Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, October 26, 1944. Gertrude Tompkins Silver.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, October 26, 1944. End of the Battle of ...: 

Thursday, October 26, 1944. End of the Battle of Leyte Gulf and the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Gertrude Tompkins Silver and the P-51D she was flying disappeared in a delivery flight from Los Angeles to Newark, NJ.

She was 33 years old and had jointed the WASPs after a boyfriend died fighting in the RAF.  She was the only WASP pilot to be classified as missing during the Second World War.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, March 6, 1944. "Black Monday"

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, March 6, 1944. "Black Monday": 

Monday, March 6, 1944. "Black Monday"

The first large scale daylight bombing raid on Berlin occured.  The raid, remembered as Black Monday, involved 814 bombers and 944 fighters from bases in southern England.  69 bombers were lost.

Miss Donna Mae II sustaining damage after the B-17 drifted under another B-17 dropping its bomb load. The plane would go down with all eleven crewmen.

P-51 pilot Donald Blakeslee would fly the first such aircraft over the city.  An early American fighter pilot, he first joined the RCAF in 1941, he served in the USAF until 1965 and passed away in 2008 at age 80.

For those watching Masters of the Air, it is depicted in Episode 7.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday February 11, 1944. The pioneering and tragic combat career of Wah Kau Kong (江華九).

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, February 11, 1944. The Factor Falls.: 

Friday February 11, 1944. The Factory Falls.

Wah Kau Kong (江華九), the first Chinese American fighter pilot, scored his first victory, showing down a FW190 while piloting a P-51B.  He'd be killed in a dogfight just eleven days later.  On that occasion, his wingman reported:

I was leading squadron in leader position of red flight, providing escort and target support for bombers with targets at Oschersleben and Halberstadt. 2nd Lt. Wau Kau Kong was my wingman. Enroute to target area, Northeim and Wernigerode, at 1350 hours I attacked a ME-410 which was pressing attack on a straggling B-17 at 16,000 feet. I fired a long burst from 300 yds, observing parts flying off the tail assembly and smoke pouring out of the right engine. All my guns stopped except one and I broke off attack to let my wingman finish off E/A. I circled and saw Lt. Kong fire at E/A from close range. The right engine of E/A burst into flames. As Lt. Kong broke off over the E/A the rear gunner must have hit him as his plane exploded and disintegrated in the air.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—February 11, 1944: First mission of the US 357th Fighter Group in P-51 Mustangs from England—this group would produce the most aces (42) in the US Eighth Air Force.

The U-424 was sunk off the Faroe's by a Wellington piloted by the RCAF.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, June 10, 1943. Pointblank

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, June 10, 1943. Pointblank:

Thursday, June 10, 1943. Pointblank

The Pointblank Directive was issued by the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff directing the implementation of Operation Pointblank, the round the clock Allied bomber offensive over Europe.  The order prioritized targets for the combined Allied air forces, starting with the German aircraft industry.

The order met with passive resistance from RAF's fighter command, which refused to provide escorts to the U.S. Army Air Force during the daylight, citing the inability to convert fighters for long ranges.  This would lead the US to study the conversion of P-51 Mustangs to that use.  It would also lead to considerable tension between the US and the UK on the topic of daylight escorts.

Sarah Sundin noted Pointblank on her blog:

Today in World War II History—June 10, 1943: US & UK begin Combined Bomber Offensive against Germany; priorities for bombing targets are submarine yards, aircraft & ball bearings factories, and oil targets

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, June 6, 1943. Famous Navy Crewman, A-36

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, June 6, 1943. Radio broadcasts, Triple Cro...:

Paul Newman, having enlisted days before his 18th birthday, was called up for service in the Navy.

Newman wanted to be a pilot, but was taken out of flight school when it was discovered he was color blind.  He went on to be a torpedo bomber crewman.

Sarah Sundin noted Newman's enlistment, but also noted the A36:

Today in World War II History—June 6, 1943: North American A-36 Apache flies first combat mission in a US Twelfth Air Force mission to Pantelleria. Future actor Paul Newman enlists in the US Navy, age 18.

We don't think much of the A-36, the dive bomber version of the P-51.  The odd aircraft only came into existence in the first place as the 1942 appropriations for new fighter aircraft had run out and converting the assembly line to dive bombers kept the P-51 line open.  Only 500 were built, with most used by the U.S. Army Air Force, but some used by the RAF.

A-36 in Italy.

Is it time to stop flying the old ones? The B-17 Nine-0-Nine Crashes

I've been in quite a few B-17s and ridden on one.  If you go back and look through the posts here you'll find photographs of them.

Two of those B-17s were the Nine 0 Nine and the Liberty Belle.

The Nine 0 Nine.

Both are now gone.*  The Nine O Nine crashed this week at a demonstration, killing ten people including some who had paid to ride in the old classic bomber.

I'm generally not inclined to tell people what to do with their own property. That's not something that squares with my own world view,  nor with what we might generally call "American Values", although increasingly there are plenty of Americans who are ready to tell other Americans exactly what they can and cannot do with all sorts of things.  And I'm not of the view that merely because something is old, it shouldn't be used.  I use plenty of old things myself, including driving on occasion an old truck that probably some feel shouldn't be driven due to its age.

Nine O Nine.

But few of us have something that's an historical treasure.  Once all of the flyable models of any one aircraft are done for, and the law of averages alone will bring that day upon us, more likely than not, there are none left and the history associated with them is gone as well.

B-17s weren't made to fly for 70 years.

Indeed, nothing made in the 30s or 40s that flew or rolled was.  Simply nothing was expected to last that long.

While most B-17s were made in the 1940s, during World War Two, the plane's first flight was in 1935.  In 1935 when the plane first flew flight itself was only 32 years in existence.  That's over 80 years ago now, and if we look back the other way, eighty years prior, people were not only not flying, they weren't driving either.

Trains didn't last for eighty years.  Wagons certainly didn't.  Automobiles, when they first came out, tended to be used up very quickly, in spite of their vast expense.  And airplanes cycled through generations incredibly quickly.

View from the now gone Liberty Belle.

The first "heavy" bombers came into existence during World War One, but just as with fighter aircraft, the bombers of mid war were already obsolete by the end of the war.  The first U.S. bombers to have the "B" designation (fighters had a "P" designation, for "pursuit") came into service in the 1920s and exited service nearly as quickly as they entered.  The fact that the U.S. Army Air Corps was up to the number "17" with the B-17 shows us how very quickly they cycled through the service.

The heavy aircraft that came into military service with the US largely made it through World War Two.  None the less, there's no doubt that aircraft like the B-17 and the B-18 were obsolescent by the time World War Two started, already primitive in comparison to aircraft like the B-24. They were kept in production not because they were first rate modern aircraft at that time, but because it was necessary.  Save for odd uses, as soon as the war was over, they were phased out of service. For that matter, the aircraft that made them obsolescent were already obsolescent themselves. In terms of heavy bombers, which were really something that only the United States and the United Kingdom fielded, the world had gone from the aircraft of the mid 1930s, to the those of the late 30s and early 40s, to the B-29, which made them all obsolete.  And the B-29 would only remain a first rate bomber until the late 1940s when jet powered bombers made their appearance. The B-36 had its first flight in 1946. The B-47 in 1947.  The B-52 in 1952.

The B-52 is still in Air Force use, and will be for the foreseeable future.  It will be, most likely, the first military aircraft to see 100 years of continual use.  But it was built in a completely different era.  Vastly more expensive than the B-17, which entered service less than 20 years prior to the B-52, it was designed to be flown by men who would have college educations and who were already use to a technical world. The B-17 was designed to be flown by farm boys who were used to tractors and made the Model A.

There's no earthly way that the designers and builders of the B-17 imagined them flying for 70 to 80 years.  Chances are, they didn't see them flying for more than ten.  During World War Two, those savvy to aircraft development didn't see a future for aircraft like the B-17 beyond the end of the war and, had they been quietly asked, would have already regarded it as obsolete.  It only had to offer its crew a chance of living through their tour.

And the fact that it did offer such a chance is why there remain any around today. They were rugged.

But they weren't built to fly forever.  And the flying ones will not.  The time has come to let them rest, while there are still any left that are capable of flight.

That is sad.  The fact that they still fly from town to town allows people to see them who would otherwise never get the chance.  But the end conclusion to continuing to allow them to fly seems evident.

_______________________________________________________________________________

To add to this sad tale, I've also been in an HE-111 that crashed later.  And I've viewed a P-51 which did.

The P-51C Betty Jane

The P-51C Betty Jane

The P-51C "Betty Jane", not the first time she's appeared on our site.

P-51C "Betty Jane"

The P51C "Betty Jane"

Collins Foundation P51C, Betty Jane, which was recently at the Natrona County International Airport.

P-51C "Betty Jane"

P-51C "Betty Jane"

This is the Dual-Seat P-51C Mustang "Betty Jane". I'm not sure if it has the original Packard engine or not (the Allison wasn't fully introduced until the D model), but I saw it fly in the airshow when it had a fuel system malfunction and had to land to get repaired. It took off again later that day.

Very pretty plane.

Airshow 2008

Airshow, 2008