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CIA's A-12 (SR-71 predecessor) unclassified history

Pretty good read and photos for the single-seat A-12 - CIA version of the program.

It is a CIA site, so enter at your own risk for black Suburbans showing up at your house...(Omegas for Steve D.)

"You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3." - Paul Crickmore.

I know this veers off of the history a little bit, but this site is dedicated to finding all the old x-plane crashes. Pretty interesting stuff.

Another, is the Hunt for 928. A couple of guys hunt down a crashed A-12 outside of Groom Lake.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't want this thread to die.. 57th Anniversary of the B-52's first flight.

The first flight of a B-52 Stratofortress (the YB-52 prototype) was publicly announced for Tuesday, April 15, 1952, which turned out to be an unusually warm and sunny Seattle day.

Boeing employees crowded office windows, the ramp and the roof of Plant 2. Some likened the tense excitement to that of a Broadway opening. The roadways, hills and rooftops near Boeing Field also were lined with spectators.

The pilot for that first flight was Alvin M. "Tex" Johnston, one of Boeing's top test pilots. Johnston got his nickname because of his fondness for wearing fancy cowboy boots, even during test flights. He became an aviation legend in 1954 when he put the 707 jetliner prototype into a complete 360-degree barrel roll over Lake Washington - not once, but twice during the plane's first public display.

The co-pilot was Lt. Col. Guy M. Townsend of the U.S. Air Force flight test center. During World War II, he had flown Boeing B-17s and B-29s. After a long Air Force career, Townsend retired as a brigadier general and joined Boeing.

Both pilots had extensive experience with Boeing's first jet bomber, the B-47.

Just before 10 a.m. the pilots in the cockpit began a final check of all instruments and controls. At 10:45 a.m. the big plane's eight jet engines came to life with an ear-piercing roar.

"This guy, Tex Johnston, isn't a fellow to sit around and play with the engines," a mechanic told the person standing next to him. "If they look all right, he'll go."

At 11:03 a.m. the B-52 headed down the taxiway, turned onto the main runway at the north end of Boeing Field and stopped. Johnston advanced the eight throttles to full power and released the brakes.

At 11:09 a.m. the wheels started to roll.

The April 17, 1952, edition of "Boeing News" described the takeoff this way:

"This was it. The tremendous roar of the engines grew louder and louder as the plane gained speed. It raced down the runway with deceptive speed, past the other bombers that had made history taking off from here: the smaller B-47s, the B-50s, the B-29s and an old but proud B-17, nearly two decades of history-making bombers. The huge crowd that had gathered to watch the takeoff let out a spontaneous cheer."

One of the happiest people to watch the YB-52 climb into the air was Boeing President Bill Allen. The normally reserved Allen, standing with other executives and Air Force officials, waved his arms like a cheerleader. "Pour it on," he shouted. " Pour it on, boy."

Johnston and Townsend kept the plane over the Seattle area for about 40 minutes as they checked the landing gear, flaps and ailerons. They then climbed to 25,000 feet and headed for Larson Air Force Base at Moses Lake, Washington.

Arriving around noon, the YB-52 flew over the Moses Lake area for the next two hours as the pilots continued to perform a series of tests. Johnston radioed back to Boeing Field that the plane's performance appeared to be just as predicted by the engineers.

At 2 p.m. the YB-52 touched down on the 10,000-foot runway at Larson Air Force Base. The flight had lasted two hours and 51 minutes. At the time, it was the longest and most successful first flight in Boeing history. Co-pilot Townsend knew the B-52 was well built. But he never imagined the plane would still be around 55 years later.

"None of us ever dreamed the airplane would stay in service this long," Townsend, 86, said recently in an Associated Press interview. "Three generations have flown the B-52. By the time it's retired we ought to have two more generations.

"If you would have told me that then, I would have said you were out of your tree."

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I don't want this thread to die.. 57th Anniversary of the B-52's first flight.

Amazing that when the B-52 first flew our F-86's were fighting over MiG Alley, and that the BUFF's (only slightly more recent models) are flying today with F-22's. B-52's have been flying for 25% of the time that the US has even been an independent country...

Mike

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Amazing that when the B-52 first flew our F-86's were fighting over MiG Alley, and that the BUFF's (only slightly more recent models) are flying today with F-22's. B-52's have been flying for 25% of the time that the US has even been an independent country...

Mike

Aviation is roughly 100 years old. The B-52 has been flying for half of that time.

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  • 4 months later...

History Friday has sort of faded here...

I found this today and it is some interesting reading: B-17F log from World War II. B17 Log

Quick overview:

Written by the navigator

Flew 21 missions before shot down in Feb '45

Lots of hairy missions where they fought off the fighters, braved the flak, and survived the weather

A huge number of accidents ranging from gunners shooting mechanics with the .50 guns to multiple bombers colliding while in formation killing all hands...

Those guys were amazing to do what they did...

BF

Edited by BigFreddie
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  • 1 month later...

The Flying Tigers

Chennault's American Volunteer Group in China

USAF History & Museums Program

60th Anniversary Edition, 36 pages.

I wrote this back in 2005-ish for the AF/HO office. They wanted it for the USAF 60th Anniversary. They just published it this summer. Go figure...

It is available FREE at your base HO office and, possibly, base library.

There's no original research, just a review and capturing of the already published AVG works - kind of like a college paper approach.

Big brass ones for everybody involved - Chennault, the pilots, the ground guys, even the nurses. And they kicked some Imperial Japanese Army Air Force butt. Up for discussion, but something like 199 aerial victories to 10 KIA in combat, another 3 KIA during ground attacks, and 10 in flying accidents not related to combat.

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  • 1 month later...

**Revival**

It's not Friday, but who cares? Found this article today, and thought it was interesting.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/6581989/WWII-Japanese-submarines-designed-to-carry-bomber-aircraft.html

WWII Japanese submarines designed to carry bomber aircraft

Two Japanese submarines designed to carry bomber aircraft to launch attacks on American cities during the Second World War have been found on the sea bed off the coast of Hawaii.

The vessels were captured by the United States Navy when Japan capitulated in 1945, but were hastily scuttled the following year when the Soviet Union demanded access to the vessels.

The US learned many technological secrets from the I-14 and I-201 submarines and did not want the information falling into the hands of its Cold War enemy.

The two boats have now been located by a team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Undersea Research Laboratory and the University of Hawaii-Manoa, working with the National Geographic Channel.

Designed as underwater aircraft carriers, they were able to stow three Aichi light bombers, with folded wings, in a hangar on the deck. The aircraft were designed to be catapulted from the deck and were fitted with floats to allow them to land on water once they returned from their missions.

At 400ft long, the Imperial Japanese Navy's I-400 class were the largest submarines of the war and remained the largest constructed until the first nuclear ballistic missile boats rolled down slipways in the 1960s.

Aware of its inferiority in surface ships in the Pacific theatre, the Japanese Navy wished to take the fight to the enemy and the I-201 was given the task of approaching the US coast, surfacing, preparing and launching its aircraft within minutes.

One of the earliest missions called for the aircraft to drop rats infected with bubonic plague and insects carrying cholera, dengue fever, typhus and other diseases on cities on the West coast of America. When the bacteriological weapons were not ready in time, the target switched to the Panama Canal. Japan surrendered before the attack could be carried out.

Five submarines were captured by the US in total and sent to Hawaii for inspection.

But in 1946, as the Soviet Union began showing an interest, the vessels were sunk by torpedoes from the USS Cabezon and sank almost 2,700ft off Oahu. The I-401 was the first to be located, in March 2005, but it has taken a further four years to locate her sister boat.

Dr Hans Van Tillburg, maritime heritage coordinator for the agency's National Marine Sanctuaries in the Pacific Islands, said: "If you look at a sub like the I-201, it was nothing like anybody had in World War II,

"It had a streamlined body and conning tower and retractable guns," he said. "It looks more like a Cold War sub. And the I-14 predates the cruise missile concept."

The I-14 carried enough fuel to travel 37,000 miles – or around the world one-and-a-half times – and was three times the size of other submarines of the time. It had a crew of 144, displacement of 5,223 tons and a maximum operating depth of 330ft.

Each of the Aichi Seiran bombers – whose existence was unknown to Allied intelligence – was able to carry an 800kg bomb over a distance of 650 miles at a speed of 295mph. A crew of four could ready the aircraft in 45 minutes after it emerged from the hangar on the deck and before it was launched from a 120-foot catapult on the deck.

* Hunt for the Samurai Subs will be shown today on National Geographic Channel at 9pm

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Some more very interesting reading and pics.

http://www.panama-guide.com/article.php/20090304144924396

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  • 3 weeks later...

The following could have gone in the "Leadership at the 'Deid" thread, the "Good Military Read thread (which it is), but I thought I'd put it here as "historical."

From the book "The Hungry Tigers : The Fighter Pilot's Role in Modern Warfare" by Frank J. O'Brien, 1986. A bit dated now, but it has some good nuggets about traits required, the lessons from his Vietnam experiences flying F-4s, and some other pertainent to today areas.

The troops at Phu Cat had to put up with a problem that was most likely unique to the base. Had it been more widespread, the hue and cry would have been heard all the way back to the Pentagon. The difficulty centered around the base finance section, and since it dealt with pay, it was indeed a very touchy item. It also took a considerable amount of a person's off-duty time to make repeated trips down to finance to get things straightened out. The result of these trips in nearly all cases was increased frustration and confusion. They did, however, give you a chance to socialize a bit since most of your friends would also be there with similiar problems.

Unlike stateside bases, just about everybody's pay was fouled up, and to make things even more infuriating, the personnel at finance were entirely disinterested in solving the problem. Some even had the gall to suggest that you go without a portion of your pay for the entire tour because it was easier to do this than correct the records. During the 1970-1971 time period, finance was the only area at Phu Cat that was not 100 mission-oriented.

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the personnel at finance were entirely disinterested in solving the problem. Some even had the gall to suggest that you go without a portion of your pay for the entire tour because it was easier to do this than correct the records.

That sounds familiar...I guess some things never change.

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  • 3 weeks later...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/special-forces-obituaries/6962966/John-Leavitt.html

John Leavitt, who has died aged 91, attacked the German battleship Tirpitz on two occasions before starting a long and distinguished career with the CIA.

Leavitt joined No 617 (Dambuster) Squadron in September 1944. His first two operations after arriving were against Tirpitz, which was sheltering in the fjords of northern Norway. On October 29 1944 he flew as the second pilot with an experienced captain. Over the target, their Lancaster was hit by the battleship's anti-aircraft fire, which hit one of the fuel tanks. Running very short of fuel, the two pilots made a forced-landing at an airfield in the Shetlands.

On November 11, Leavitt piloted one of 31 Lancasters that mounted a second attack against "The Beast", a name given to Tirpitz by Winston Churchill. After taking off at night from an airfield in northern Scotland, Leavitt headed for the rendezvous near the Norwegian/Swedish border. At dawn, he saw flak ahead and skirted its position. He commented: "The terrain below was precipitous and barren, and at the same time magnificent. I have never felt so completely alone in my life."

Leavitt dropped his "Tallboy" bomb from 15,000ft a minute after the leader (Wing Commander "Willie" Tait). His aimer saw the 12,000lb bomb drop into the centre of the smoke erupting from the battleship. A short time later, Tirpitz capsized with large loss of life.

Leavitt also attacked the naval pens at Bremen, Ijmuiden, and Hamburg. On March 27, flying a specially modified Lancaster, he dropped a 22,000lb "Grand Slam" deep penetration bomb on the U-boat construction pens at Farge.

His 21st and final operation was against Hitler's southern redoubt at Berchtesgaden on April 25. Snow on the ground prevented his bomb aimer from identifying the target and their Tallboy was dropped on a viaduct spotted on the return route.

After the war he remained in the RAF and continued to fly Lancasters until he retired as a flight lieutenant in September 1946 and returned to the USA.

John Howland Leavitt was born, during a Zeppelin raid, in Paris on February 6 1918. His American father later served as a US Consular translator to the Versailles Treaty. His mother was English. He was named John Howland after an ancestor who had arrived in America on the Mayflower with the Pilgrims in 1620; after education in Turkey he returned with his parents to the US, attending Darien High School, Connecticut, where his peers elected him the student most likely to succeed.

A graduate of Brown University, Rhode Island, Leavitt was back in Turkey teaching English at Robert College when Britain declared war in 1939. Keen to get involved, he volunteered to fly with the RAF, applying through the British Consulate in Istanbul.

He trained as a pilot in Rhodesia and South Africa before heading to England to convert to the Lancaster. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he applied for a transfer to the USAAC, but on being told that this would require him to repeat all his training, he opted to remain with the RAF.

At the end of the war, he joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), forerunner of the CIA, as an intelligence analyst, specialising in Middle Eastern issues and drafting National Intelligence Estimates, including his favourite assessment in the early 1950s – that it would be a long time before the Arabs and Israelis saw eye-to-eye on any issue.

Soon after, he transferred to the CIA's Directorate of Operations and joined the Agency's campaign to reinstate the Shah in Iran. He spent 15 of his 30 years of service at US embassies in Tehran, Athens, Ankara and Tel Aviv. Though he retired in 1978, he returned to the Agency to assist with the Iran Hostage Crisis and the bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut in 1983.

In retirement Leavitt travelled widely to visit his large extended family. A keen golfer, he enjoyed partnering his wife, who played to county level.

John Leavitt died on December 31. He was married to his first wife, Lilias, an English WAAF signals officer whom he met at RAF Waddington during the war, from 1945 until her death in 1972. After a brief second marriage, he married his third wife, Judy, also a former WAAF, whom he met at a 617 Squadron reunion at Woodhall Spa in 1983. She died in 2003. He is survived by two sons and two daughters from his first marriage.

Godspeed, sir. :salut::beer:

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  • 1 month later...

Interesting story about the Son Tay Raid.

On the Saturday night of 20 November, 1970 a C-130 picked us up from Takhli where we had been housed in the CIA compound since deploying from Eglin. The NKP flight line was blacked out, even the tower people had been relieved and was empty. The C-130 landed, without any lights on it or the runway and ramp, and taxied to the ramp. It had already lowered the rear ramp and when it came to almost a stop ten of us ran out, 2 pilots for each of the five Fat faces we were taking. It then continued on, pulling up the ramp, taxied out and took off. It had other people to deliver to other locations.

The only people out and about were the crew chiefs and us. Of course the Wing Commander met us and followed me around like a puppy dog asking question after question. None of which I could answer. He got rather pissed as I recall.

Picking up our flight gear we went straight to the birds, cranked up and taxied out. No taxi, runway or aircraft lights were used and no radio either, total silence. (The radio was not to be used till over the camp.)

Taking off at the exact second we did a 360 over the base to join up. A C-130, Talon was to rendezvous with us there and lead us on. Timing was everything. It wasn't there. We did two more 360's and couldn't wait any longer. We were, by that time, about ten minutes behind schedule.

The backup plan was to navigate ourselves to Son Tay, following the planned route and arriving at the appointed time, 0200 local Sunday, 21 November. No way Jose. We had agreed among ourselves earlier that that was not a viable plan. We would fly the course until we got lost, which we knew we would, and then head straight for Hanoi . Hold just south of the IP, which was the Black River straight west of the camp, and do our thing at the TOT. (Time Over Target) The route was NKP, straight to Ventiane, straight north out of there and then drop to low level and weave through the karst and valleys all the rest of the way. Impossible at night for A-1's. A back up rendezvous with the Talon was over Ventiane at the appointed minute but because we had made an extra 360 over NKP waiting we were running late. We had been unable to make up all the lost time, some of it but not all. We hit Ventiane a few minutes late, maybe five, no Talon. We turned north and pressed on.

After Ventiane passed behind there were no lights, anywhere, ink black. And then our worst nightmare loomed up. A cloud bank. Being lead I wasn't worried about being hit but the rest of the flight exploded like a covey of quail, everyone in god only knows what direction. Pushing it up I climbed straight ahead and soon popped out on top. Not an A-1 in sight and no hope of joining up again without lights or radio. We were all on our own.

After a short time we noticed a speck of light far ahead. A star? After watching it a while we were sure it was below the horizon and no Lao in his right mind would have a light on. Had to be something else. Heading straight for it, it took some time to catch. A fully loaded A-1 is no speed demon.

Sure enough, there was our Talon with a teeny-weeny white light on the top of the fuselage and a dim bluish glow coming from the open ramp in the rear. Couldn't see the bluish glow until you were only few meters from it. There were already two A-1's there, one on each wing. We moved up and the left one moved out and we took our place on the left wing tip. A few minutes later the other two A-1's slowly pulled up and once we were all in place the little white light went out, the bluish glow went out and the Talon descended into the black. From there on it was hold on tight as it bobbed and weaved through the hills and valleys.

The Talon driver was top notch. His power applications during climbs and descents and gentle banking allowed our heavy A-1 to hang right in there. The three day "moon window" we had for this operation provided good night vis. With one exception. Several valleys we drove through were so deep that mountains, karst, trees or whatever eclipsed the moon. When that happened it was like diving into an inkwell. You could make out only a few feet of wing tip and that was only because of our own exhaust flame. When turns or ups and downs occurred at those times it was tough.

As we emerged from the back country out over the Red River Valley it was almost like being over Iowa farm country with Omaha/Council Bluffs up ahead. ( Hanoi ) Lights everywhere. Soon there after the Talon started climbing and we knew the IP was coming up. We had a controlled altitude over the IP. The choppers, with their Talon, were going to be under us coming in from a different direction. They should have been slightly ahead of us but one couldn't be sure everyone was on time. The control time was over the camp so IP times were adjusted for the different speeds.

Then the Talon transmitted the code word. First of anything we heard on the radio all night. I can't remember the word but it was to be picked up by a high orbiting EC-135 over northern Laos and relayed back to wherever. It meant we had crossed the IP. (We were two seconds off. The best anyone had done during practice was ten minutes. Of course we didn't have Talons for the practice.) The Talon then accelerated out and up like a shot and disappeared in the night. The heading to the camp was 091 and trying to reset our DG by a jiggly whiskey compass was an effort in futility. You remember the high tech, latest hardware we had on board. Good thing all the towns, cities and roads were lit up. With the target study we had done it was like being in your own back yard.

Next number 5 pealed off to the right. He was backup in case anyone was shot down and was to orbit a large hill just south of course until called in. As it turned out the hill was an Army artillery practice range and it wasn't long before they started taking a few rounds. They moved off to somewhere else, probably closer to the camp, don't know where. Just another example of the brilliant Intel we had.

Then 3 & 4 pealed off to the left to hold just short of the camp till called in. The plan was to call them in when we had expended 50% of our ordnance. Then they would do the same with us, each time expending 50% of what you had left. That way, if someone went down, there would always be aircraft in the air that had some ordnance left for support.

Then 2 dropped back so we could set up a two aircraft Daisy Chain around the camp. It was like a precision ballet, a computer simulation would not have been better timed. Just as I rolled into a bank along side the camp two flares popped right over it, having been released from one of the Talons. At the same time Banana (HH-3 with Blue Boy assault team aboard.) crashed landed inside the camp compound and the first Apple (CH-53) opened up with mini-guns on the watch towers and the guard quarters. The towers either blew apart or caught fire as did the guard quarters. We didn't want the big fire consuming the two story quarters, attracts attention, but it was too late.

At that time we had nothing to do except to make sure no one approached the camp. No one did. We could see the sparkles from a Fire Fight Simulator dropped by one of the Talons on the other side of town as a distraction and soon a large explosion and fire where another Talon dumped napalm on an infantry base armory a few klicks to the South.

Then the shit hit the fan. Gear Box (The Command and Control team.) started yelling about losing Axle. Axle was Col. (Bull) Simons personal call sign. "We've lost Axle" he kept yelling. "God damn, Simons has been killed, we're all in deep shit."

At this point I'd like to say that I think the Universe will collapse in upon itself in the Big Crunch before the Army and Air Force will ever be able to talk to each other on a radio and have each other understand what's going on. He wasn't lost like being dead in AF jargon, they just didn't know where he was, couldn't find him. Then the radio erupted with chatter from everywhere. The second Apple carrying half the assault force and Bull Simons, had landed the troops in the wrong place. There heading had been one degree off coming in from the IP. (Whether pilot or equipment error I don't know.) Placing them several hundred meters south of the camp. When the time ran out they saw a building that didn't quite look like the guard quarters but it was the only building around, so landed. That's where the infamous "Fire Fight at The School" took place. We called it a school because it looked like a school, regardless of what it really was. You couldn't just keep referring to it as the white building south of the camp. There were lots of buildings south of the camp. Everything had to have a name.

That way everyone knows what you're talking about. The liberal media, though, had a small Field Day with that name. I remember some time later a female TV reporter asking Col. Simons if he had killed anyone at The School. He said something to the effect "I was approached by a big fella, I had a tracer as every third round in my M-16 and saw three go through his middle." The reporter didn't have a follow up question.

The troops in the wrong place were screaming, Gear Box was screaming and all the Apples were screaming. The FM and VHF radios were almost impossible to read let alone get anything in of your own. (The UHF was kept for AF use to call the MIG Cap or Weasels if needed or to talk among ourselves.) The Apple that had dumped the guys in the wrong place was the closest so did a 180 and went in to pick them up. All the others took off and headed for the School as well just in case. No one has figured out yet why there wasn't a midair.

The troops at the school were in a fierce fire fight the whole time they were on the ground. Right after they landed people came pouring out of the building. Most were too large in stature for Vietnamese. The guess was Chinese or Russian but no one had time to check. The estimated kill was between one and two hundred and again, no one had time to count.

Bull Simons and the rest of the assault force made it back to the camp without a casualty. The whole incident only lasted a few minutes but it put the entire ground operation off schedule. The two parameter teams, Red Wine and Green Leaf, headed out to do their thing but Blue Boy, the assault team inside the prison compound, had already searched most of the prison. As soon as Simons got on the radio he asked Blue Boy for a status report. The answer was "No Packages so far, still searching". (A Package was the code word for a prisoner.) Simons then told us to take out the foot bridge to the Citadel.

We called a group of building surrounded by a small moat the Citadel. It was a few hundred meters southeast of the Camp and had a small foot bridge over the moat on the camp side. Intel told us it was a military cadet training facility and probably had a small armory for small arms. We didn't want anyone coming across that bridge armed and get within rifle range of the camp.

Jerry and I put two WP bombs on it and when 2 came in saw the bridge was wiped out and dropped short to get anyone that might have already come across. In the process taking out a few blocks of a housing area between the camp and the citadel. WP does a real number on wooden structures, the fire storm was not small.

About this time the sequence of events gets all jumbled up. I have no idea what happened first, second and so forth. About the time Simons and the troops got back to the camp the first SAM took off. You cannot miss a SAM launch at night. It's like a mini Shuttle launch, lights up an area for miles in all directions. The first few were called "SAM, SAM, DIVE, DIVE" but that soon became silly. There were so many launches that you couldn't call them. There seemed to be about four launch sites within a few miles of the camp on the West side of Hanoi . The rest were further east and we didn't think they were a threat to us. Most of the SAM's went high, after the MIG cap, Weasels and the Navy's two hundred plane faint coming in from the East. The idea was to make them think there was a major raid on Hanoi and not bother with a few planes on the West side. It worked, NSA told us later that the Air Defense Commander screamed "Fire at Will", shut down the net and went off the air.

We were at our briefed 3 thousand feet until the SAM's started coming our way. Intel told us we wouldn't have any trouble with SAM's at that altitude. A lot some pencil pushing puke knows. We all hit the deck and kept an eye on the launch sites close to us and sure enough, someone decided to try for the guys to the West, us. The site closest to us, just a few miles to the Northeast launched one that never got to the horizon. I watched it rise and almost immediately it leveled off. Then the thing stopped moving on the windscreen.

You know what that means, collision course. We dove into the Red River and turned west. Jerry was flying and I was turned around keeping an eye on the damn thing as it charged at us over my right shoulder. I kept bumping the stick forward saying "Lower, Lower." Jerry kept bumping the stick back saying "We're going to hit the water." When the rocket plume on the thing seemed as big as the A-1 I yelled break left. We went up and over the river bank, about fifty feet, and leveled off at phone poll height going straight south.

We never saw the thing again. It either hadn’t had time to arm or buried itself in the water/mud so deep that the flash of detonation was masked. That's another thing you can't miss at night. The detonation of a SAM. It's a lightening bright flash, quite large. They were going off over us constantly and when you got used to them you didn't even bother to look up. For about a thirty minute period there were no less then three SAM's airborne at any one time and other times so many you couldn't count them. I've never heard an estimate of the number fired that night but it has to be in the hundreds. All the SAM misses would self detonate, either at a pre set altitude or motor burn out, I don't know which.

Like I said, you wouldn't look up at a SAM detonation because they were so numerous unless something was different. Then there was something different. The flash was yellowish instead of bright white. Looking up there was a large fire ball with flaming debris falling from it. "Damn, someone got nailed." Then suddenly there was a flaming dash across the sky heading southwest, then another and another. Three dashes were all I saw, couldn't spend any more time looking up.

Later we learned that a SAM had detonated close to a Weasel and filled his bird with holes. Fuel was streaming out and his AB was igniting it in dashes across the sky. Since he was losing all his fuel anyway he left it in AB till he ran out. He got to the southern PDJ before bailing out.

About this time Blue Boy calls Axle and says "Search complete, negative packages." Silence, then Simons asks for a repeat. "Search complete, negative packages, repeat negative packages." More silence. I don't know what anyone else was thinking then but for me it was setup, ambush. But hell, we'd already been there twenty minutes and they'd have sprung it by then. So then it turned to "What the hell are we doing here?" And "How the hell are we going to get our asses out of here intact?" Simons must have been thinking the same thing. He called for the parameter teams to pull back and the Apples to come in for pickup. Then he told us to take out the Big Bridge .

All sounds very simple but it sure wasn't. First of all we had no hard ordnance and couldn't take out the Big Bridge . We had no more WP bombs and that was the only thing that would have damaged a wooden bridge. The bridge was Red Wines objective and were supposed to blow it but because of their late start hadn't reached it before the pull back order.

A little poop about the Big Bridge . The bridge was a few hundred meters northeast of the camp on the road that ran in front of it. It was about a hundred feet long, heavily constructed and could carry any vehicle up to a tank, we were told. Red Wine was supposed to blow it and hold the road while Green Leaf went southeast and held the road there.

During training the engineers said twelve pounds of C-4 would take out the bridge. However, to be sure they were going to double it and use twenty-four pounds. Col. Simons said that he wanted to be doubly sure and doubled that to forty-eight pounds then added that two people would carry forty-eight pounds each making it ninety-six pounds of C-4. I would have liked to see what ninety-six pounds of C-4 did to that bridge but it wasn't to be. What made things worse was that the out bound and pull back routes for the parameter teams were different. Since each team out bound had to take out any possible threats they didn't want to retrace their steps and possibly run into someone they missed. He would have been one pissed off gomer. There was a lot of housing just outside the camp. Intel said it was for the camp commander, married officers and maybe some camp workers. The teams outbound went house to house making sure no one was going to be a threat. It was a slow process so between starting out late and an early pull back they had no chance of reaching their goal.

Since they hadn't got to the end of the outbound route there was no way they could follow the pull back route. The radios went bananas again. "There's part of Red Wine's team in Green Leaf's area of responsibility and part of Green Leaf's team in Red Wines area. Do not fire without identification." This was repeated over and over again. So much so that the teams couldn't get in to acknowledge. They were so out of breath that they couldn't say but one word between two or three panting breaths. It wasn't fun to listen to.

Some time during all this we had expended 50% of our ordnance and called in 3 and 4. They had done the same and called us back. We dumped the Rockeyes on the bridge. The Rockeye is a Navy fast mover ordnance we had to certify the A-1 to carry while in training at Eglin. It's a multi-munitions thing with gobs of little shaped charges to take out vehicles, even tanks I guess. Not very good for bridges. We put a lot of holes in it though. After that we laid down continuos strafe till everyone was in the Apples and on their way.

I might add we never saw any vehicles or people moving anywhere near the camp. There

was a lot of traffic on the East west road along the Red River, about a klick north, going in and out of Hanoi but no one turned toward the camp. Also about this time, the SAM launches were slowing down but the MIG calls were increasing. Roughly twenty minutes into the forty minutes this took we started picking up MIG calls. Intel told us they had no night qualified pilots so we would have no trouble with MIG's. Right.

There was one call of an air to air missile firing. Said it zoomed right past his plane. I don't know who it was and never saw any myself. That was the only call of a firing I remember hearing. But the MIG warning calls from Collage Eye or whoever makes those things were coming regularly.

Once the Jollies were off and running we putted along above and behind them, guessing where they were since it was dark and no one could see each other. Everyone was to call the IP outbound. One by one we heard the calls, thank god. Then we hear this voice "Is everybody out?" "Who are you?" "This is Apple something or other." "Where are you?" "I'm back at the holding point waiting to be sure everyone got out okay." "God damn jerk." We told him to get his ass airborne and head for the IP as fast as his funny machine would take him. He acknowledged. By this time we had nearly reached the IP ourselves. Jerry and I looked at each other and said "We don't have a choice." With possible MIG's around a lonely Jolly all by himself makes for a pretty good target. We turned around, climbed to a nice MIG target altitude, three or four thousand, and went Christmas tree.

Every light we had was turned on and we slowly drove back to Hanoi . With MIG calls coming every few minutes I was sweating profusely. Don't know if it was hot, I was scared or just pooped out but I was soaked. It seemed an eternity but as the camp and the West side of Hanoi was slipping under the nose we heard the IP call. Lights out and Split-S. We beat feet west for the IP on the deck.

Getting away from the river valley and into the dark country side we climbed to a safe altitude to clear the mountains en-route to Udorn. Then started to take care of some pilot stuff. We had used up the left stub tank getting there and most of the right. We were on internal over the target and used the centerline while holding. Time to clean up the fuel mess. The right stub ran out almost right away, just a couple minutes were left in it. Time to jettison. That's when the longest two seconds of my life occurred.

I hit the button but instead of falling away it pitched up, slammed back against the leading edge making it into a vee shape and came bouncing along the leading edge of the wing toward the fuselage. I can see it to this day, making four bounces and then falling away under the wing. It all happened in one or two seconds, didn't even have time to say "Ohshit." I sometimes wonder what would have happened to the right horizontal stabilizer if it had decided to pass up and over the wing instead of under. I don't dwell on it though, too scary.

The five Jollies, three carrying the assault force and two empty because of no prisoners, were all together having had to hit a tanker in order to make it back. The A-1's were spread out who knew where but still in radio contact. As we crossed the PDJ we picked up the beeper of the downed Weasels and soon made voice contact. They were both all right. #1 was cool but #2 was a little panicky. Not because he was being threatened but because he was all alone, in the dark, in the woods, in Laos . I didn't blame him one bit.

Then we made contact with four Sandy 's launched out of NKP in answer to the Weasels May Day. They didn't know who we were because of the call signs. Took a hell of a while to convince them that Peach and Apple really meant Sandy and Jolly.

The call sign battle had been long and arduous but in the end we lost. I'll never forgive the Air Force for either picking them or allowing them to be forced on us. At least the Army had call signs that if not macho were at least neutral. Blue Boy, Red Wine, Green leaf, Gear Box and Axle. What did the whimpy Air Force come up with? A-1's Peach, Jollies Apple, the HH-3 that crash landed in the compound Banana, Talons Cherry and the C-130 tanker Lime. A damn fruit salad. It was embarrassing, down right humiliating. I'll never forgive those pencil pushing Air Force pukes for that.

Anyway, it was decided that the two empty Jollies would hang around with the four Sandy 's and make a first light pick up. From what I understand it was uncontested and pretty much a piece of cake.

Landing at Udorn we were all rushed to debriefing, a building right on the flight line. As I walked in I was met by a group of Intel people with wide grins across their faces and seemed higher then kites. I thought they were lunatics. They asked "How many prisoners?" I said "None, the camp was empty." The grins disappeared and their faces turned pale. "What?" I repeated it and thought they were going to pass out. What had happened was after leaving the target area the Army did a head count and got it all screwed up. For a while they thought someone might have been left behind. For several minutes over the radio we could hear the chatter between the Jollies. "I've got thirty-three, I've got thirty-five, I've got thirty-two, I've got thirty-one." Seemed to go on forever. Finally they got it right and no one was left behind. The high orbiting EC-135 must have been relaying all that back to Udorn and it was interpreted by the Intel people as a prisoner count. They all though we had rescued thirty some prisoners.

Once that got squared away debriefing fell apart. People running every which way. I don't remember ever being debriefed and don't think anyone ever was. What preparations had been made to receive prisoners I don't know but they had to be considerable and now were all down the tubes. It was almost a state of panic.

Col. Simons, Jerry Rhine, Dick Meadows and maybe others were whisked off to meet with Gen. Leroy Manor at Monkey Mountain , Da Nang . The rest of us were left in the lurch and forgotten about. The sun was coming up by then and we all wandered out onto the ramp. Sat down on the cement cross legged, indian style, in circles of about ten. Us in our reeking sweat soaked flight suits and the grunts with their blackened faces, guns, grenades and what-have-you hanging off them. They were bleeding from every square inch of exposed skin from dozens of cuts, scrapes and bruises. We all just sat mumbling to each other. No stories were being told. We had all just done it, seen it or heard it and knew what had happened.

Then someone came out and handed a bottle to each of the circles. Everyone took a sip and passed it around and around and around, till it was empty. All of us still just mumbling to ourselves and each other. I can't attest to what was going on at the other circles but there wasn't a dry eye at ours. A tear running down every cheek. A gallant effort with nothing to show. To hell and back for naught.

John Waresh, USAF, Ret.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Interesting story about the Son Tay Raid.

Interesting indeed. Good find...

Once again, it's not Friday yet, but so what. You Herk folks will likely enjoy this if you've not seen/heard it before:

Homey 302 (from the AC's perspective)

Homey 302 (from the Co's perspective)

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Interesting indeed. Good find...

Once again, it's not Friday yet, but so what. You Herk folks will likely enjoy this if you've not seen/heard it before:

Homey 302 (from the AC's perspective)

Homey 302 (from the Co's perspective)

Very interesting story! That was a great read.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Here is a link of USAAF operations on IWO Jima after the Marines paid for it with blood and became a fighter base for P-51's and divert for B-29's enjoy.

http://picasaweb.google.com/7thfighter/IwoJima?authkey=Gv1sRgCIW06db_6oth&feat=email#slideshow/5299163150448181842

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  • 2 months later...

Another about my WWII favorite, the Bristol Beaufighter. From the now defunct magazine "Wings." Pity it folded, it was a great magazine.

20 YEARS OF SERVICE

The Amazing Career of the Beaufighter

The Bristol Beaufighter was everything it was designed to be and more. Blunt, tenacious, versatile, it would perform more types of missions than its designers ever imagined. Conceived in the outset of the Second World War, it would still be soldiering on long into the jet age.

In 1938, the Bristol Aircraft Company submitted a proposal to meet the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) need for a cannon-armed fighter. In the rush to rearm prior to the war, the RAF saw that cannons were needed to knock down the new breed of bombers that Nazi Germany was fielding. Bristol proposed a variation of its successful Beaufort torpedo bomber as just the thing the RAF needed.

Bristol originally envisioned using most of the main components of the Beaufort, thus saving both design and development costs associated with the introduction of a new aircraft. By using the same wings, rear fuselage and tail unit, Bristol sought to use the same tooling jigs already producing the Beaufort. The RAF expressed reservations about the size of the proposed fighter; a twin-engined, two-place was thought to be rather large for a fighter, but since Bristol planned to put at least four 20mm cannon in the new fighter, the RAF gave the go-ahead for production in 1939.

Design Changes

As the design progressed from proposal to bending metal, the need for many changes became obvious. For example, the decision to use more powerful Hercules VI radial engines than the originally suggested Hercules II made the use of a larger propeller mandatory. To ensure proper ground clearance for the new larger props, the engine nacelles were moved from underneath the wing to a mid-wing mount. The repositioned nacelles required the gear oleo legs be lengthened.

Even though the RAF was primarily interested in getting a cannon-armed fighter into squadron service in the least amount of time possible, a secondary armament of eight .303 Browning machine guns was always considered a necessity. The machine guns could add additional weight of firepower when going against bombers, but could also be useful for ground attacks against troops. In that scenario, the punch of the 20mm’s wasn’t as effective as the ability to spray lots of lead over a large area.

Originally, Bristol planned to put the eight guns in a protruding belly blister. The RAF’s Air Ministry thought this protrubance would add to drag and slow down the big fighter more than desired. Instead, the Air Ministry asked Bristol to place the machine guns in the wings. Bristol, however, protested the change since they were well into the construction of the prototype. Incorporating four machine guns in the port wing would mean a delay since the gun placement meant repositioning the large landing light. Instead, Bristol asked to only place two guns in this wing and the requested four in the starboard wing. In order to keep development on track, the Air Ministry agreed, thus the Beaufighter would pack a powerful, if asymmetrical punch of four 20mms in the nose and six .303 machine guns in the wings. This was the most powerful standard armament of any Allied fighter aircraft of the war.

All of these changes substantially altered the original design proposal, subsequently very few parts of the Beaufort were interchangeable with the new fighter, so it acquired its own name, the Beaufighter in May, 1939.

Mission Changes

After the prototype first flew in October 1939, the RAF’s concerns about the feasibility of a big, twin-engined aircraft successfully competing in the fighter arena solidified. A maximum speed of 335 mph at 16,800 was short of the desired goal of 350 mph. Although the Beaufighter handled reasonably well according to Bristol’s chief test pilot, C.F. Uwins, it suffered from longitudinal instability and was not maneuverable enough to serve as a day fighter. The instability mentioned would plague the Beau throughout its career, giving it a reputation for being a handling handful during take-offs and landings.

Quoting from a 1940 Air Fighting Development Unit pilot report, the Beaufighter

“was found to handle as described in the handbook, but the stall is not so vicious as stated. Nevertheless, there is a feeling that the aircraft is a heavily loaded one and care must be taken when near the ground to maintain full flying speed or the aircraft will drop out of your hands. The take-off is straightforward, although there is a slight tendency for the aircraft to swing to starboard; this is easily corrected by use of the rudder.”

As 1939 turned into 1940, the RAF realized that it was woefully unprepared for night fighting, particularly in defensive operations. Air Marshall Dowding and other RAF leaders realized that the magnificent Chain Home radar stations that would play a crucial role in the forthcoming Battle of Britain. They also knew that if they were successful in thwarting the Germans from attacking Britain during the day, then the Germans would surely turn to night bombing where the frontline fighters of Spitfires and Hurricanes would be nearly useless.

The rudimentary airborne radars then under development required a fairly large aircraft to accommodate the bulky equipment, aerials and additional operator. The Beaufighter was a fairly large aircraft in need of a new mission and thus was born a match made, if not in heaven, then certainly fortuitous.

During the first several prototypes testing regime, the RAF adapted the Beau as a nightfigher and urged Bristol to speed both testing and production to equip newly forming frontline night fighter squadrons.

By late fall of 1940, the first Beaus, designated MK IF, were flying night patrols. On the night of 19/20 November, a 604 Squadron Beaufighter piloted by Flight Lieutenant John Cunningham and radar operator (R/O) Sergeant John Phillipson achieved the first radar-assisted Beau kill. This form of electronic warfare became known as airborne interception (AI).

The Beau would go on to be the primary nightfighter for the RAF until the introduction of the De Havilland Mosquito in late 1943. Even after the ‘Mossie’ came into service, the Beau soldiered on in its first combat role until nearly the end of the war.

Even while Bristol scrambled to fill the orders for MK IF nightfighters, the RAF realized the Beau was a marvelous platform for a variety of other attack missions. Coastal Command, responsible for patrolling the sea lanes so vital for the very survival of Britain, became the next user. In the MK IC model, Coastal Command squadrons began patrolling the vast expanse of the Bay of Biscay, searching for German Kreigsmarine U-boats.

Besides searching out the menacing U-boats, Beaufighters still wound up being pressed into service as fighters while serving in Coastal Command. German Ju-88s were plentiful, seeking out Allied merchant convoys to bomb and strafe. Many times, Beaus found themselves the only protection a convoy had from a harassing enemy strike aircraft. The Beaus generally acquitted themselves well in these aerial combats.

As the war progressed, the Beaufighter expanded its offensive capabilities. The striking power of the heavy armament was impressive especially once rockets were added. These 60lb. armor piercing and high explosive projectiles added a substantial punch. Devastatingly effective against both ground and maritime targets, the rockets inspired confidence in its crews and dread in the enemy. Also, by 1944, the Beau began carrying torpedoes to further increase the damage it could inflict.

Following the war, most Beaufighters were either scrapped or turned into target tugs. A few soldiered on in smaller nation’s air forces, but the vast majority faded away.

Variants

As mentioned above, the first models were the MK IF nightfighter and MK IC Coastal Command strike aircraft. The MK I can be easily distinguished by its flat tailplanes. These 0 degree of incidence horizontal stabilizers contributed to the Beau’s squirreliness in the pitch axis. Much work went into trying to correct this fault.

The MK II was a Merlin-engined version. At the outset of production, Bristol and the RAF feared that the Hercules engines would not be available in sufficient numbers to equip all the new Beaufighter units, so the legendary Merlin of Spitfire, Hurricane, P-51 Mustang and Lancaster fame was adapted to the Beau’s frame. In a rare instance of not really improving the design, the MK II had an even worse reputation for handling than did the Hercules-powered versions.

With powerful engines and large propellers providing thrust at the extreme front and the rest of the large aircraft trailing aft, the gyroscopic effect was tremendous and contributed greatly to the Beaus reputation for difficult handling. The MK II’s Merlin nacelles were even longer than the radial Hercules’ so the handling was commensurately worse. The MK IIs saw only limited front line service before being relegated to training roles.

MK III and IV were proposed ‘slim’ fuselage developments but were never actually built.

The MK V was an aberration that assuaged the RAF’s love affair with putting turrets on fighters. Like the earlier Boulton-Paul Defiant single-engine fighter, the single turreted Beau was not successful and only two were built.

The MK VI was the first mark to get most of the Beau’s faults corrected. Most noticeable is the 12 dihedral of the tailplanes. This simple modification went a long way to minimize the pitch sensitivity of Bristol’s big fighter. Many of the earlier MK I and IIs were retrofitted with the angled horizontal stabilizers.

Later versions of the MK VI had increase range but at the expense of firepower. Long range tanks were fitted into the wing machine gun bays. Using a cruise speed of 243 mph, these MK VIs had a range of 1,810 miles compared to 1,480 in earlier marks.

The MK VII was a one-off turbo supercharged Hercules powered version with four bladed props. MKs VIII and IX were reserved for Australian production but the designations were never used.

MK X Beaufighters at first differed from their siblings by the fitting of a more powerful Hercules XVII engine modified for low altitude operations. In addition to carrying a torpedo or a 500 lb bomb on the centerline, two 250 lb bombs could be carried under the wings.

Later MK Xs had a dorsal fin extension fitted. This additional longitudinal structure helped improve the Beau’s handling even more once larger weapons loads of 1,000 lb bombs on each wing. The last Beaufighter built on September 21, 1945 was a MK X.

The MK 21 was an Australian-built version of the Beaufighter and was essentially the same as a MK X with the exception of a noticeable ‘bump’ on the nose that housed a Sperry autopilot. Well over 5,000 Beaufighters were built from 1939-1945 with Australia producing 364 of those under license

Operators

In addition to the RAF, Beaufighters served in the air forces of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF), the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), the Portuguese Navy, Turkey, Israel (IAF) and the Dominican Republic.

The British forces, including the RCAF, RNZAF and RAAF, saw combat with all versions in every theater of the war. The USAAF equipped four nightfighter squadrons in the Mediterranean and eventually European theater.

Turkey acquired nine RAF machines during the war and purchased an additional 23 in 1946. Very little is known of how the Turkish Air Force operated these machines or for how long.

10 Beau MK Xs saw service under Dominican Republic colors. They saw action at least once. On June 20, 1949, some of the Republics Beaus, flying in concert with Fuerza Aerea Dominicana (FAD) Mosqitoes attacked a Guatelamlan invasion force. Strafing a PBY, the strike helped to repulse the invasion. The last FAD Beaus were retired in 1954.

Israel smuggled four Beaufighter MK Xs into Israel in the summer of 1948. After numerous ground attack sorties, including one remarkable incident when ex-RAF pilot Len Fitchett out maneuvered an Egyptian Sea Fury single engine fighter at low level. Fitchett’s adroit handling of the Beau caused the Fury to stall while lining up for a shot. The Egyptian pilot stalled and crashed into the Red Sea off the coast of Israel. Sadly, Fitchett was killed shortly thereafter while conducting another ground attack mission.

By November of 1948, the IAF’s Beaus were no longer logistically maintainable and were struck off charge. In 1994, the remains of Fitchett’s Beaufighter was discovered during construction work in southern Israel. The scattered bits and pieces are now on display at the IAF Museum at Hazterim, Israel.

The Portuguese Navy received 16 MK Xs during March, 1945. They flew them on maritime patrol and long-range fighter missions. One crashed in October of that year, killing its pilot, 1Lt Felix Lobo and two other crewmembers.

In 1946, Portugal bought a replacement for the destroyed Beau. By 1949, a lack of spares

and qualified pilots grounded the Portuguese Beaus. One of them was given back to the RAF and is on display in the RAF’s Museum at Hendon, England. Another was traded to South Africa for a Spitfire for Portugal’s Air Museum. The rest were scrapped.

The Crews’Comment

American pilot George “Ghost” Aubill recalls that the Beaufighter had “wonderful visibility, everything was easy to see including the plate-sized marine compass. It was a lot of fun on the deck, but since it didn’t have superchargers, it was underpowered at altitude.”

Three kill pilot Dr. Harold Augspurger says the aircraft “wouldn’t stay trimmed up no matter what you did. You had to work the throttles and brakes carefully once the tail dropped on landing. Likewise, the rudder wasn’t really effective until the tail came up, but once you were out of those situations, the Beau flew just fine. It wasn’t heavy on any axis and had very good visibility.”

Portuguese Naval pilot 2Lt Manuel Beja once had an engine pack up while on a long cross-country flight. The other engine was spewing oil at an alarming rate and the engine temperature rose drastically. Thinking he wouldn’t be able to recover at his base, he ordered his radio operator to bail out.

Beja skillfully recovered the smoking Beaufighter at the naval station at Portela, Portugal. As soon as he landed and shut down, he egressed the aircraft, thinking that the oil-starved engine might still burst into flames. As he got to the hatch, Beja tripped over his radio operator! The terrified crewman had been too frightened to jump and had huddled by the hatch until Beja found him. He scooped up the hapless operator and beat feet away from the oil-covered, smoldering Beau.

Peter Weston, an RAF navigator flew in some of the last Beaufighter combat missions. While ferrying new Bristol Brigand strike aircraft out to Malaya to deal with a communist insurgency in 1950, he flew almost a dozen missions in the Beaufighter’s rear cockpit familiarizing himself with the terrain and operations in the theater. Once he saw how best to conduct operations against the Malayan rebels, he then trained the former Beau crews in the new Bristol aircraft.

He recalls, “The Beau would overhear in a hurry if you dawdled on the ground for any length of time. In the hot, humid climate of Malaya, we didn’t mess about once we started engines.”

The last Beaufighters to fly were based at RAF Selatar, Singapore in May 1960. Selatar had a reputation for seeing off many famous aircraft – the Spitfire, the Mosquito and the Short Sunderland flying boat all flew their last flight at this station.

Two Beaus trundled about serving as target tugs until at last the Beaus’ time had come. On May 16, 1960, a last hurrah of a formation flight around the area showed the Beau in its element for the final time. After landing, they were immediately scrapped. Thus, the Beaufighter served a full military career of 20 years more than justifying the RAF’s belief in the big fighter project.

Sidebar – Sleeve Valve Radial Engines

Unlike a conventional radial engine with its valves mounted on the top of each cylinder, a sleeve valve radial contains the valves in a sleeve mounted between the piston and the cylinder. Using a smaller crank that turned at half the speed of the crankshaft, the sleeve moved in an elliptical path, lining up ports on the sleeve with the cylinder that allowed fuel and air to enter the cylinder and expelled the exhaust at the completion of the power stroke.

The advantage of the sleeve valve is improved volumetric efficiency because the sleeve’s larger ports improved gas flow into and out of the cylinder and created a higher compression ratio. Aerodynamically, the sleeve valve radial presented a smaller frontal area and thus created less drag for the aircraft to overcome.

On the negative side, however, sleeve valved engines used more oil, cost more to manufacture and were a nightmare to maintain in the field and the design rapidly fell out of favor following World War II.

Chart - Beaufighter Mk VIF specifications

Wingspan 57ft 10in

Length 41ft 4in

Height 15ft 10in

Weight empty 14,069lbs

Weight-max 20,800lbs

Max speed 333mph

Service ceiling 26,500ft

Range 1,480 miles

Powerplants 2 x Hercules VI or XVII

Max horsepower 1670bhp @7500rpm

AI (radar) Mk IV (US - SCR-540) or Mk VII (US - SCR-720)

Armament 4 x 20mm, 6 x .303

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Great article, the Beaufighter was a brutish aircraft and its incredible in how many missions it served for an aircraft that was developed to drop torpedoes. It's good to see that there, I believe a couple of restorations ongoing - including at least one to flying condition.

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A Surprise Squadron

A few minutes after take-off from Land’s End in Great Britain, 1Lt Jack Illfrey felt a bump underneath his Lockheed P-38G Lightning. His wingman’s note, held up to preserve radio silence, let Illfrey know he was going to have a bad day. “One belly tank” meant that the bump Illfrey felt was his other tank dropping off.

Illfrey needed every drop of gas if he had any chance of making Oran, Algeria, 1,500 miles from his start. With the loss of his tank, his options just narrowed to turn back or make for the British base at Gibraltar. He chose the latter and pressed on.

After several more hours, Illfrey realized that he wouldn’t make it even to Gibraltar. His new options now being ditch or land in Portugal, he chose the latter.

Portugal, however, was a neutral country. As such, they were obligated to intern the aircraft and pilot. After his landing, Illfrey was instructing Portuguese pilot Costa Macedo in operating the Lightning so that Macedo could ferry the aircraft from the civil Lisbon airport to a nearby Portuguese Army field. Macedo knelt on the wing while Illfrey explained the by now refueled P-38’s systems. Recognizing an opportunity after he had cranked the P-38’s engines, Illfrey slammed the cockpit hood shut and gunned the might Allison liquid-cooled engines, blowing Macedo off.

Illfrey took off and although he created an international incident by doing so, made it to Algeria and the combat duty he desired.

The Portuguese learned from this experience and impounded every belligerent airplane that touched down from then on. Since the Allies sent hundreds of aircraft from Britain to the North African Theater on the same route that Illfrey pioneered, many other aircraft landed in Portugal. Many of these aircraft included the Bell P-39 Airacobras.

In this way, the impoverished Iberian country expanded its tiny Air Force and soon had a squadron of P-39s as well another P-38 and even a couple of B-24s. This story concentrates on the more numerous P-39s.

During December 1942 and February 1943, 19 Airacobras from the 81st and 350th Fighter Groups made emergency landings on Portuguese soil. Portuguese Army pilot 2d Lieutenant Bras Oliveira witnessed the arrival of the humming P-39s.

Sailing with a friend on the Tagus River outside Lisbon, he ducked when a flight of five P-39s buzzed his boat while on final to the brand new airfield at Portela. Forced to fly antiquated Potez XXV and Vickers Valparaiso biplanes since leaving flight school, Oliveira laughed and said to his friend, “Well, at least our guys will have some God damn modern fighters after all!” Little did he realize he’d find himself stuffed into one of those low-flying P-39s in a few months.

One of the last P-39s to land caused a local stir when on February 8, 1943, a 350th Fighter Group bird, trying to drop in on a tiny Portuguese naval air service emergency strip, jettisoned his belly tank prior to landing. The local citizens scrambled for cover believing that a much feared bombing campaign by either side had begun.

Portugal was now the proud owner of five P-39Ls and 14 P-400s. The main difference between the two was the –39 carried the original 37mm cannon firing through the propeller hub and the P-400s, originally destined for export use, fired a 20mm cannon instead.* Since Britain, Portugal’s primary arms dealer, had been dragging its feet on delivering promised modern equipment like Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes, the Portuguese were thrilled with the unexpected aircraft (for the rest of this story both models will be referred to as “P-39s”).

Approaching the American Embassy with a proposal to buy the interned aircraft, the Portuguese traded on the Allies’ desire to use Portugal’s strategically placed Azores Islands as an anti-submarine base when phrasing the purchase request. By international law, interned weapons are only supposed to be seized during hostilities and returned at the end of combat.

The Americans recognized a good bargain and sold all the interned aircraft to Portugal on an “as is” basis and for the return of all interned airmen. So for $700,000 US dollars, Portugal bought the 19 P-39s, the P-38, and the B-24 Liberators.

In late April, 1943, 1Lt. Rogério Oliveira Seixas, formerly a Gloster Gladiator biplane pilot, received orders to establish the “Esquadrilha Airacobra” at Ota’s Air Base No.2, the newest and best Portuguese military airfield, commissioned in 1940. The P-39s/P-400s would operate alongside previously purchased Curtiss P-36 Mohawks IV.

At Ota, the Airacobras were serialed as “300 – 318,” had the Portuguese ‘Cross of Christ’ roundels applied, and then sat while the Portuguese tried to figure out how to operate the complex aircraft.

The previously mentioned Costa Macedo, by this time an Army major, and Lt Seixas journeyed to the United States for a brief training course on P-39 and P-38 maintenance and operations. By July of 1943, they knew enough to begin flying the Airacobras regularly. Four of the P-39s were sent to Air Base No. 1 at Sintra and were flown by some of the instructors of the Escola Militar de Aeronautica (Portuguese Military Aeronautics School).

In August, Lt Seixas led a ten ship formation on a training mission with 2Lts. Oliveria and Rogriques, his most experienced pilots, acting as element leads. All went well until landing. Although the P-39 had a tricycle landing gear and should have been easier to land than the more conventional tail draggers the Portuguese usually flew, the pilots inexperience in handling the new mounts resulted in three slightly damaged aircraft, nos. 305, 310, and 314, while the young, inexperienced pilot of ship 309 landed long and completely overshot the runway, damaging his mount beyond repair.

Two weeks later, on August 16th, 1st Sergeant Alves Ferreira, an experienced Gloster Gladiator pilot, took aircraft 304 up for some aerobatic training. He crashed over the airfield in full view of his squadronmates and perished in the ensuing fire.

Another fortnight passed and another P-39 plummeted from the sky. In this case, Lt Oliveira survived a crash landing on the beach of a resort south of Lisbon, but the rising tide claimed the wreck before it could be salvaged.

Soon after, Lt Oliveira was posted to a long-awaited Hurricane unit just forming from British deliveries of both Hurricanes and Spitfire Mk Vbs. With the lack of spare parts to keep the P-39s flying – remember the Americans had sold them “as is” – and the new British equipment, the Airacobras soon fell by the wayside.

They lay dormant, basking in the warm Iberian sun while Portugal conducted its largest ever military exercise on a great plain on the banks of the Tagus River. More than 40,000 men conducted maneuvers and combined arms practice with the new Hurris’ and Spits.

The P-39s didn’t fly in this exercise, but would eventually take to the air again, but this time as a concerted effort on the part of the Portuguese and American governments.

In December 1943, an eleven man delegation of US Army Air Force pilots and mechanics arrived in Lisbon. After requests by Portugal for more P-39s and training in their care and use, US Major Willard Wilson brought many spare parts for the P-39s, the sole P-38 and the B-24s. His mission was to bring to operational status as many of the Portuguese aircraft as his team could and train the Portuguese in properly servicing those aircraft.

Starting work in January 1944, within two weeks the P-39s were flyable again. US pilots Capt William Thompson and Lt Richard Heddens were test flying the machines and delivering them back to the Portuguese. They also conducted flying training with a new group of Portuguese pilots.

Regarding the Portuguese maintenance practices, Major Wilson had this to say in his official report:

Unlike any modern air force, the Portuguese fail to realize the importance of organized maintenance training. A mechanic becomes a mechanic through year of watchful waiting. He waits his turn for promotion to corporal and when that time comes it is assumed that he is able to take up the duties of a mechanic. There is no mechanics school of any kind.

On top of it all, the officers and enlisted men are terribly rank conscious. Among the enlisted it is perhaps worse than the officers……no officer or enlisted man will perform a menial or physical task if a man of lesser rank is available…..

Each mechanic has two helpers who are of little value except perhaps for the muscle they provide. These mechanics will not allow their helpers to perform any actual mechanical work so the process…..is a slow and painful one.

A Lt Solano de Almeida, one of the few English speaking Portuguese pilots, assumed command of the rejuvenated P-39 squadron, but was chagrined to have to report to the visiting Americans that one of the squadron’s young pilots had taxied too fast and collided with three other recently repaired P-39s and the just-repaired P-38. This was February 4th, 1944, the day prior to Wilson’s scheduled progress report to the Portuguese commanders.

A week later, Corporal Lopes lost an engine on take off and crashed. He survived the accident but the ‘Cobra did not.

By late February, the Portuguese reorganized their squadron designators and the P-39 squadron picked up the British-style side codes of ‘OK.’ Obviously, the squadron also picked up an instant unit nickname with this designation.

Under the command of Captain Albuquerque Freitas, Lt Solano de Alameida as his second, the ten OK squadron pilots, mostly non-commissioned pilots, flew 2-3 sorties per week.

In May, Esquadrilha OK flew in a massive (by Portuguese standards) aeronautical parade under the watchful eyes of President of the Republic, General and Doctor Salazar. Salazar wanted this parade to demonstrate to the increasingly desperate Germans not to think of attacking Portugal.

By the second half of 1944, tight fuel supplies dramatically reduced the flying time for OK Squadron. It is not until December 4th that a few flights sortied, all the while the P-39s declining in operational numbers.

OK Squadron is disbanded and the remaining half-dozen Airacobras are assigned to Fighter Squadron 4. For the next several years, they are flown only sporadically until late 1946; a Lt Rosa Rodrigues is the sole P-39 pilot trying to fly the machines. The squadron by this time consisted of an eclectic mix of P-39s, Gladiators, Spitfire I and Vbs.

In early 1947, the now remaining three P-39s, nos. 305, 306, 315, are assigned to Fighter squadron 3, where now-Captain Rodrigues flew them “just for maintenance purposes.” Finally, mercifully, the Portuguese command issued a Service Order, dated June 8, 1948 to strike off charge the P-39, number 305, the last of the “Cross of Christ” ‘Cobras.

(The author is grateful for the help and advice of Dr. Jose Correia for information and photos about the Portuguese Air Force.)

*Popular joke at the time about the P-400’s designator asked, “What’s a P-400? Why, that’s a P-39 with a Japanese Zero on its tail!”

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  • 4 months later...

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.

Bristol%2520BEAUFIGHTER%2520F.jpg

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.

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  • 2 months later...

Ran into this online tonight, it's the story of the Air Wing of the Greek Expeditionary Force and their C-47's during the Korean War. It's an interesting read, had no idea that the Greeks were in Korea.

13th Flight of the Royal Hellenic (Greek) Air Force in Korea

by Elias K. Maglinis

neptune.jpg

The legendary 92622 which was named "Neptune" (in English on the port side

and Greek on the starboard)in a break from operations, is serviced. RHAF

and Greek Army personnel pose in front of the aircraft.

In the center, wearing black flight jacket is Major Fragoyannis, commander

of the Squadron who was later killed in a tragic accident.

During their five years in country, the "13th Flight" lost 12 officers and NCOs, and two of their seven C-47s. They received a U.S. Presidential Unit Citation and nineteen individual Air Medals for their participation in the evacuation of US Marines while under heavy fire at Hagaru-ri in December 1950. Individual Greek military members, in the air and on the ground, were awarded 6 U.S. Distinguished Service Crosses, 32 Silver Stars, 110 Bronze Stars.

Edited by MKopack
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In 1947 the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association decided not to send a team to the 1948 Olympic Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland, over a disagreement over amateur qualification rules. A group of members and former members of the Royal Canadian Air Force didn't think that was right (well, they were Canadian...)

The Ottawa RCAF Flyers were selected from Air Force stations across Canada and coached by Ottawa Senators legend Buck Boucher and his son, RCAF Sergeant Frank Boucher.

RCAF_Flyers_1948_official_team_photo.jpg

At St. Moritz, they beat Italy 21-1, Poland 15-0, Austria 12-0, the United States 12-3, Great Britain 3-0 and Sweden 3-1, with a scoreless tie against Czechoslovakia. In their final game, they played the host Swiss and needed to win by two goals to finish ahead of the Czech team. Sixty-three years ago today the "RCAF Flyers", skating for Canada, won the Olympic Gold.

Here's the report from Canadian Press writer Jack Sullivan in the Ottawa Journal of February 9, 1948:

Murray Dowey, 22-year-old blonde netminder from Toronto, registered his fifth shutout in eight games and Wally Halder, the team's top scorer during the games with 21 goals and eight assists, fired the shot that proved the winner early in the first period.

Patsy Guzzo, Ottawa, added the second Canadian goal in the middle period and Reg Schroeter, Ottawa, made it 3-0 before the midway mark in the third period as the Canadians clung grimly to their lead.

During the second and third periods the partisan Swiss crowd, taking exception to some of the referee's decisions, hurled snowballs at the Flyers.

The ice conditions and the refereeing were so bad that at times the game threatened to develop into a farce. The officials, Eric De Marcwicz of Britain and Van Reyshoot of Belgium, were pointedly in favor of Switzerland, some of the latter's decisions being almost unbelievable.

Halder tried to check a Swiss player at one point but fell flat. The Swiss player also went down. Halder was thumbed off for five minutes by Van Reyshoot -- "for tripping and interference". Later Heinrich Boller, Swiss defenceman, cross-checked Thomas (Red) Hibbard, who fell heavily to the ice. Both players were sent to the penalty box. Near the end of the game during a scramble in front of the Canaian goal Boller punched Dowey in the face but was given only a two-minute penalty.

"We played eight men -- the Swiss players and the referees -- and still beat 'em", said Cpl. George McFaul.

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Ran into this online tonight, it's the story of the Air Wing of the Greek Expeditionary Force and their C-47's during the Korean War. It's an interesting read, had no idea that the Greeks were in Korea.

Not related to flying but since you mentioned Greeks in Korea, Outpost Harry was defended by several hundred American and Greek soldiers against about 13,000 Chinese. Wikipedia Link and Outpost Harry Survivors Association

Edited by Timbonez
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Sixty-three years ago today the "RCAF Flyers", skating for Canada, won the Olympic Gold.

Never too late - RCAF Flyers honoured 60 years after historic victory

While he wasn't a member of the Gold Medal team, the rink I practice at is named after a RCAF pilot killed flying F-86s here in Germany.

Peter Cunningham Memorial Arena

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  • 2 weeks later...

Jake Herring passed away today. He was 89.

He was raised on a tobacco and hog farm in nowhere North Carolina.

He was drafted into the Army Air Corps, later Army Air Forces, trained in electronics and the then top-secret world of radar.

Assigned to a signal aircraft warning battalion, he shipped out for Australia, then on to New Guinea. He did combat landings on the islands of New Britain and Biak (first wave of troops on this one), where he operated as part of an early warning net, using a vacuum-tubed 1st generation ground radar that broke down into two duece and half and a jeep loads. The gas-fired generator put out a blue flame exhaust that drew Japanese snipers multiple times.

Moving on to the Phillippines, he finished out the war there assisting in one radar-controlled confirmed P-61 kill on a Betty bomber, returning to the North Carolina farm at the end of the war. Later, he walked a US Postal mail route, about 18 miles per day for nearly twenty years.

He had a voice like a country-fied Richard Burton; pure joy to hear a story told in that voice.

Godspeed, Uncle Dick, godspeed. :flag_waving::salut::beer:

Edited by brickhistory
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