The Nose Knows..........

[Jack Cook]

C-47A Italy 1944

A-20J 47th BG Italy 1944

B-25J CBI 1944

B-17G UK 1944

[Obergrafeter]

Wasn't the B-17 at Oskosh trying to win the dirty bird award away from Tigh with all that graffiti?

[CAPFlyer]

Interesting picture of the A-20J showing the patched over 75MM cannon port.

[TonyM]

Interesting picture of the A-20J showing the patched over 75MM cannon port.

A-20 airplanes did not mount 75mm cannon. B-25G and B-25H did.

That oval patch appears on almost all A-20 aircraft, less you're talking about the square patch, which also appears on many late model A-20 airplanes.

A machine gun blister was mounted there on early A-20 aircraft (A-20A; A-20B;A-20C). On other A-20C, there was a gun port just forward of the oval patch. The gun was deleted in the late A-20J series. It is my guess that the oval panel was removed to access or remove the machine gun mounted in the lower nose.

A factory photo of the open panel can be found on page 13 of :


Squadron/Signal Publication
A-20 HAVOC In Action

TonyM.

[Ken]

According to warbirdsresourcegroup.org, He11's Angel Out of Chute 13 was a B-17G-10-VE 42-39993, 612 BS, 401 BG. As I've mentioned elsewhere on WIX, this was my wife's step-grandfather's airplane. It appears that it also still carried an earlier name (according to the 401 BG web site) "Grossly Inadequate".

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/p ... hlight=jim

There is also a nice rendering of this airplane at:

http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/UR ... iend.html#

I'm going to see if we can get Grandpa Jim to see this photo; maybe he can identify those pictured.

Ken

[ProfromDover]

re: B-25J CBI 1944

Neat to see the gunpowder blast pattern on the fuse mounted guns. have to remember that detail for your next paint job...

[JDK]

Reckon that C-47 is an RAF Dakota, as it's wearing the same Pegasus on the nose as the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight example:

http://www.raf.mod.uk/bbmf/theaircraft/dakota.cfm

Dakota ZA947 currently wears the livery of 267 ‘Pegasus’ Squadron, which flew in the Transport, Trooping and Re-supply roles in the Middle East and the Mediterranean Theatres during 1943/44.The squadron employed various colour schemes on its Dakotas but always displayed its ‘Pegasus’ emblem prominently on the aircraft’s nose. The Squadron’s role included the re-supply of partisans and resistance fighters, behind enemy lines, either by para-drops or by landing at clandestine airstrips.

[Django]

Reckon...

Ok, who are you and what did you do with our friend James...

[Jack Cook]

Reckon

Well James I RECKON you could be right
But more importantly what's up the the Yankee Speak
You may have spent to much time in the colonies recently

[the330thbg]

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[Dave Homewood]

Great post Jack. I like the B-17 and the B-25's artwork.

The topic of the Pegasus painted Dakota was raised by me a while back on PlaneTalk forum here, but remained unanswered - now I have more pieces to the puzzle. Read the link and then come back to the below bit.
http://forum.planetalk.net/viewtopic.ph ... ght=madill

Here is a quick digital photo of the photos in the magazine mentioned in the link above. Sorry it's none too clear, I don't have a scanner here at home.


I have now looked up the career of Sqn Ldr Samuel Jackson Madill DFC, OBE, AE, and Order of the Crown (Yugo), and discovered that he served with:
No. 1675 Heavy Conversion Unit, RAF - on Liberators,
No. 90 Squadron RAF,
No. 108 Squadron RAF

He then flew with the Special Liberator Flight, RAF - aka "X Flight" - which was made up of two aircraft and four RNZAF pilots specially formed to drop gear to partisans in Yugoslavia and perform other special ops.

The other three pilots in that Special Liberator Flight were:
Sqn Ldr Desmond Malcolm Rolph-Smith DFC, The White Eagle of Yugoslavia 1st Class
Sqn Ldr John Austin Henry Smith DFC, Order of the Crown (Yugo)
and F/Sgt D.S. Clifford (anyone know his full name?)

Later the Flight was renamed as No. 148 Squadron RAF when it was expanded. It must be this unit that the caption referred to as a New Zealand Transport Squadron because there seemed to be predominantly kiwi crews.

As you can see here, No. 148 Squadron used a wide variety of types, but the C-47 is not mentioned.
http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/148_wwII.html

No. 108 Squadron that Madill is also listed as serving on also supported the Special Ops Liberators according tho this page:
http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/108_wwII.html

In that second photo in my post above the chap in the centre is Flt Lt Stanley George Culliford DSO, Virtuti Militari (Pol), RNZAF, who did indeed fly with No. 267 Squadron and performed one particularly amazing deed which you can read about on my forum here (it's well worth the read):
http://rnzaf.proboards.com/index.cgi?ac ... 380&page=1

So, why was Madill in a No. 267 Squadron Dakota? I wonder if, being special ops like No. 267 Squadron, did No. 148 Squadron maybe work together with them and Madill borrowed one of 267's Dakotas for the day when the photo was taken?

Or did all the Special Ops flying units use the Pegasus badge, sort of like the Paras? Really interesting stuff. If anyone can add more I'm really keen to learn. It's neat to think there was a secial ops unit made of of (at least mostly) Kiwis in the RAF.

[mustangdriver]

Reckon

Well James I RECKON you could be right
But more importantly what's up the the Yankee Speak
You may have spent to much time in the colonies recently

While he was here I showed him one episode of the Dukes of hazzard, and now he is talking like a country boy!

[JDK]

Um:

Etymology: Middle English rekenen, from Old English -recenian (as in gerecenian to narrate); akin to Old English reccan

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reckon

And widely used informally in most versions of English I'm aware of. But you go ahead, y'all...

[Jack Cook]

You did that in only 1 sentence what gives? We need at least 3 full paragraphs

[JDK]

You did that in only 1 sentence what gives?

Brevity.