Thread 64229103

original 1935-1945 photographs of aviation and aircraft, military or civil

no warbirds (post-WWII restored/color pics)
no drawings, videogame grabs

>>64229130
>Whirlwind
Fuck that is one forgotten about plane.

Sorry this is the only pic I have. Anyone know who the pilot was? The website it was on went down. I wished I also saved a picture of the plane with the name Tootsie. I found it the last week the site was up. Mods please don't ban. I am trying to find out who had funny names for their planes in WWII. This is a hilarious topic on other boards when it comes up. But unfortunately the funnier the name the less likely the pilot survived the war so it is hard to find this out.

Not the greatest plane photos, but I think some stuff you don’t see as much. My grandpa did asw as a gunnery officer on a b24 privateer during ww2. Started out in England, and then following his flight log went to Morocco, South Africa, then across to South America and home. These are from his war album.

>>64229825
The dude in the background cracks me up here

>>64229841
They apparently had an oil leak at some point.

>>64229849
No clue what they were flying over here, but wild to think that for a lot of gunners, this was what the war was… staring out that hole with a 50.

the sort of plane you wish they'd pushed into a combat role of sorts, simply because of how good it looks
this one belonged to the dutch prince Bernhard

>>64229855
From the outside. Fwiw I remember my grandpa explaining that the plane was a b24 privateer…. Which was a single tail version of the normal liberator.

>>64229841
>>64229849
>>64229855
>>64229860
cool stuff anon

>>64229825
The nose turret looks like an ERCO250SH-2, so maybe it's a PB4Y-1?

no idea what this is, dont roast me if it is interwar

>>64230094
Yea, most likely. Not impossible for it to be a bitsa.

>>64230203
oopsie
wrong vid

>>64230203
>>64230212
right one
im retarded

>>64230094
Yeah, grandpa did asw off of England, said they called it a privateer

>>64230164
PZL.23 Karaś, Polish light bomber.

"5 Grand", the 5000th B-17 Flying Fortress made in Boeing's Seattle plant after the attack on Pearl Harbor. All of the factory workers signed the bomber as it went along on the manufacturing line, and even some subcontractors put their signatures on the parts that they sent to the factory for this B-17. In the end there were 35 000 signatures on 5 Grand, and when it was ferried over the Atlantic, the crew found that the bomber was 7 mph slower than it was supposed to be thanks to the weight of the paint, and the signatures also caused extra drag, but nevertheless the bomber was never painted over or cleaned of the signatures.

5 Grand survived the war and there was some talk of turning it into a war memorial in Seattle, but it never happened due to lack of funds, and 5 Grand went to the scrapyard like most other B-17's.

>>64230164
I'm a sucker for bombers that have gondolas under the fuselage

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERUUM

>>64230637
no warbirds, please

>>64229825
>>64229841
>>64229849
>>64229860
>>64230412
>>64230412
>>64229855
>>64230179
Thanks anon. It looks like a PB4Y-1 Liberator, the PB4Y-2 Privateer wasn't deployed in Europe/The Americas during World War II; only in the Pacific.
(if they were calling it 'privateer' that might've been a postwar misnomer)
The forward fuselage is not long enough to be a PB4Y-2, and photo of the waist gun is a standard Liberator/PB4Y-1 (the Privateer had twin-gun waist stations in a powered blister turret)

>>64230491
very cool

>>64230725
concept was these would largely replace surface fleets to protect Fortress America from foreign navies.

Something about how they had the range so that no enemy ships could sneak up fast enough without being both detected and getting a few sessions of daylight bombing.

Subs were also part of that Plan, but forgot name of Plan.

diff take on Japs carriers VS battleships.
Would it have worked?

>>64229855
>>64229872
>>64231489
Also not a plane pic, but interestingly related..

>>64232356
The last recorded flight he has was in may of 1945 and put him at 707 hours of flight time.


Lot of these entries are like this page..

>>64232366
One of these days I’d like to get a map and frame it and mark out the general route he took. Knowing him when I was a kid, I’d never have imagined he got to travel where he did. I also remember he had a vintage pack of playing cards with airplane silhouettes on them. No clue where they ended up.

>>64232366
>>64232375
Well done anon and thanks for contributing.

>>64232366
Pretty cool.
My grandfathers log was retyped from hidden notes he kept as the original was destroyed when he left service. He also took notes of the after action report. In his unit these would have been court martial activities.

>>64231489
So I just realized one of the categories in the log book was “type of machine”. It’s listed as “b-24” for most of the earlier entries, with one on 11-30-43 listed as “y-5a” then on 7-12-44 it switches to “pb4y-1” till 1/21/45 when it switches to “pby-5a” for two entries then back to “pb4y-1”. If you can search plane numbers it’s got those listed for these… So your pretty spot on with your plane identification….

>>64232392
>>64232402
That’s really wild. Wonder if it was a British vs American policy difference, or just that carpet bombing is a bit more of a sensitive subject compared to asw patrol…. I do think it’s cool I have the picture of their oil leak, and the log entry mentioning it.

>>64232439
From googling it, a y-5a is apparently a Catalina.. so that’s pretty neat

>>64232454
It was a secrecy thing.
His unit was the AirBorne Cigars, one of the first electronic warfare units. Under the official secrets act they were only declassiifed a decade or so ago.
They weren't allowed cameras on base or even to have much correspondance. He was only ever able to find two published pictures of his plane, pointed out how one had to have been taken from the nearby garbage can.

>>64232474
Fair enough.

>>64232439
>pby-5a
nice, do the cross index remarks on those say
>Air Sea Rescue
?

>>64232497
First one is “st eval Harenbeer-Dunkerswell”
The later two are “searchlight hop”
There are some pb4y-1 entries for searchlight hop as well.

He does have 2 air sea rescue entries but they’re both in the b-24. Probably more of the “search and report position” than picking anyone out of the water….

>>64232520
Right, and the air sea rescue missions didn't always involve the plane itself (flying boat) picking up the aircrew, it was done by boats depending how close to the coast they happened to be.

>>64237139
>550x373
can you get real files for these?
you've been posting ants for years here

>>64229103 (OP)
No one remembers the Bolo...

>>64237826
I do.

Do you remember the Z.1007?

>>64237892
Yeah.

>>64237825
ty

>>64237963
what happened?
did one of the other bombers accidentally clip it's wing with a bomb?

Flying jeep, anyone?

>>64237970
Sorry, i don't know the story on this.

>>64237963
>>64237970
bombers were in formation, a bomb dropped from plane above hit its wing
This occurred many times in WWII

>>64237979
ah, fuck me if I was a pilot or in one of the bombers I'd NEVER want to be anywhere but the on the highest level of the formation

>>64237980
the Allied bomber formations were massive, it required adherence by aircrews to strict rules and observation over-target but due to scheduling of raids and the sheer numbers of planes being launched mishaps and mistakes happened
Not to mention the enemy action, flak and fighters (another distraction and overload for the aircrews)

The bombs falling behind were far away. Unfortunately, this B-24 was hit directly by sporadic Japanese AA shells.

B-17G Flying Fortress "Silver Dollar" after its tail section was struck by a bomb dropped by another B-17 during a bombing mission to Berlin. Two crew members, ball turret gunner Arthur John Osepchook and waist gunner John J. Plotz survied and became POWs. The rest of the crew, eight men in total, were KIA.

B-24 Liberator "Little Warrior", photographed from another Liberator, engulfed in flames just seconds after its fuel tank was hit by German flak over Fallersleben, Germany.

All 10 crew members were KIA, initially thought to have all died when the plane broke apart soon after the hit. However after war it was discovered that one of the crew members, co-pilot 2 Lt. Sidney A. Benson, had actually survied the crash and parachuted safely to the ground, where he was apprehended by Hitler youth leader Helmut Lippman. While escorting Benson to the local authorities, Lippman shot him in the back three times with a small-caliber pistol, supposedly because he had tried to escape. Benson didn't die immediately, so Lippman handed him over to some local air wardens who then beat him severly with their helmets, leading to his death in the hospital soon afterwards.

>>64229647
>Oberst, can we have B-24?
>Oberst: we have B-24 at home
>The B-24 at home:

>>64239870
most excellent
true wrong neighborhood vibes

brand new F4U-4 in flight
summer 1945

>>64244937
>474x250

>>64237970
It happened from time to time, typically to a damaged aircraft that drifted out of formation during a bomb run.

>>64229103 (OP)
I like how the rapid advancements made during the era combined with overstretched militaries keeping "good enough" equipment for longer led to the schizo tech level disparities you got during the war, like a wood-and-canvas biplane that had ground-search radar and rocket-assisted takeoff.

>>64247067
I do like the fact there is a seaplane version of the Swordfish because they needed to come up with something that could go even beyond slow. Still managed to be one of the most effective aircraft of the war.

Even at the time, anti-submarine warning aircraft had to be capable of slow cruising flight.
This was especially important for magnetic detection.
The lack of a canopy would have been convenient for visual patrols.

>>64247417
Even to this day something that can reliably fly low and slow is ideal for maritime patrol.

>>64247417
>>64247562
Correct.
It's one of the reasons that the PBY Catalina made such an ideal maritime patrol aircraft throughout the war.

>>64231464
whoops

>>64231460
great shot

>>64230928
Airframe is North American NA-73, manufacturer s/n 73-3098, serial AG345
the first airplane in the first U.K. production batch of Mustang Mk. Is picured in flight, 1941
This plane was retained by North American (not sent to England) for engineering and flight tests

>>64248433
This cub is one of my favorites

>>64248433
VP-52 Black Cats
based at Port Moresby, New Guinea
in flight formation December 1943

>>64230835
something looks off

>>64248739
>Woody's Wagon
Its Waddy's Wagon.

>>64250774
Darn it, thanks, I was quickly renaming it so I would have an easier time finding it and didn't look at the picture that closely.

>image limit reached
Oh well. Coastal command B-17s look amazing. Coastal command livery looks great on a lot of planes, but I think B-17s and Wellingtons wore it best.