yee@edison.seas.ucla.edu (John Yee/;093091;eegrad) (10/24/90)
From: yee@edison.seas.ucla.edu (John Yee/;093091;eegrad)
One of you may know the history related to bombing missions over Germany
better than I, but I seem to recall that the finish 25 missions and go
home policy was not implemented right from the start.
Question: Are there some unsung 36 mission vets out there who accomplished
their feats under an old keep-going-till-you-don't-come-back era?
Question: Judging by the looks of the movie's Memphis Belle, it looks to
be a pretty late style plane, did none of the many planes before
it make it to 25 missions.
jy, yee@ee.ucla.edu, email welcome.ck@uunet.UU.NET (Chris Kern) (10/25/90)
From: voa3!ck@uunet.UU.NET (Chris Kern) In article <1990Oct22.035513.17273@cbnews.att.com> yee@edison.seas.ucla.edu (John Yee/;093091;eegrad) writes: >. . . >Question: Judging by the looks of the movie's Memphis Belle, it looks to > be a pretty late style plane, did none of the many planes before > it make it to 25 missions. The _real_ Memphis Belle supposedly was the first B-17 to complete 25 missions over Europe. Or so the War Department told Willy Wyler when he was making the documentary on which (I gather; I haven't seen it yet) the current feature film is based. However, I doubt that the producers of the feature film had the luxury of specifying the specific aircraft to be used to portray the Memphis Belle. As others have pointed out, there aren't that many surviving B-17s. (Wyler flew with the crew of the Memphis Belle as an observer on at least one combat mission to get film for the documentary. He even recorded the interphone conversations on a wire recorder to acquire realistic sound. Unfortunately, the results were both too difficult to understand and too obscene to be used in the sound track, and the dialogue had to be recreated during the final production.) -- Chris Kern Voice of America, Washington, D.C. ...uunet!voa3!ck +1 202-619-2020
dps@otter.hpl.hp.com (Duncan Smith) (10/26/90)
From: dps@otter.hpl.hp.com (Duncan Smith) >From: ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Nur Iskandar Taib) > >I haven't seen pictures of the Me108 "Taifun", but >it supposedly had a pretty ellitpical wing like >the Spitfire. R.J. Mitchell was supposedly influenced >by this. Taifuns were popular as personal transports, NO! NO! NO! The Bf108 had a very angular wing, like the Bf109. The elliptical wing of the Spitfire, which was incidentally much more difficult to manufacture, has often been taken to represent British engineering's quest for the elegant solution and British industry's traditions of craftsmanship were fully exercised in making it. The Spitfire took fully three times the man hours to produce compared with a 109. The memory of RJ Mitchell is well-nigh SACRED in this country ..:-) >But if Me109s are scarce, wouldn't 108s >be even scarcer? There is now an airworthy 109 in the UK; it was rebuilt at my old local airfield, Bournemouth/Hurn where rumours about it persisted for years to the point where nobody believed them anymore ... Until they finally finished the thing. Duncan
military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) (10/29/90)
From: p0.f7.n391.z1.fidonet.org!Scott.Johnson (Scott Johnson)
JY> the looks of the movie's Memphis Belle, it looks to
JY> be a pretty late style plane, did none of the many planes
What it is supposed to be is a B-17 F model (all but one were
later G models). While many later planes were to fly over 100 missions,
the Belle was really the first one to complete the 25. The E model (and
all models before that) saw most of its action in the pacific, and the
zeros mauled the -17 pretty badly.pv@polari.UUCP (Paul Varn) (10/30/90)
From: pv@polari.UUCP (Paul Varn) In article <1990Oct24.144039.13195@cbnews.att.com> yee@edison.seas.ucla.edu (John Yee/;093091;eegrad) writes: >From: yee@edison.seas.ucla.edu (John Yee/;093091;eegrad) > >One of you may know the history related to bombing missions over Germany >better than I, but I seem to recall that the finish 25 missions and go >home policy was not implemented right from the start. >Question: Are there some unsung 36 mission vets out there who accomplished > their feats under an old keep-going-till-you-don't-come-back era? I live with a pilot who flew B25s in WWII. He claims that the number of missions flown berfore "rotation" could be anywhere between 20 - 25 missions. Rotation could mean just sent to another war zone. There was also a "point system" that was used as a joke. His wing had enough "points" to rotate a whole squadron. There was another "joke" that your replacement was in training back in the states. In kindergarten. -PV-
gahooten@orion.arc.nasa.gov (Gregory A. Hooten) (10/30/90)
From: gahooten@orion.arc.nasa.gov (Gregory A. Hooten) I just finished Martin Caiden's book B17 Flying Fortress, and he talked about the 25 mission crunch. He says that there was no limit on the number of missions that could be flown at the start, but I don't know when the limit was implemented. He did say that on average the missions lost 10% of forces on each mission until late in '44, and that anyone flying over 10 were flying on borrowed time. The book is most interesting if you have an incling of interest in the B17. There is one story of a waist gunner who scored 7 kills on one mission. It was contested, and over 200 people interviewed. All the kills stand. He killed only two others confirmed on all other missions. One story of the whole inside of the bomber burning out, but it still got back to England, and a true adventure of skip-bombing, where they skip the BOMBER off the water not once, but three times to get it back to atltitude enough to fly to England. Well researched, many interviews, and much detail. Good reading. Greg Hooten
ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Nur Iskandar Taib) (11/01/90)
From: ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Nur Iskandar Taib) > What it is supposed to be is a B-17 F model (all but one were >later G models). While many later planes were to fly over 100 missions, >the Belle was really the first one to complete the 25. The E model (and >all models before that) saw most of its action in the pacific, and the >zeros mauled the -17 pretty badly. The Japanese actually had a pretty healthy respect for the B-17s. Saburo Sakai describes how they would re- peatedly shoot at them, all the while dodging 50 cal shells, and the things would just keep on flying. It took them a long time before they discovered that a head-on attack was devastatingly effective. Apparently shells coming head-on would set off the bombs and one burst was often enough. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iskandar Taib | The only thing worse than Peach ala Internet: NTAIB@AQUA.UCS.INDIANA.EDU | Frog is Frog ala Peach Bitnet: NTAIB@IUBACS !
military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) (11/07/90)
From: p0.f7.n391.z1.fidonet.org!Scott.Johnson (Scott Johnson)
NI> shells coming head-on would set off the bombs and one
NI> burst was often enough.
Nope, not quite. The B-17 had weak forward armament for most of
its life. There were only 2 machine guns that could point directly
forward, and they were manually aimed and were very inaccurate. The
reason why it worked so well was that the 17s armor was quite weak in
the front. The bombadier only had 1/4" of plexiglass between him and the
outside world, and the pilots had armored windscreens and nothing else.
A well-aimed head on pass would almost certainly kill _somebody_, and
enough of them would kill the pilots.