Heavily Laiden Jugs

[Jack Cook]

365th FG

318th FG

78th FG

353rd FG

[retroaviation]

In the first picture, it appears that they're doing a big NO-NO by pulling the prop through backwards. Perhaps they're just moving it a small amount and "X'ing" the prop after shut down or something.

Gary

[Mudge]

Never having BTDT, I don't know the answer to this BUT...Would they:
1) have just landed with a full bomb load?
2) be pulling the prop through with no one in the cockpit?
3) simply be posing for a ground crew "Hero Shot"?
Educate me.

Mudge the educable

ps...Jack...you gotta' stop using titles like this. Makes us all expect something totally different. Of course it could be that many of us suffer from an incurable case of prurience.

[retroaviation]

It's possible that they just taxied it over to another area and just shut down. And it's no problem turning it through with nobody in the cockpit as long as you confirm the mag switch (and electrical power...just in case) is turned off, AND you treat the prop like the mags were still on...again, just in case.

It's true that this could've just been a posed shot though. Anymore info on that shot, Jack? I think it's neat to see the ground crews, but I just couldn't help but make the observation that they were turning it backwards.

Gary

[Jack Cook]

I think it's posed. The guy in front is smiling and the guy to the left seems way to amused!!

Last edited by Jack Cook on Mon Feb 11, 2008 11:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

[Dave Smith]

I wonder where the shot of Chunky was taken? The 365th were at Beaulieu (pronounced Bewley!) in southern England but this could have been later in France. It's parked on Sommerfeld tracking, a British design from the early war period for temporary runways. Totally inadequate for P-47s, it was replaced by the much tougher Square Mesh Tracking (SMT) at their Advanced Landing Grounds. Sommerfeld Track was retained for parking areas. PSP was the real answer later on. I saw that photo many years ago but never noticed they were pulling the prop thru the wrong way!

[51fixer]

In the first picture, it appears that they're doing a big NO-NO by pulling the prop through backwards. Perhaps they're just moving it a small amount and "X'ing" the prop after shut down or something.

Gary

Naw- There winding up the rubber bands!
Rich

[bdk]

Well you can't very well pose for a shot if your back will be to the camera. Of course the photographer could've moved, but maybe the background was cluttered with some top secret stuff.

[Mr Widgeon]

[quote="Dave Smith"]I wonder where the shot of Chunky was taken? The 365th were at Beaulieu (pronounced Bewley!) in southern England but this could have been later in France. It's parked on Sommerfeld tracking, a British design from the early war period for temporary runways. Totally inadequate for P-47s, it was replaced by the much tougher Square Mesh Tracking (SMT) at their Advanced Landing Grounds. Sommerfeld Track was retained for parking areas. PSP was the real answer later on. I saw that photo many years ago but never noticed they were pulling the prop thru the wrong way![/quot

I don't think it was on the Continent.
The airplane is in full Invasion Stripes, hence June or July 1944.
I doubt they would have brought, by then obsolete, RAF matting to the Continent when the supply of PSP was plentiful.

[JDK]

3) simply be posing for a ground crew "Hero Shot"?
Educate me.

99 gets 100 it's a posed press shot. 'Go and look busy', comes after 'drape yourself with ammo and look busy' or 'pose round the tailplane and someone point at a map' clichés the press can't avoid. My 'favourite' are the ones with the squadron's whole groundcrew team 'servicing' one aircraft, rather than the reality two pissed-off blokes in the pissing rain trying to move a P-47 out of the mud - when the press aren't there...

Cheers,

[Dave Smith]

I think you are right about that, Mr Widgeon. Most probably Beaulieu as it's close to the fleshpots of Southampton and Bournemouth. The press wouldn't want to wander off to one of the cow pasture ALGs in the depths of the southern English countryside!