber as we checked in again with Starlight control. We reported our kill without any embellishment. It was considered poor form back then to brag on yourself. After we got back to Lavallon, during the intel debrief we got confirmation that we had bagged Barcelona Charlie. Unknown to us at the time, but revealed by an awe-struck airplane crew chief, our pitot tube, the metal prong that sticks out and measures our altitude had gotten clogged with salt spray. Our altimeters were stuck at the 20-foot mark and exposed our nearness to the hungry Mediterranean Sea. Bill and I were later awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for that mission and the squadron won a Presidential Unit Citation. We found out later that Air-Sea Rescue aircraft had gone out the next morning to the crash site but all they found was some packing and crating material. No sign of that talented pilot or his crew. Bill and I didn’t think we earned our DFCs anymore than the Ju 290 pilot earned his watery grave but such are the fortunes of war. Bill and I resumed our normal flying duties; flying patrol after patrol with no other excitement or enemy contact. All that suited Bill just fine. He wanted to go back to his farm. When the squadron moved to a base near the German border in spring 1945, we moved top. Finally, the happiest day of our young lives, VE Day. Victory in Europe meant that we were done risking our necks and wouldn’t have to kill other young men. In the celebrations that ensued, Bill partook but a little. He just wanted to go home in time for the summer harvest. In one of the few outside activities he did participate, Bill and a few other guys flew to an abandoned Luftwaffe field near Pilsen, Czechlosvakia. There were a bunch of abandoned German aircraft there and the guys wanted to see them up close. I was too hung over and wanted to sleep in so I didn’t go. I wonder what would have happened if I did. Once there, they wandered around a veritable museum of Luftwaffe airplanes including a tired old Ju 290. Bill walked around the big transport, running his hand along its aluminum skin lost in thought. I imagine he was reliving our claim to fame. After that, for whatever reason that I could never figure out, he walked over to a Me-109, once the hottest fighter in the Luftwaffe. A short, stubby winged single engine fighter, thousands of American and British bombers had felt its sting. Bill looked it over and climbed into the cockpit. Even as small as Bill was, it was a tight squeeze. The 109 was all engine and cannon with little left over for pilot comfort. He hit the master switch and the machine came alive. The fuel indicator indicated half full, so he hunted for the magnetos and fired up the big engine. The unexpected sound of the fighter cranking brought the other guys running. They tried to yell to Bill about what he was doing. Apparently, he had his fangs out again because he ignored them as he figured out the instrument layout. He tripped the brakes and the fighter rolled forward. Swinging the tail back and forth so he could see past the long sloping nose and propeller, Bill taxied to the runway. He shut the canopy and gave the 109 the throttle. They tell me he did a credible job taking off, not veering too far off centerline before he rotated. They watched him fly around the pattern several times, each time becoming smoother on the controls of the foreign fighter. I guess the fun wore off because Bill finally lined up on final to land. Unfortunately for him, the only other time in his life that he took a real chance, he muffed it. He didn’t know the stall speed for the 109 and ‘best guess’ didn’t work. The guys told me that at about 100 feet, he dropped a wing and went in. The fighter went up in flames with a ‘woof’ and by the time they could get to the crash, it was too late. Bill never went home, never went back to his farm. He never married, had kids or worked until he was too old and had to retire. He didn’t have to see his wife age and die, breaking his heart so that it never recovered. He didn’t have to watch his own body deteriorate and fall apart. He didn’t have to sit and wait for death. He died a young vital man flush with victory from saving the world. I wonder who had the better life.

I served with a guy in my first assignment in missiles who went from 1Lt to O-6 riding the exec express. Started as wing exec (volunteered for that job), wound up hitching his wagon to a now retired 4-star. Followed his benefactor around like a faithful dog for multiple consecutive assignments save for both IDE and SDE in-residence - BTZ major, Lt Col, Col. His deployments consisted of being the luggage master for his sugar-daddy who would show (his) flag.

Military retirement pay is an incentive to get enough folks to take the full ride until at least 20 years of service. You trade your youth and prime career earning years for that guarenteed check at the end of the ride. Cut that and your replacement and training costs increases even more than the money spent on retirees. The all volunteer force depends upon just that, volunteers. Want to get enough folks to sign up? Make it worth their while. Don't and they won't. Anyone willing politically to reinstitute the draft? If so, what number of dollars will be needed to make that work? It'd be a damn lot. Go look at the numbers when military retirement has been monkeyed with. There is a corresponding dip in retention as folks bail to pursue other options that help them guarentee their personal retirement. This play has been done already in Europe. Repeat acts are going as we bicker here. The entitlements of Greece broke that country. Ireland ditto. Portugal and Spain are about a month (exagerating for effect) away from the same result. We are 5 years away from it if entitlements are left unchecked. $13 trillion and counting in a national deficit is simply not an option. What happens when The Man, in this case China, et al, want to claim their note? We'd default. That'd do well for the country and the world. Other nice ideas recently - last year's "stimulus" of $800 billion. Sure would've been nice to not have that added to the debt. Continuing to add to unemployment payment lengths? At what point is enough enough? Yeah, easy for me, I have a job right now, but for the country as a whole, how long can we pay for that?

...sigh....again? "Hey, here's a great way to cut spending; let's defer/reduce retirement pay. It'll save gazillions!" "Hey, how come we are 50% short on retention and our replacement and training costs are skyrocketing?!"

Conditions/terrain/foliage of the area? Game being hunted? .30-06 is a very good choice for all around work, agreed. Your Remington is a good gun with knockdown power. Big, heavy guns to hump however. Hunting in the South where the woods are scrubby and reasonably thick? .30-30 was a good choice for the 75-100 yards back in the day. Shooting across the Great Plains? .243 goes a long way in a straight line. Any more details as to what/where you want to hunt?

Taurus 24/7 OSS .45 acp, black, three dot sights Bought this gun for a couple of reasons: 1) I had the gun buying itch, 2) Good price for a new high capacity .45 ($350 + $30 dealer transfer fee = site called gunbroker), 3) felt better in my hand than a comparable XD45 as well as being $250-300 cheaper. Put my first 100 rounds through it this morning, took it straight out of the box. Every round fed fine and went bang on the first pull of the trigger. Accuracy at 7.5 and 15 yards was very good with no sight adjustments needed, all inner 9 ring if not 10s. Pros: it's been a while since I've shot a full size pistol; mostly been shooting my compact .45 and a .44 snubbie. I was pleasantly surprised to relearn at how a big gun handles the recoil better and allows me to get the sights aligned faster for the next shot. It was amazing to have 12+1 rounds of .45 at one go. That nearly doubles my Colt Government 1911 or my compact carry one. For serious target work, that was almost too many to keep the thing up and steady for that many bullets (or I'm a big puss, but I digress). For faster, center of mass work, this was a great piece of hardware. This is a internal striker design, i.e., there's no external hammer, so the pistol is essentially double-action only (ok, not the technically accurate term, but it works for me). Keep pulling the trigger and it keeps going off until the magazine is empty. The Taurus literature says it's a "second strike" capability in the event of a misfire. As for me pesonally, too many years of tap and rack are ingrained, not to mention the other semi's I have are not so designed, so keeping my habit pattern seems a better bet than remembering which gun I'm using in an emergency. Cons: speaking of that trigger, it has an extremely loooong pull. It felt really mushy the first few magazines. I got used to it, but it is definitely different. I still think I will wind up putting a Hogue slip-on grip. It still felt too narrow in my hand and my trigger finger could and did reach around and hit the magazine release by accident (no, not a pure case of incorrect gun hold, I've just got NBA-style fingers but without the talent). It addition to stinging, ejecting the magazine inadvertantly would look really silly. To disassemble it for cleaning, there is a small-ish pin that physically comes out of the frame and has to be set aside and reinserted for assembly. Lose it and you now have a gun-shaped rock. I'm no design engineer, but that seems not a great feature. Other reviews I've read said this pistol was a contender for a SOCOM large semi-auto competition that was floated a few years ago. This pin in the field would seem to be a "doh!" feature. This also seemed like a damned big gun at first. I compared it to my 1911 after I got back and it's pretty much the same size in all dimensions, just seemed bigger while shooting it. Again, probably because I haven't shoot full size in a while. Note: image from Gunblast. Not my photo, but it does give a good size comparison OSS v. 1911 Overall, me likey.

Does the "trench art" lower or raise any such $$$ value for the weapon or is that an eye of the beholder thing? Is that as important a consideration in the market as the mechanical condition?

Web photo, not my exact gun. Was able to spend this morning at a range, put 100 rounds of .45ACP through my house gun and 115 rounds through my new carbine. I mainly wanted to ops check both the carbine and the five different clips I'd purchased (one 15 rd mag comes with the gun) - 3 15rd'ers and 2 30 rd'ers. All fed properly and went bang at the appropriate time. The gun was pretty accurate out of the box. As it's cold and I'm getting too old to freeze, I only shot indoors at the 25 yard range. All rounds went through the nine ring. Probably all would go through the 10 ring if I were more proficient. It was a lot of fun to shoot. At .30 cal, there's not a lot of recoil, so a sore shoulder is not an issue like the M1 Garand after a similiar number of trigger pulls. Drawbacks so far - ammo is pretty expensive. Best I have found so far is at Georgia Arms, and even that's $.50 per. Also, after putting those 100+ bullets through, the thing was freakin' hot! Not just really warm, but almost burning skin hot. Gonna pull it apart to clean it and see what's going on inside. I don't recall this being an issue when I had one previously (why, oh why, did I sell that thing?! Dumbass...). Also, it's pretty short for a tall guy. Guess that's why it's called a carbine... Final verdict, as of today, anyway, was it's a fun gun. Able to put out a respectable number of rounds in a short amount of time. Fun to shoot, looks good, a little pricey per trigger pull, however.

I was too slow on the Taurus .45. I consoled myself with a new Auto Ordnance M1 carbine and another .44 special. I'll post on the carbine once I've put some rounds through it. While this is not a historical M1 carbine, it is new which says a lot for me. Looking at the used carbines I could find, there were either really rickety and fairly expensive ($500+) or really nice and really expensive (I found a cherry-looking Rockola, but not for $1,200!). So I have the 1911 .45, an M1 .30-06, and now the M1 carbine .30 cal. I'll call my WWII collection complete if I can get a Thompson and a BAR (ha!).

Anyone owned/shot the Taurus 24/7 OSS in .45ACP? Or the PT845? It fits my hand much better than the XD45 (too narrow) and at $200-ish less expensive, I'm mighty tempted to take a foray into the high-capacity .45 world.

I go off on my own, get stupid drunk for three days AWOL, sober up, come back, tell my tale. Who wouldn't prosecute? I'm a big believer in the simple explanation makes the most sense as you hypothesize. She most likely fucked up, Big Blue made her out to be a hero while embarassing the Krgyz [sic] in getting her out of country ASAP, realizes she has a connection to an up and coming (sts) then three star, decides to cover it up to avoid the public scrutiny. USAF would never do that, would it?