Warbird Information Exchange

Aloha Saxman,
The superstructure above the waterline [and below the OLD memorial] was removed for the current memorial and is all that is left. Nothing exists for the rest of what you list. This is located behind a guarded and locked gate, which once was open to some folk who were able to obtain steel shards...and now this material is being donated to select museums and to raise monies for select charities.
Cheers,
David Aiken

I found this forum and thread while researching 2LT John Dains, and just HAD to join. My dad, the late Lt. Col. Stephen W. Prime Sr., was a propeller mechanic with the 47th Pursuit Squadron at PH on 7 Dec 1941. (He was a sergeant at the time, but retired from the USAF in 1963 as an LTC. He died in 1969.) For years I've been intrigued that so little is known about Lt. Dains. If there is anyone here who can steer me to photos, obits, etc., I'd be obliged. Ironically, I live right by Barksdale Air Force Base (and also cover it in my work as a military reporter) and that is where the 47th, now the 47th Fighter Squadron with the Air Force Reserve's 917th Wing, is now based. I'm in touch with their historian, Staff Sgt. John Snowman, and they have very little on Dains. I'd at least like to get a memorial to him placed with the unit. Any help getting info would be appreciated.

Also, has anyone here heard of a B-26 belly-landing in Cross Lake here during World War I? It's supposedly still there, silted over. I know someone who eyed it going in, and the director of the museum at the base has spoken to at least two pilots who remember the silhouette of the plane under the lake surface being visible at times for at least a year or two after the war.

I have access to all my paper's microfilm and will happily (and freely) do lookups for coverage of crashes, etc.

Best to all, John Prime, Shreveport, LA

_________________
John Andrew Prime
Co-author of "Barksdale Air Force Base"
Arcadia Publishing
(800) 462-6436, ext. 250

Aloha John,
Happy New Year!
Glad that you have an interest in John Dains! I am working on a memorial plaque for John, too. Yet, it is hopefully to be set up at or near his crash site. I have a thin file on John, thanks to John's 1941 roommate, and later to John's brother and nephew.

Follow the above URL "spoiler" about American aircraft airborne during the attack and find a LOT more about the attack. Write me direct at:
PearlHarborHistory (at) Hotmail (dot) com, too.
Cheers,
David Aiken

See:
http://www.b-26marauderarchive.org/NL/T ... 1/V1N2.pdf

I have this information. Actually, we had many airplanes go in the lake, but all (that we know of) burned save for the tail and were on the shore or in the shallows. In the early 1940s, the lake had an in-channel depth of some 40 feet. It has since silted to where it is no deeper than 10 feet anywhere. I have it from a police diver that a stolen car ditched in parts of the lake, at least in the '60s, could be swallowed up by the muck over a weekend. So....

Our paper was quite spotty on coverage of military crashes in World War II. Our editor-publisher at the time was a World War I veteran and one of the original American Legion founders. A prime mover in the effort to get Barksdale here, he would have erred on the side of security and need-to-know at the time, so only about one in three crashes saw coverage, particularly if there was no loss of life.

There were a lot of crashes prior to 1943, and for early 1944 the official memory at the base was that there were few if no crashes .... until I started to look up stories we'd written. In one 42-day period there were eight crashes (including two mid-air collisions) that took the lives of 43 fliers -- better than one a day, on average. It was one of the bloodiest periods in Barksdale history.

I'm collecting all the stories on these, hope to get the reports, and some day would like to see a memorial to all those who died here in training.

This is starting to get off thread, and that could bother folks. Is there a more appropriate thread to post this in, or can we digress?

_________________
John Andrew Prime
Co-author of "Barksdale Air Force Base"
Arcadia Publishing
(800) 462-6436, ext. 250

May I suggest you start a new thread? Your knowledge and dedication to
this history has the "legs" to stand on it's own. Fascinating potential

_________________
He bowls overhand...He is the most interesting man in the world.
"In Peace Japan Breeds War", Eckstein, Harper and Bros., 3rd ed. 1943(1927, 1928,1942)
"Leave it to ol' Slim. I got ideas...and they're all vile, baby." South Dakota Slim
"Ahh..."The Deuce", 28,000 pounds of motherly love." quote from some Mojave Grunt
DBF