GUTS!!

Holedigger · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 11:23 am

Is that AC a d520?

RyanShort1 · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 11:26 am

Holedigger wrote:

Is that AC a d520?

I think so!

GTG!

Ryan

the330thbg · **Joined:** Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:06 pm **Posts:** 2713

Water tower.

They still have those in Northern France and through-out.
No doubt it tooks GUTS, no doubt.., but hey.. while you are up there and basically CONTROL the air.,. why not have some fun and shoot at stuff if you want to! :shock:

For all we know they were briefed that anything that looks like a duck is a duck.. et al.., water tower, flak tower.., WTF.., shoot first and ask questions later!

mustangdriver · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 12:49 pm

It took guts just to sit in that aircraft and go on a mision.

Cripes · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 6:23 pm

Hmmm, I always assumed they were flak towers. Good to have more insights.

Jack Cook · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 6:33 pm

Yes a D-520. That's 78th FG ace Jim Wilkerson 's film.
He was considered the #1 straffer in the 8th AF and sadly was KIFA while flying to a base in the UK to give a lecture on straffing techinques

I've got a very sad photo of his widow receiving his many awards :cry:

Robbie Roberts · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:27 pm

If that is a flak tower, then we have a whole string of them across southern NJ- Make almost a straight line... You can navigate by them! I have! Just need to know which one you're near.

Robbie
who turns left when flying across Southampton, NJ at the Vincentown Flak Tower to steer towards N14...

JDK · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:51 pm

Thanks Ryan, I'd actually hoped someone could come up with the card, and you did better.

Note the real flack towers' structure and camouflage. (And a bonus D-520! Ta).

Jack Cook wrote:

Quote:

So back to the title 'Guts'. Not quite what we see

My answer will be much shorter than yours James :twisted:

I think your wrong! There's a difference between doing your duty/flying the missions and taking it to the next level.
Some guys were just that way. Hofer, Cyril Jones plus Righetti are good examples. Sorry but it takes GUTS to do this kind of work :idea:

Um, not actually my point, hence the detail there.

FWIW, indeed, there are indeed more effective fighter pilots - leaders, some aces etc. and no argument that it takes 'guts' to fly fighters in combat. But the GI joes on the ground seeing the pic in print would be pretty tough about the flyboys and the way they were presented. Whatever they thought the risk, water towers don't fire back, and hitting it would be the same error judgement as a 'target fixation' collision or controlled collision with terrain.

The pic was 'written up' to enable an 'our brave boys' headline then (and now). Not arguing that they were brave, but it's an excess of guts available in this case - they probably didn't even make the tower leak...

And one can ask what was being missed while an obsolete fighter (parked, oh so attractively in the middle without camouflage or protection) was attracting the bullets? Something elsewhere on the field, safe? (Probably not, but...)

It's easy to be an armchair critic, and I'm not criticising the pilots (they were in a dangerous environments with split second decision making) but I am criticising our tendency to fall into simplistic gung-ho versions of the history - then - when there were excuses and now, when there aren't.

Just 2d.

Jack Cook · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:56 pm

Quote:

but I am criticising our tendency to fall into simplistic gung-ho versions of the history - then - when there were excuses and now, when there aren't.

To change the caption is to rewrite history :shock:

JDK · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 10:02 pm

Jack Cook wrote:

Quote:

but I am criticising our tendency to fall into simplistic gung-ho versions of the history - then - when there were excuses and now, when there aren't.

To change the caption is to rewrite history :shock:

Yup!

If you don't review* history you'll be doomed to repeat it.

*'Look at again'...

From Quotemangle TM

Brad · **Joined:** Thu Apr 29, 2004 10:30 pm **Posts:** 1131

JDK wrote:

Not arguing that they were brave, but it's an excess of guts available in this case - they probably didn't even make the tower leak...

And one can ask what was being missed while an obsolete fighter (parked, oh so attractively in the middle without camouflage or protection) was attracting the bullets? Something elsewhere on the field, safe? (Probably not, but...)

And how long were you in the military James? How many times have you flown into combat? How many times have you been shot at? Ohhh that's right....

I just love when a person who gets their knowledge from a book comes along and questions the bravery of people in war over sixty years ago when they have NO IDEA AT ALL what the person in the plane or on the ground was doing or thinking. I am so dang tired of people like you trying to rewrite history because it's not recorded quite the way you'd like to see it. It's often because you just don't think it could have happened that way.

It's true that the picture probably isn't a "flak tower" in the traditional sense but that doesn't mean it wasn't a dangerous place to be attacking. Maybe the public relations people just didn't get the caption right.

Neither you nor anybody else has any idea what might have been on top of that tower. Probably wasn't a FLAK cannon but it might have been a kraut with a machine gun. You don't know what was on the ground below the tower behind the fence. Might have been a bunch of krauts with guns. You don't know if the guy who's plane shot this footage was the tenth guy in a row to attack this target. You don't know if the guy strafeing the plane on the ground was taking out the last target. You don't know if that D-520 just landed and was being destroyed so it couldn't be serviced and put back in the air. Even if that is just a water tower it is called a target of opportunity. You destroy the bad guy's ability to make war. Taking out his water supply is often a big part of that puzzle.

You may question the "guts" of the man in the P-47 and his kind that were able to operate from your percieved version of a safe place out of the mud, but I dare say you wouldn't be qualified to flush out the man's reliefe tube at the end of the day.

JDK · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 10:31 pm

Brad, calm down.
What I wrote before was:

JDK wrote:

It's easy to be an armchair critic, and I'm not criticising the pilots (they were in a dangerous environments with split second decision making)...

OK?

RyanShort1 · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 10:41 pm

FYI, that OTHER "Flak Tower" picture was also labeled as such. My "gut" feeling is that someone in intelligence was telling these guys that they were flak towers and they were dutifully attacking them. I've NEVER seen that second or third picture in any of the wartime publications I've seen so far as "propaganda."

Ryan

A2C · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 10:47 pm

JDK wrote:

Quote:

Um, not actually my point, hence the detail there.

FWIW, indeed, there are indeed more effective fighter pilots - leaders, some aces etc. and no argument that it takes 'guts' to fly fighters in combat. But the GI joes on the ground seeing the pic in print would be pretty tough about the flyboys and the way they were presented. Whatever they thought the risk, water towers don't fire back, and hitting it would be the same error judgement as a 'target fixation' collision or controlled collision with terrain.

The pic was 'written up' to enable an 'our brave boys' headline then (and now). Not arguing that they were brave, but it's an excess of guts available in this case - they probably didn't even make the tower leak...

And one can ask what was being missed while an obsolete fighter (parked, oh so attractively in the middle without camouflage or protection) was attracting the bullets? Something elsewhere on the field, safe? (Probably not, but...)

It's easy to be an armchair critic, and I'm not criticising the pilots (they were in a dangerous environments with split second decision making) but I am criticising our tendency to fall into simplistic gung-ho versions of the history - then - when there were excuses and now, when there aren't.

Can you cite sources which disprove it being a "flak tower"? Or is this version of history simply JDK trying to write his own novel? Shall we call it the "War According to JDK"?

. I've heard other theories too, like that the Luftwaffe developed anti-gravity aircraft. Any theories on this?

RyanShort1 · **Posted:** Fri Jun 26, 2009 10:54 pm

A2C wrote:

Can you cite sources which disprove it being a "flak tower"? Or is this version of history simply JDK trying to write his own novel? Shall we call it the "War According to JDK"?

. I've heard other theories too, like that the Luftwaffe developed antigravity aircraft.

The photographic evidence surely doesn't make it look that "dangerous" if you look back at it. And we just had (earlier in the thread) a fellow mention that there are more of these across France...
And why do you guys have to keep picking on JDK? Just because he's using a bit of critical thinking doesn't mean he's what you're making him out to be. Oh, I guess I missed that point about further research and asking questions being off limits...
No one's questioning bravery, or the pilot's courage or skill. The question, to me, is: were the pilots being briefed to attack these as "flak towers," (three instances of which I've been able to pull from the archives) or were they just targets of opportunity? Also, did the Germans at some time use water towers as a high point to spot and or shoot at aircraft - leading the allied airmen to think that they were indeed sources of flak?

Ryan

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