The passing of my Hero...

[Jesse C.]

Heartfelt condolences to you and yours.

Vaya con Dios

[Django]

Godspeed.

[Ztex]

Thank you all for the kind thoughts.

You folks here on WIX are wonderful!


L. Thompson. I would love to see more pictures from this group. He spoke mostly of flying Blue "Q" no nose art....just squadron marked "Q" . He did fly V-Grand one time. Other than that, no nose art adorned airplanes or tail numbers known.

Thanks all!

Zane

[CrewDawg]

Zane,
I am sorry to hear of your loss. Your uncle is a true hero to all of us and we thank him for his service and sacrifice. I wish that I could get Chuckie flyable sooner so we could do a flyover at his funeral.

[L. Thompson]

Credit Bob "BeeBee" Ball of Hayden, Idaho with the photos I will post below:

His album contained mostly photos of 464th & 465th BG B-24s. Of the 465th aircraft I could identify most were from the 780th and 781st Bomb Squadrons. Two from the 483 BS/465th BG were Blue X, a B-24H-15-FO, 42-52464 named "Rough and Ready" and Blue A, another B-24H-15-FO, 42-52473, named "PITH AND MOAN" His album had 3 or 4 photos of "V Grand 5000". I tried to look close to see if Nathan's name appeared anywhere in these photos of V Grand (B-24J-195-CO, 44-41064) but didn't see it.


The right side of Rough and Ready said "Rough and..." and had a scantly clad blonde with two six shooters in her hands and wearing a cowboy hat (see: b24bestweb). The left side nose was "...Ready" and here an apparent red-head was...well...how else can you say it...Ready.



Here's a couple of photos of PITH AND MOAN:





Here are two snap-shots of "BeeBee" and crew working on removing the tail on a B-24 marked with a big Q on the fuselage. Could this be Blue Q ???



Here is a B-24 with a covering of snow and it looks like it may have a Q on the fuselage as well...




Here are some of his "V GRAND 5000" from Bob Ball's album:







I think I have more than may be 783rd BS/465th BG possibles. PM me sometime.

Lowell

[Ztex]

Wow...great stuff Lowell!

I don't think the first airplane is it, he told me his Q was not camouflaged. The second one? maybe...


The service went well today. We had an Army/Airforce honor guard there to care for the flag...all was well until the Specialist presented the flag to the family "...on behalf of a grateful nation..." Then we all teared up...dangit.

I had hoped to be able to arrange some sort of flyover today at the cemetery, and a few folks here put me in touch with several folks that could make it happen but alas the timing didn't work out...thanks to those folks for the good try!
Thanks again for all the support from WIX

(Does that sound sappy enough? ...sorry but its the mood of the day.. )