Warbird Information Exchange

...that's what it's all about.

Many years ago, on another forum, Steve Young, a friend who is sadly no longer with us started a thread about the little things. He said:


Thanks Steve.

My response (among many others, here: http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=15849 ) was:

Since then, I've been privileged to act as a guide to several Dutch people who really did see one of the allied aircraft WHAM overhead as they suffered in occupied Europe.

Why should we fly them? That's why.

What's your story of what warbirds are about?

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

I was 12 years old, had run away again, and my social worker was bringing me home once more.....life at home was a bit unsettled....and I am across the street from my house, getting out of her car and not really looking forward to going inside....when beyond the house, I hear this incredible rumbling noise and I look up and see this MASSIVE formation of WWII planes, probably 12 of them at least, maybe more, heading directly at me from behind my house....now as to what types, the mind gets a bit fuzzy but I DO recall the B-17 being in the lead and they formed a diamond fomation behind it....this was about 1977-78, maybe earlier (76?) and the CAF were in town and doing a show and doing an evening fly by to attract interest in the show....

Still wondering if anyone anywhere in the Denver area has any photos of this occurence or of this particular show....I never got out to it.

Mark

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Mark Morris

Turn the "way back" clock back a few, living in rural Wisconsin. Every once in a while we would hear a low rumble turn into a roar as a finger four formation of century fighters at 200-300 feet ripped over head. One of the neighbors kids was an ANG pilot and when they got vectored anywhere near us he would overfly the house. Don't know if they were 102's or 106's, but definitely delta wing. the only ones I ever saw flying. It was some years later when reading up on just what their mission would have been.....go North...stop bombers.....makes one stop and thnk.

Last weekend we attended my grandson's fourth birthday party that had a 'superhero' theme. It was a hoot but I was supposed to dress as someone I'd never heard of. My son said 'just wear something green'. Not thinking of that, my LSFM Thunderbird B-17 shirt just seemed like good outerwear that day.
Cooper commented on my dress and all I could say was "I'm wearing some green and the Greatest Generation are my superheroes!"
BTW, he calls the 'Bird' '" the big green airplane". He's a bit fuzzy on the museum concept and all airplanes are "Grampa's friends' airplanes."

Doug

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As a good many of you know, I have been researching the training airfields in the CONUS (especially the Midwest) for many years. I've been fortunate to actually fly the pattern and land on some of the same airbases that thousands of WWII veterans did six decades ago. Ellen and I have walked into hangars, parachute lofts, bombsight vaults and many other buildings that were once occupied by Army Air Forces personnel and civilian employees "just doing their jobs". Every time we do so I feel as though I'm somehow connected to that time in history.

One day, however, will always stick in my mind as a day that history came alive for me: Ellen and I were turning base for Runway 17 at Kearney Municipal Airport (originally Kearney Army Air Field, processing center for B-17 aircraft and crews and later the B-29s) when we heard "Boeing 23Z entering downwind, #2 behind the Mooney". We were in the pattern, at a B-17 station, with a Fortress just behind us. I'll always remember 26 June, 2005 and taxiing to the Sub-Depot apron with SJ just behind us.

Scott

I was in the pattern at Fulton County Airport (FTY) near Atlanta one day in the spring of 1982, in a Beech Skipper. I had been boring some holes in the clouds, and was on a long base leg when the tower asked me to do a 360 to let faster traffic get ahead of me. I was just finishing the turn when two Mustangs passed in front of me about a half mile away. I entered final just as the Mustangs touched down. I was grinning thinking I had been in the pattern with a couple of Mustangs.

Neat.

Walt

1971 or so. I'm playing first base for the little league team. WW2 aviation had been in my blood since I found "Great American Fighter Pilots of WW2" on the shelf in 2nd grade. Throw in 12 0"Clock High on TV, model building etc, I'm hooked big time.

The game is going on when a sound I'd not heard before starts to grow in the distance. I finally catch sight of it and it's three B17s, fire bombers no doubt, headed north in formation to fight the fires in northern Minnesota.

Not too long afterwards, another sound outside I don't recognize but it drags me out the door looking skyward. It's the bright orange/red P63 KingCobra of Jack Sandberg that operated from the local airport. What a sound!

1976 and I'm taking flying lessons at the same airport. My instructor gets fed up at times and tells me to square off my turns in the pattern as I'm not flying a P51. Later on a flight with the same instructor, we're number 2 behind a twin. My instructor gives me a look and tells me that Richard Peterson Mustang ace with the 357th FG is flying that twin. In my mind I'm flying number two to a Mustang pilot.

Fast forward to 1985 and I'm coming out of the chapel near RAF Coltishall after a memorial service for 41 Squadron during the 41 reunion that took place in July 85. The Battle of Britain flight Spitfire II passes over with that sweet Merlin sound, right on cue in 41 Squadron markings. I'm standing between Peter Cowell and Tom Slack, both Spit drivers from 41 Squadron. I can't believe I'm there.

Moments I'll never forget

Dan

11 years ago when we moved to AL one of the first things I did (of course!) was to get checked out with the local airport to rent planes. There's a lot of history here that needed explorin' ...

My first XC was down to Selma (Craig Field, later Craig AFB). Craig by then was an uncontrolled field. I knew at the time that Craig as an advanced single-engine base saw a LOT of WWII AAF fighter pilots winged there, and later a lot of USAF pilots, particularly Vietnam jocks, were trained there as well. Two heroes of mine, Donald Emerson (4th FG, KIA) and Karl Richter (legendary Vietnam F-105 pilot, KIA on his 198th mission) both had known Craig well. I taxiied my little C-150 around the spacious ramp like I was in a car and finally parked and just walked around the foundations that were all that remained of the flight line buildings.

I then hopped over to Moton Field, a tiny airport that in the day was where the Tuskegee lads did their primary training. I parked my kite and walked around the place - especially the old crumbling hangar ... the whole time I was on the ground I didn't see a soul ... eerie.

Flying back home, I made sure to overfly the famous Tuskegee Army Air Field, where the guys all did their final training. Not operational except for a dragstrip on one of the old runways, I circled the very overgrown site where you could still easily see the outlines of the flight line and buildings. I was very conscious as I circled that this is where it all happened ...

I grew up next to Barksdale AFB, dedicated in 1933. The current home of the first US military bomb-droppers (96th Aero Sqdn of WW1 fame, now flying B-52Hs as the 96th BS), BAD was a MAJOR training base in WWII, and pretty much saw 'em all when it came to the bombardment mission. Plankowner 17th Bomb Group personnel were all veterans of Barksdale Field ... volunteers from the 17th later formed a small group that made the first US raid on Japan in April 1942.

Your project is very important, indeed!

Wade

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We've made those same stops in Alabama, Wade. In addition, every time we go to Maxwell to do airfield research we leave the airplane in the hands of Montgomery Aviation. They invariably put our machine in a hangar that was moved to MGM from Tuskegee Army Air Field. It's quite something to be hangared in the same building as the T-6s, P-40s and other warbirds used to train those young airmen so many years ago.

Scott

Small point of order, Wade. The 17th was the most experienced group at the beginning of the war in B-25s. They were credited with sinking a submarine while they were still stationed in Oregon. That is why Doolittle asked to supply volunteers for the mission. When they transferred to Barksdale they transitioned to the B-26. It was at this time that the USAAC began to use them as the core group to flesh out all of the new units. That's where " Daddy of the All " came into being for the 17th.

Dan, I got you beat by a few years with Great American Fighter Pilot, can't tell you how many times I've read that one. I lost my original copy that I got around the 3rd-4th grade but found another when my son was about the same age. I think I read it again. It's still on the shelf !

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Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

Late night - my bad. You're exactly right, Rick. Thanks for setting me straight.

I checked with a pal who would know, and he said the basic 'gen' is that a dozen or so of the Raid crewmen were indeed trained as cadets at Barksdale, which was a twin-engine and navigation school, in addition to the place where many famous bomb groups were formed into combat units. Don't know how I combobulated that with the already-existing 17th - who after the Raid transitioned to the Marauder at Barksdale - from which of course the core of the Raiders came.

Speaking of the Marauder, the old saying "One a day in Tampa Bay ..." isn't complete until you add the wartime "... and two a day the Barksdale way!". As Rick implies, BAD trained a lot of B-26 crews - the film How to fly the B-26 was actually filmed at Barksdale. The landmark water tower visible as the Marauder takes off is still there, as is the hangar and door they walk through going out to the plane on the ramp.

And, as long as we're talking about books that got us started, Sabre Jet Ace by Charles Coombs did it for me. I still have my copy. More importantly, the neato pen & ink illustrations inside by Rod Ruth inspired a 4th grader to try to draw "like that" ... I haven't stopped learning how to yet.

Wade

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As I've mentioned many times, my dad was a USAF F-89C Radar Observer or R/O (today's WSO/RIO) as they called them in the early to mid 1950s. He'd also logged several hours in the back of T-33s towing target sleeves in support of gunnery practice for the 20 mm cannon armed F-89Cs. Five years ago we flew from Milwaukee WI to Eglin AFB FL where the Classic Jet Aircraft Association was holding a "jet blast" fly-in. Dad flew with me in the T-33 and on arrival at Eglin, we were greeted by one of his old squadron mates waiting near base operations where we shut down and parked. Dad's posterior was a little numb and tingly from the 2 hour flight sitting on an ejection seat but he was in high spirits and shook it off like a pro. Our VIP guest and keynote speaker was former North Korean MiG-15 defector pilot Ken Rowe (his "Americanized name) which is a story in itself. The USAF guys at Eglin AFB were unbelievable hosts and we got F-15 sim rides, tours of the weapons test squadron, flight test squadron, and in turn we gave fam rides to some of the new USAF flight test pilots to get training evaluating an unfamiliar aircraft. Like "Second Air Force" wrote, it was nostalgic to fly in the patterns of historic places like Eglin, Hurlburt and Duke Fld in a classic jet though I'd been to those bases before in a C-130. The best part for dad and I was traditional aviator social hour at the fighter bar in the evening after flying our jets where we drank Jeremiah Weed and sang fighter pilot songs with the USAF Eglin guys (they were kind enough to overlook my checkered past as a Herc toad). Dad had always shared his USAF stories with me (one where his squadron was banned from the Ladd AFB AK O'Club for trashing it, then invited back when club decided the revenue $$ loss was too great). Over the years I shared my USAF stories with him but those nights at the Eglin O'Club were truly incredible moments where it was as if dad and I were beamed back to a common timeless era, our flying histories converging at the fighter bar, donning flightsuits with fellow flyers possessing the same aviation DNA, drinking whiskey, singing bar songs, breaking glasses, playing crud and talking bullsh1t, and just plain telling lies of how we won the war etc. On the last night after a few shots of Jeremiah Weed, my 74 year old dad smiled, shook his head, patted me on the shoulder and said, "I'm gettin' too old for this sh1t, I'm going back to the "Q" (Visiting Officers' Quarters or VOQ). As he left the bar, some of the guys playfully heckled him and dad turned back, smiled and and gave them the one finger salute. I guess growing up you know your dad as well...your dad. That generation is pretty reserved and stoic in their later years. But it was a cool for me to get a firsthand glimpse into that world of dad as a young aviator I'd only known through a photo album, Kodachrome slides and the occasional sanitized story. On this occasion, dad told some new stories like buzzing an old girlfriend's hometown with a flight of four F-89s in afterburner, bouncing US Navy Reserve F-9 Panthers based out of Glenview NAS and drinking whiskey out of a wooden popcorn bowl with his frostbitten hands (frostbite rendered him unable to hold a glass) after a sortie in the Alaska winter where he and his pilot lost the canopy on their F-89. Dad only had leather flying gloves on while hanging on to his helmet. That week history came alive and reminded me of the timelessness of Air Force traditions and the guys wearing the "bags" (flightsuits).

I made a point of tracking down a copy when my son was that age too. We got Gabby's autograph in it and Jimmy Swett's.

Amazing how one book can change a direction like that. American Heritage series had one called "Airwar over Hitler's Germany" that was a close second. First time I read part of Serenade to the Big Bird" was an excerpt in that book. Lots of great photos with the text. Just what a little kid with a new passion needed to keep going

It was a long time ago.

Back in the mid '70's I was on a narrow country road on the German side of the Rhine. It was a perfect summer's afternoon, like driving through an illustration in a children's book about knights and damsels and castles and perfect endings.

The Black Forest was to the left, a picture book village from another era was floating in the hops fields a couple of kilometers ahead of us, and my wife, young and beautiful, was next to me, wearing one of those revealing, breeze tossed gossamer summer outfits that was daring me, unsuccessfully, to stop thinking about possibilities for the evening...

We were motoring along in a Citroen, the cloth roof rolled back, going hardly faster than, well, the birds and bees when all of a sudden the dreaminess of the afternoon was shattered by the baying of the hounds of h ell.

Startled enough to create odors, I looked up through where the roof would be to see three iron crossed, wing tip tanked and high tailed Luftwaffe 104's in real tight formation about, oh, say six or eight inches above the car, howl over us as they headed down the road themselves in the direction of the village.

I pulled over and we watched them, all tucked in looking and flying as a single aircraft, describe three orbits around the houses in the near distance. A hundred eighty degrees into their third lap, that incredible sound rent the sky again as a fourth flew overhead. Just as the trio finished their last circle, their brother joined them in perfect timing and formation and the four ship disappeared into the distance ahead of us as quickly as they had overtaken us from behind.

The whole East West thing came into pretty sharp focus for me then, and I never looked at a map of Europe again without thinking that for some souls, the roads and symbols and colors spread out before me that I was looking at to plan a vacation, they were looking at to plan how to keep their version of civilization alive.

Hi guys,

A few memories have been stirred up by some of your stories guys.

I too grew up as a 4th grader reading that "Great American figher pilots of
WWII" as well as that American Heritage book on Air War over Hitlers
Germany. It really brought back a memory when I stumbled on a copy in a
used bookstore a couple years ago.. some of those books make big
impressions and inspired me to get my license. And a pretty big book
collection.
My father was almost 10 when the Germans moved into his small town in
Northern Jutland in Denmark. He remembers the planes and air battles
that happened overhead. He remembers vividly waking up to a whole bunch
of Germans rumbling through his small town one morning.
So here I am as a kid in the mid 70's, working with my dad in the yard on
a summer day when a WWII plane in full german markings comes flying
over on approach to our local airport in Racine.
Having read more than my fair share of WWII aviation, I'm all wild about
seeing my first ever German Junkers JU88 trimotor rumbling along with its
unique drone of its engines as it passes directly over us. I'm all excited
when I noticed my dad was eerily quiet, with a far off look on his face of a
time long ago, as we watch it pass into the distance.
It took a couple moments for him to speak, and when he finally did, he said,
"Yes, I knew what kind of plane it was. I recognized the noise of the
engines... Its been a long time since I have seen one of those....". After
which we didn't say much for a while. One of those moments where I
didn't really know what to say, but I didn't want to leave and walk away
either. Later on came some stories about seeing bombers overhead, and
the germans with their listening stations and anti-aircraft batteries near his
village. Stories of nearly 5 years of occupation have slowly filtered out
over the years, of cutting wires, of my uncles having to go fill in the bomb
craters at the Aalborg airport, and of various incidents with soldiers.

I don't think I'll ever forget that look on his face. To this day I can honestly
say he doesn't hate the germans. He used the german he learned later on
in life to get himself out of a couple of sticky situations. When the germans
left he recalls they essentially left most everything they couldn't carry as
they were pretty much forced to walk home. Just don't get him going on
General Montgomery and crew. I get the impression they were ready to
start up the resistance movement again, after 5 years the Danes had had
enough.
henning

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