I know this is WAY off topic but I see there are some warbird enthusiasts here so I'll take a chance. I am looking for photos of 2 particular B-24's. I have a photo of the nose art from both planes but they are very poor quality. Both were ***igned to the 8th Air Force, 2nd Combat Wing, 44th Bomb Group (Heavy), 506th Squadron based in Shipdam, England. Both were piloted by my late cousin. The first was "The Wicked Witch", the Witch was shot down over Kiel, Belgium on May 14, 1943 while being flown by a subs***ute pilot. The second was the "Old Crow" which he flew on the Ploesti raid August 1, 1943 and was later s****ped due to heavy combat damage. I have found other pictures of B-24's called "Old Crow" but not his "Old Crow" and most of those were based in the PTO. I don't have the serial numbers handy but can easily get them if it will help. Thanks, and if this is too O/T I'll understand.
Have you tried over on the Warbird Information Exchange? Punch that in google if you're not familiar with it...
Ive recently done some research on my late uncles B24 history. He was in the 392nd Bomber group 577th squadron they have a neat sight B24.net maybe you could contact someone there that would have it. I checked their nose art collection just incase but neither were in it .Here is a link to the site if you havent already discovered it http://www.b24.net/index.html
I don't have any pictures of the specific B-24 Liberators that you're looking for, but I do have a magazine related to those planes which features (a**** other things) an article about another plane from your late cousin's group, and a list of books and videos about the B-24, one of my personal favorite WW2 aircraft! Do any of the names listed below ring a bell? I can send you a copy of the article or anything else you may need from the magazine in case you don't already have it. Just let me know!
...and a quick web search pulled up this picture (on a German site) of what is supposed to be "The Wicked Witch" B-24 for ya...
Try contacting the Yankee Air Force in Ypsilanti, Michigan. I was at their air show a couple of years ago and there were about twenty B-24's there. I got to see the original "Memphis Belle" and many others.
Thanks guys, I hadn't come across any of those which is surprising with as many different Google searches I have done. Fat Hack, I recognize the names from reading the 506th's history. My cousin was James "Curt" McAtee, he was the Witch's original pilot but was grounded with the Flu the day the Witch was lost and took over the Old Crow when her pilot was injured and sent back to the states. He flew most of his missions on her until she got too shot up to fly anymore after which he started moving up the ladder and flew several missions in various planes as lead pilot. He flew 33 combat missions, 32 as a pilot and the last one of the war as the ball turret gunner, by then he had reached the rank of Lt. Col. and was the 506th's Squadron Commander. He rarely spoke of the war. When the war ended he turned down an offer for promotion if he stayed in. He came home and resumed his life as a school teacher and farmer. Yeah, he had been a grade school teacher before the war. Most of his students had no idea he had ever even been in the service. He won just about every award a pilot could get except the Purple Heart and CMH, just days before he died he was awarded the highest commendation a foreigner could receive from the French government. I think that was a part of the new French administration's attempt to repair relations with the US. Whatever the reason Curt deserved it. I am in contact with the nephew of the Witch's right waist gunner who was killed on the Kiel mission. I'll forward the photo to him. I have a photo from that mission taken from a flight of B-17's at higher al***ude with the Old Crow in it but at the point it was taken the Witch had been hit by flak and had fallen out of formation. Fighters finished her off as they made the swing to return home. I only know it is the Crow in the picture because of a p***age from the history of the 506th where one of the crew is writing home to tell his family to pick up the June 21, 1943 issue of Life and identifying which plane is his in the photo. I got a copy off eBay. Thanks a LOT!!!
sorry, are you looking for more pictures? In the book "vintage aircraft nose art" by Gary M. Valant there is an old crow. Not sure if its a B-24 but it has a black crow with wings spread holding a bottle in its claws with a big white cloud in the background. The ***le "old Crow" is above in old english letters.
I have that book, it's a different Old Crow but thanks for looking. His had a crude rendering of a 1940's Old Crow whiskey label painted on it. On the way overseas the crew got their hands on several cases of Old Crow really cheap and loaded up the plane. They figured that was a good name for their ship. I blew up the pic and the SN's don't match the Wicked Witch from the 506th, must be from another Group. "The Wicked Witch" and "Old Crow" seem to have been very popular aircraft names during WW II. Since the artwork on neither one was especially great there probably aren't too many pictures of them. I really appreciate everybody's response, I just wish I had had the foresight to get more info from Curt while he was still with us but I didn't want to bring up memories he might not have wanted to remember. I know the loss of his crew on the Witch haunted him, he always felt he could have brought her home. From the accounts I have read she was a goner before the fighters ever got to her but the crew in the waist and the tail gunner might have survived if they could have evaded the fighters. The tail gunner position and waist area got hammered by 20mm cannon fire. Both waist gunners, the ball turret gunner and tail gunner went down with the ship, it was ***umed they were either dead or mortally wounded. The rest of the crew bailed out but the radio operator landed in the sea and died of exposure before rescue boats arrived. The Navigator also landed in the sea and barely survived, he was rescued by a fishing boat just in time.
A friend of mine works in a hobby shop that specializes in military modeling and reference supplies...and they have a whole library of books on WW2 aircraft, including a book about your late cousin's group and their ships! Let me know the SN's you're looking for and I'll see what info I can dig up for you next time I'm in there.
Ramblur, where is that club? Wasn't "Hail Columbia" Col. Kanes' B-24? Cool way to do it. I think I have some images of those B-24's, as I used to really collect every book on them I could; but all my stuff is still in storage, and probably will be till after the first of the year.
Both planes went over with the original group, I know the Witch was a B-24D and ***ume the Old Crow was as well. The Wicked Witch 41-24295 J Old Crow 41-24283 Z I bought the book about the 44th, it is almost entirely devoted to the 66th and 67th Squadrons, very little mention of the 506th at all but there is one grainy picture of the nose art on the Witch with the tail gunner standing next to it with a Tommy gun. Not one mention of my cousin or the Old Crow anywhere though and he was the Squadron Commander by war's end............ Neat book but a bit disappointing to say the least. TIA
The club is part of www.fantasyofflight.com in Polk City, FL. I'll post some more pics tonight when I get back. They have another B24 that is airworthy.
Oh, O.K., Kermit Weeks' place. My brother's been down there but I haven't yet. (whenever I'm in Florida, I can't seem to make it much past Big Daddy's!)
I restored a picture for my neighbor. His dad and crew flew all their missions, never got hit, didn't lose a crewmember. He retired as a B-47 pilot out of SAC. I think he said they flew out of Africa and Italy, but my memory is bad. The nose art wasn't very sophisticated though...
The Fords and Mercs of the time had about 15,000 parts . During the war up at Willow Run they built them and it had 1,500,050,000 parts in it . One came out the door every 63 min. 24 hours a day,7 days a week. Of the 18,000+ built, about 5 are still flying today.
OK, I know we were production fools during WWII, but is this even possible? That number is one & a half BILLION parts - even if you're counting every rivit in the plane, that still seems unfeasible to: A - ***emble that many parts & B - do it in an hour. 1,500 workers each handling 1,000 parts every hour is only 1.5 million parts. 15,000 workers each handling 1,000 different parts every hour is 15 million parts and 150,000 workers each handling 1,000 different parts every hour is 150 million parts. You'd have to have 150,000 workers each handling 10,000 different parts every hour to reach 1.5 billion... But they don't ***emble airplanes that way. They ***emble ***emblies, but even if you ***ume they're counting all the individual parts in the ***emblies built elsewhere (engines, props, radios, etc), it still seems a few decimal places off... Taking it further, if there were individual factories ***embline major components & then ***embling those at the final place, it's still amazing (Factory A builds a wing an hour, Factory B builds a fuselage an hour, Factory C builds an empenage an hour, etc - until Factory X builds a B-24 an hour) If we actually did that - stunningly amazing - it's equally amazing if it's 1.5 million parts...
You know, I never read about B-24's or the Ploesti oil field raids that I dont think about the fate of the Lady Be Good.
You may have already tried this, but if not try thier Group web page. most Bomb Group's have then now days and usually a historian that should be able to help, also try this site B-24 Best Web . Good Luck ! Johnny
Sir- I have two photos of The Wicked Witch of the 506th Bombardment Squadron. I've read about The Old Crow and I will do further research to see if a photo is with that write up. The serial number of The Wicked Witch was 41-24295. A photo of the crew and plane is at link http://www.b24bestweb.com/wickedwitch-the2.htm. The navigator, Richard L. Schiefelbusch, PhD, is 100 years old and is Professor Emeritus at the University of Kansas. I spoke to him two weeks ago as he is our parade Grand Marshal for the Lawrence KS Veterans Day parade. The following photo shows Lieutenant Schiefelbusch in the center (hands on knees) in the foreground of the nose art. The name for 41-24295 was suggested by Lieutenant Schiefelbusch.
Here is the link to a photo of The Old Crow nose art: http://www.americanairmuseum.com/aircraft/19266
The Old Crow serial number was 41-24283. Here is another link to a photo of The Wicked Witch. Note "J" tail marking. http://www.americanairmuseum.com/unit/1174
My Dad was a tail gunner instructor on a B-24. He was lucky enough to stay in the states to train the newbies. He said he often though about the guys he trained and how many got to come home. I remember one guy that Dad had trained came to visit us years after the war, he told Dad how glad he was that he was made to pay attention during training! He didn't go into any details but he had made it through without a scratch.
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