Warbird Information Exchange

When I got to the hangar on Sunday evening I walked straight to the nose of Ol'927 and looked at the bomb sight for some reason. I didn't know why then, but after Ellen called me last night the reason is clear. A good friend of mine, Wayne Allen, had passed away at 89 years of age on Saturday, and she had just read the obituary.
http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1312223.html
When I first met Wayne we were at a McCook Army Air Base reunion. Someone suggested I visit with this quiet, unassuming gentleman walking through the hangar where we set up displays for the get-together. We introduced ourselves, and when Wayne found out I was an airplane mechanic he really opened up. It seems that he scored very highly in technical subjects during his training (farmkids like machinery), and his first assignment was to work with Sperry on the S-series bombsight and its integration with the A-series autopilot. The government decided to equip some B-24s with the Sperry sight due to a possible shortage of Nordens, and Wayne was a 2nd Lt. in the development program. He told me that the airplanes his test unit was assigned were some of the very early Ford-built B-24Es, and one of his friends was lost on a test hop when the tail failed on the E they were flying. After a period with the Sperry folks, Wayne was assigned to the 445th B.G. and went to Tibenham as an Ordance Officer. The 445th was originally equipped with Liberators mounting the Sperry sight that Wayne was an expert on.

Like most veterans, Wayne didn't tell a lot of stories, but he was fond of describing the incredible English weather. He and another officer were assigned to the Security Detail one night at Tibenham, and as they were walking the perimeter to check on guardposts, Wayne's buddy walked into the south end of a northbound horse! Wayne told me you could smell the pony but couldn't see him until contact was made!

Wayne took hundreds of remarkable photos of men, places, and airplanes from his time in England and "smuggled" the negatives home after the war. He started to develop them a few years! ago, and maybe someday I'll get permission to share some of them here.

Farewell, my friend.

What a cool story. A coworker of mine recently lost a friend who had been a B-17 pilot and told him many stories.

RICK

Thanks, Rick.

Wayne was so much fun to talk airplane with--electrical systems, flight controls, and especially bomb sights and all manner of bombing equipment, just rolled off his tongue like he had been doing it yesterday rather than 65 years ago. Since I was truly interested in his experience, hours would pass in what seemed like a couple of minutes. He told me the first time we met that he didn't fly combat missions when he was overseas, but that he felt like he used up most of his flying luck doing the Sperry development work in those early Ford-built B-24Es. After Wayne's unit lost two airplanes under the same circumstances in a short period, he told me that the AAF ferried the remaining "E"s to a Mod Center to have the problems corrected. They were issued some Consolidated "D" aircraft and finished up the program with no more lost tails.

Scott

Today is someday. I was on another forum a couple of days ago and the Kassel mission was being discussed. I posted a little remembrance of Wayne's from the days after the tragic losses the 445th suffered that day. One of the replies was from another historian, Linda Alice Dewey, president of the Kassel Mission Historical Society. The Society website is here: http://kasselmission.com/index.htm

During our posting Linda told me that Wayne had lent her several rolls of his "smuggled" film to be developed and archived. He took many rolls of film while stationed at Tibenham, and she just sent me a couple of pics to post here. It's been over a year since his passing, but here are two photos of my friend during 1944 and '45.

This one was taken at Tibenham, most likely in the Technical Area where then-Captain Allen's shop was located:


This photo was taken in Scotland in April of 1945--not too long before heading back to the States:


We miss you, Wayne.
Scott

Wayne and I could sit and talk about autopilots, the Sperry bombsight, the proper way to parallel a Liberator's generators, and other (to most people, esoteric) stuff for literally hours on end. He was in his eighties when I first met him, but he could remember tiny bits of trivia from his work during WWII.

You mentioned the Kassel disaster--Wayne was a member of the ground echelon and told me that everyone was in shock after losing nearly the entire air echelon on that mission. People were simply wandering around aimlessly the next day with nothing to do but think about what had happened to their crews and airplanes. Fresh aircraft were ferried in very rapidly and replacement crews appeared, so the men once again had jobs to do getting the new machines ready to fight. Wayne said having new ships and crews did help morale a little, though things were never quite the same as before 27 September, 1944.

Scott