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 DEPR A TmEnTS
5 MAILBAG
6 BRIEFING
10 AVIATORS
Francesco de Pinedo's
marathon flights made
him an Italian celebrity,
but the aviation pioneer's
love of adventure ulti­
mately proved fatal.
By Derek O'Connor

lit RESTORED
A World War II fighter
submerged in Lake Mich­
igan for 68 years is now
undergoing restoration at
Kalamazoo's Air Zoo.
By Christopher Chlon

2b LRST R I A BA TTLES D F
W D A LD W R A I I
While Americans celebrated V-J Day at home, muddled
communications and diehard Japanese in the Pacific led
to deadly air combat in a war that had already ended.
By Barrett Tillman

31.1 BEL L'S F I R S T BOMBER

The first B-29 to roll out of Bell's Georgia factory survived 16 EXTREMES
bombing raids against the Japanese and flights over "the Cobbled together using
Hump" before coming to an ignominious end. parts from existing
By Tim Troll aircraft, GM's XP-75 Eagle
was the worst airplane
U.S. taxpayers bought
1.12 DI S AS TER DN TENEA I FE during World War II.
A perfect storm of unexpected events, bad weather and By Stephan Wilkinson
human errors on a runway in the Canary Islands led to the
fiery collision of two packed 747s-the worst tragedy in 18 STYLE
aviation history. Showcasing products
By Jon Ziomek of interest to aviation
enthusiasts and pilots.

SO THE LI TTLE FLOWER 2't LETTER

FROM
Ci D ES TD W R A AVIATION
Before he was New York City's three-term mayor, colorful HISTORY
Congressman Fiorello La Guardia led a group of American
bomber pilots in Italy during World War I. 66 REVIEWS
By Howard Muson 70 FLIGHT
TEST
SB CiUNSHIP EV DLUT I D N 72 A ERO
From its humble origins as a modified transport, the lethal ARTIFACT
AC-130 "aerial battleship" brought much-need firepower
to the night fight in Vietnam and beyond.
By John Lowery

ON THE COVER: U.S. Navy F4U-10 Corsair pilot Lt . Cmdr. Thomas H. Reidy, flying from the carrier USS Essex, shoots down a
Nakajima C6N1 Myrt recon plane early on the morning of August 15, 1945-the day after Japan announced its surrender. The
victory was Reidy's 10th of the war, making him the Navy's last double ace. Cover illustration: ©2020 Jack Fellows, ASAA.

'1) SEPTEMBER 2020

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: RANDY JOLLY/TIMEPIX/THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION VIA
GETTY IMAGES: COURTESY OF THE AIR ZOO; GUY ACETO; COURTESY OF DAVID ALEXANDER

You'll find much more from Aviation History on
the web's leading history resource: historynet corn
WHEN FIRE RAINE D FROM THE SKY
On the night of March 9-10, 1945, 279 B-29
Superfortresses unloaded nearly half a million
napalm-filled firebombs on Tokyo, introducing a
terrifying new tactic in the war against Japan. The
first low-level B-29 raid on Japan's capital ignited
a massive firestorm that burned down 16 square
miles of the city and killed some 85,000 people.
THE PERFECT AIRLI F T ER
While the U.S. Air Force sired cutting-edge jet
fighters and strategic bombers in the 1950s, the
neglected orphan of its fleet was the transport,
what later came to be called the airlifter.
Lockheed's long-lived C-130 Hercules, the best
of the lot, embraced simplicity, reliability,
ruggedness and economy and has enjoyed an
incredible career, serving dozens of nations in a
variety of roles.
FATA L AIRLINER CO L LISI ON
OVER THE GRAND CANYON
On June 30, 1956, a TWA Super Constellation
and a United Airlines DC-7, both trying to avoid
a thundercloud, collided over the Grand Canyon,
resulting in the loss of all 128 passengers and
crews aboard both airplanes. In the aftermath of
the crash-at the time the deadliest American
air accident-the U.S. modernized its air traffic
control system and ultimately established the
FAA to regulate and oversee civil aviation.
HISTORYNETN/JW
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C!) SEPTEMBER 2020
HISTORYNET
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PROUDLY MADE IN THE USA
m A I LBA Ci

\-.lt
, 11
1,
VISIT WITH
SAIGON LADY
I just saw t h e M a rc h �. � what type of p l a n e I was w i n n i n g the Batt l e of Brita i n .

·� � � .,.
__ sch e d u l e d on a n d was t o l d T h o u g h it lacked t h e Spitfire's

'�
" B r i efi n g " a rt i c l e a b o ut _ ·

�
�-, -"<.. "i
t h e C-130 Saigon Lady . - it was a DC-10 . I stated I spee d a n d a g i l ity, t h e re were

<�1
,�11
_
b e i n g restored at t h e · - _:.: wou l d n 't g e t on t h e p l a n e more of t h em and t h ey were
N ati o n a l Warpl a n e M u - � u nti l t h e y showed me t h e easier to b u i l d and repa i r.
seum. G l a d t h i s a i rc raft - •. e n g i n e e r's data b o o k that the W h e n I j o i n ed Hawker i n
�
is b e i n g resto red a n d _ l ocks h a d b e e n retrofitted 1951 I sensed that some of
put on d ispl a y
:
_ � •
-
�:s..... and why I was c o n c e r n e d . t h e o l d-timers we re miffed
I was t h e chief n a v1- As I was h o l d i n g up t h e that t h e i r revered l e a d e r
g a t o r with t h e 440th A i r l ift W i n g , 95th A i r l i ft Squ a d ro n , l i n e a n d oth e rs were aski n g w a s u n d e rrate d . H i s path
a n d t h e n av i g at o r f o r t h e a i rp l a n e 's last fl i g h t to D u l l es qu esti o n s they pro d u ce d t h e and mine se l d o m crossed .
I nternatio n a l A i rp o rt for t h e Smithso n i a n N a t i o n a l A i r b o o k a n d s h o w e d me t h a t My ma i n assi g nment was to
a n d Space M useum o n J a n u a ry 30, 1989. J ust t h re e the work had been done. d e b u g t h e fo u r 3 0mm g u n
days p r i o r I w a s o n t h e c r e w t h at p i c k e d up o u r first John Reynolds i nsta l l at i o n o f h i s supe r b l y
of e i g h t new C-130H mod e l s from Lockheed in M a ri­ Prescott, Ariz. a e rodyn amic H u n t e r. A n
etta, Ga. The w i n g had a b i g a rrival ce remo ny fo r o u r e a r l y pro b l em o n rig tests
first b r a n d n e w C-130H. On t h e 30th, with v e ry l ittl e MIGHTY MITCHELL was sepa rat i o n of t h e
fa nfa re, we flew C- 1 30A ta i l n o . 57-0460 to D u l l es. I l eft T h a n k y o u for a n ot h e r amm u n it i o n b e lts. T h e y
t h e c h a rt a n d l o g for its l ast fl i g h t in t h e d rawer at t h e terrifi c issue (May 2020) . passed over sma l l ro l l e rs o n
n avigators stati o n . > It is a pe rfect confl u e n c e top o f t h e ammu n it i o n box
of wo rds, ph otos, a rtwo rk. and I fi g u re d t h ey n e e d e d
" T h e M i g hty M itch e l l " m u c h b i g g e r o n es. I h a d
> Fast fo rward to J u n e 2 0 1 2 t h e cargo d o o r l ocks. I was g ives a g reat h istory of a 600-frames-per-seco n d
w h e n my son was g o i n g to g i v e n a w o r k i n g mod e l of that w o n d e rfu l p l a n e . J o h n fi lm m a d e for a n a lysis. Ba c k
t h e D .C. a rea a n d contacted the d o o r mec h a n ism and t h e B r u n i n g 's Indestructible: i n t h e desi g n d epa rtment
t h e muse u m to see if he s e t of e n g i n e e r i n g d ra w i n g s One Man's Rescue Mission some o n e a cq u i re d a ra re
co u l d see t h e a i rp l a n e . They to mach i n e t h e pa rts. That Changed the Course of 35mm proj e ct o r but n o b ody
asked fo r proof of my fl i g h t I n t h e process of st u d y i n g WWII provides a mag n ifi c e n t k n ew h o w to r u n it.
s o I fo u n d m y A i r F o rce t h e pri nts a n d exami n i n g t h e d escriptio n of Pappy G u n n 's Then a c o l l ective g ro a n
fl i g h t records and sent h im a operati o n a l l o c k mockup, I effo rts d u r i n g t h e w a r, both a rose-S i r Syd n e y h a d
copy d o c u me n t i n g it. Later d iscovered that t h e l o c k i n g to i n crease t h e effectiveness w a l ke d i n u n i nvited, b u t h e
my phone r a n g and it was c a m w a s n ot a l l ow i n g t h e of t h e B-25 M itch e l l (as h a d a k n a c k of fi n d i n g o u t
my son sayi n g , o kay d a d , I'm fu l l fo l l ow-t h ro u g h to l o c k described at l e n gth a n d so what w a s g o i n g o n . B e i n g
sta n d i n g by yo u r n avig ator's comp l etely. I t w o u l d l atch we l l in the a rt i c l e ) a n d to a photog raphy e nt h usi ast
seat. Attached is a picture b u t w o u l d n 't compl ete the re u n ite with h is fami l y h e l d he s o o n g ot us up a n d
he took that day [above]. rotati o n to l o c k . I contacted by t h e Japan ese . r u n n i n g . " We l l , w h a t d i d
The A u g ust 1 975 fl i g h t my supe rviso r and was We a re so l u cky to have th ose pictu res te l l us?" h e
o ut of Vi etnam w a s n ot t h e d i rected to t h e e n g i n e e r peop l e s u c h as Gu n n-a n d asked . I t fe l l to m e to admit
l ast h uma n i ta r i a n miss i o n respo nsi b l e . H i s response mag a z i n es l i ke yo u rs a n d we needed l a rg e r d iameter
fl own by 0460 . That w a s a was I wasn 't a n e n g i n e e r a u thors l i ke Bru n i n g to keep ro l l e rs. Unfort u n at e l y we
miss i o n by t h e 440th A i r l ift a n d s a i d it w a s i n p l a c e o n t h em a l ive in o u r memo ri es. w o u l d h ave to red u c e the
W i n g to t h e Ca r i b b e a n a n d t h e a i rc raft a n d worki n g . Michael T. Terry ammo box capacity from
S o uth Ame r i c a . I w a s n ot I requ ested t h e l atest set Reading, Mass. t h e specifi e d 150 per
on that fl i g h t b u t have 18 of pri nts that the latch was gun to 147, b u t h e was
miss i o n s i n t h e a i rcraft. ma c h i n e d from a n d was BRITAIN'S SAVIOUR u n co n ce r n e d about that:
Lt. Col. James D. Web b told to j u st complete my I n his M a y review of J o h n " Of c o u rse you n e e d
U.S. Air Force (ret.) work from what I h a d . I Sweetma n 's Syd n ey Ca m m b i g g e r ro l l e rs. I c o u l d h ave
compl eted t h e proj ect a n d b i o g raphy, R o b e rt Guttma n to l d y o u that. Yo u d i d n 't
DC-10 DESIGN FLAW w a s l a i d off t h e w e e k b e ­ makes a p o i n t that n e eds h ave to spen d money on a
I n refe rence to yo u r M a rc h fo re C h ristmas. to b e mo re w i d e l y a c k n o w l ­ b l oo d y movie! M a ke ' em
iss u e 's " T h e 10 M ost D a n ­ It wasn't u n t i l after t h e edged: The Hawker Hurri­ t h re e i n c h es. "
g e r o u s A i rp l a n es E v e r B u i l t , " seco n d a c c i d e n t t h at I c a n e contri b uted m o re t h a n Horace Hone
I w a s worki n g o n t h e DC- 1 0 remembe red t h e iss u e with a n y oth e r p l a n e toward West Palm Beach, Fla.
proj e ct in Lo n g Beach t h e lock. I wrote the FAA a n d
toward t h e e n d of 1969. I exp l a i n e d m y exper i e n c e SEND LETIERS TO:
was a job sh opper w o r k i n g with t h e l o c ks. Never h e a rd Aviation History Editor, HISTORY N ET
as a tech i l l u strator o n pa rts b a c k from them. 1919 Gallows Road, S u ite 400, Vienna, VA 22182-4038
ma n u a l s fo r t h e DC- 1 0 . M y Later i n t h e 1 9 7 0s I was OR EMAIL TO aviationh istor y@h istorynet.com
assi g n m e n t w a s to c reate fly i n g o u t of Salt Lake (Letter s m ay be edited)
a n expl o d e d d i a g ram fo r City and asked t h e a g e n t /

SEPTEMBER ZOZO C!)

 Fl1 I
JI�

LUFTHANSA
ABANDONS
CDNNIE
AESTDAATIDN
n a classic example o f a

CONNIE ARTISTS
Above : M e c h a n i cs work o n
o n e of fo u r Lockheed L- 1 649
" S u pe r Sta rs" ope rated by
Lufthansa i n the late 1 950s.
I nset: The a i r l i n e's i l l-sta rred
L- 1 649 restorati on was we l l
u n d e rway i n A u b u r n , M a i n e ,
i n Aug u st 20 1 6 .
I
ludicrously expensive
project gone out of con­
trol while nobody noticed,
Lufthansa has aban­
doned the restoration of
its 1 958 Lockheed L- 1 649
Super Constellation. Did
an accountant turn a sharp
eye on what Lufthansa was
planning and decide to pass?
Nope. Like a poker player
holding a pair of twos until
the bitter end, the company
spent $ 1 6 3 million to bring
the airplane almost to first
flight and then decided it was
a dumb idea. To put that sum
in perspective, I'm guessing
that it cost about $ I 0 million
to turn the B-29 Doc from
a target-range hulk into a
gleaming flier.
Most of the labor that
restored Doc was provided by
volunteers, but Lufthansa's
C onnie was being rebuilt by
professional technicians and
engineers earning aerospace
wages. At times, more than
a hundred of them worked
on the airframe in a project
that was originally estimated
to take two or three years to
complete. Eleven years later,
Lufthansa finally threw in the
shop rag.
The j ob was being done in
Auburn, Maine, where the

C!) SEPTEMBER 2020

airplane was parked, under
the direction of a Lufthansa
executive with no experience
in aircraft restoration who
commuted from his home
in Germany to oversee the
work. Meanwhile, his work­
ers were put up in comfort­
able motels with matching
expense accounts, and they
were in no hurry to finish
the j ob. It can't have pleased
Lufthansa execs that they
were recently forced to settle
a class-action lawsuit by more
than 70 of their techs, who
claimed they were owed sub­
stantial overtime wages.
Most big-airplane resto­
rations are done on the basis
of I RAN-inspect and repair
as necessary. Lufthansa's
method was R&R-remove
and replace. By the time
the project was canceled,
Lufthansa had fabricated 90
percent of a better-than-new
C onnie that they planned
to certify as a 2 l st-century
transport-category aircraft,
built to safety standards
undreamed of in 1 95 8 .
Lufthansa has already
restored aJunkersJu-5 2 / 3m,
Messerschmitt Bf- I 08,
Dornier Do- 2 7 and an Arado
Ar- 79B, and it is currently
working on a Focke-Wulf
Fw-200. TheJu-52 has been
grounded for lack of operat­
ing funds, though some think
the 2 0 1 8 crash of a Swiss­
operated "Tante]u," killing
all 20 passengers and crew,

"I'll TELL HOU WHAT WAR

might also have influenced
the decision.
The Super Constellation IS ABOUT, HOU'VE GOT TO
KILL PEOPLE, Ano WHEn
has been disassembled
and shipped to Bremen,
Germany, where it sits in a HOU'VE KILLED EnOUGH
THEH STOP FIGHTlnG."
warehouse awaiting possible
cosmetic completion as the
world's most expensive static -GENERAL CURTIS LEMAY
aircraft exhibit.
Stephan Wilkinson

SEPTEMBER ZOZO • 7
 BAIEFlnCi

THE LONG 'WAY HOME

t took nearly three months, but Norwegian Iditarod cham­

I
pion Thomas Waerner finally managed to get back home
again-along with 26 sled dogs-after triumphing in this
spring's annual Alaska race. In some ways the Douglas
DC-6B that delivered the mush er and dogs to Stavanger
Airport in Sola, Norway, on June
2 can be seen as the ultimate winner,
though, as the aircraft has now gained
a permanent spot on display at the
Flyhistorisk Museum .
The coronavirus pandemic was
already making headlines on March
1 8 when Waerner and his team won
the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race,
mushing a thousand rugged miles over lditarod c h a m p Thomas Wa erner (l eft)
nine days, 1 0 hours and 3 7 minutes. a rrives in N o rway on J u n e 1 a b o a rd a
He had anticipated returning home m us e u m - b o u n d DC-6B (above) .
right after the race, but those plans
quickly fell apart amid increasing in a deal, followed by weeks of work
travel restrictions, and for a time he worried he might be stuck to prepare N 1 5 1 for the j ourney. The ordeal finally ended
in the U. S. for the foreseeable future. with the champion musher and dogs heading back home in
Fortunately, his need for a ride halfway around the world style early in June in the refurbished Douglas-now dubbed
dovetailed with plans to dispatch a DC-6B, N 1 5 1 , from "Social Distancing"-complete with brand-new canine nose
Alaska to Sola to j oin the Flyhistorisk Museum collection. The art and decked out in livery it had worn while operating with
Douglas had formerly flown for Braathens South American & what was once Norway's largest air carrier. In the cockpit was
Far East Air Transport as part of a fleet that Norwegian ship­ Robert Everts, who owns Everts Air Cargo and Everts Air
ping magnate Ludvig Braathen established to ferry cargo and Alaska. Aside from one perfunctory pit stop at Yellowknife, in
crew around the globe following World War II. Canada's Northwest Territories, they continued on nonstop
A tentative deal for Waerner and his dogs to fly home on for 1 6 hours, to be greeted by crowds in Sola.
N 1 5 1 , long owned and operated by Everts Air Cargo in Fair­ The Flyhistorisk Museum later announced that visitors
banks, Alaska, languished as spring wore on, complicated by could expect to see the well-traveled Douglas on display out­
financial upheavals affecting businesses worldwide caused side the museum beginning in August.
by the pandemic. Weeks of negotiations eventually resulted Nan Siegel

C!) SEPTEMBER 2020

ROTARY-POWERED TRIPLANE REPLICA
here are no more original Fokker Dr.I triplanes in exis­

T
tence, but that has not stopped a handful of devoted
fans from building and flying replicas of the iconic
World War I fighter. Among them is C hris Hill, founder
of the Knights of the Sky Foundation at Brookbridge
Aerodrome in Griffin, Ga. , who acquired a replica
Dr.I from its C onnecticut-based builder. "This Fokker was
built by Jim Bruton, following the Ron Sands Dr.I plans,"
Hill explained. "After reviewing Fred Murrin's F.I [a very
authentic reproduction of one of the
first three preproduction triplanesJ,
Jim made many modifications so
that it would more closely match the
original design . There were still a
few differences though, and I have
been working to make it as close to
the originals as possible. The most
obvious remaining difference is the
inboard aileron hinges, which is on KEEPING IT REAL
my list to correct. " C h r i s H i l l 's re p l i ca Fokker D r. I (above and l eft)
When Hill acquired the Dr.I i n m a d e its first fl i g ht with an a uthentic 80-hp Le
20 1 3 , it was powered b y a 1 60-hp Rhone 9C e n g i n e in Dece m b e r 2 0 1 9 ( b e l ow).
Lycoming 0-3 20D engine. "How­
ever, as a matter of being in the configured for use of the stick throttle, as found on
right place at the right time, I had the original, and this is one of them. "
the opportunity to purchase an After 7 5 0 hours o f work in nine months, the
SO-horsepower Le Rhone 9C in refurbished Dr.I made its first flight on December
2 0 1 6, with the intent to put it on the 1 5 , 2 0 1 9 . "The flight lasted a little over 1 5 min­
Fokker and get a more historically utes," Hill said, "and it was truly a powerful experi­
accurate experience," Hill reported. "In the process of con­ ence to connect with the pilots I've admired from WWI. "
verting it to rotary power, we built a new fuel tank, engine con­ For further information o n Chris Hill's foundation and
trols, fuselage fairings, engine cowling, gun mounts and pro­ ongoing projects, visit knightsoftheskyorg
peller. I think there are three airworthy Dr.Is in the world today Jon Guttnian

SEPTEMBER 2020 9
 ITALIAN AVIATOR FRANCESCO DE PINEDO EARNED
ACCOLADES FOR HIS MARATHON FLIGH TS, BUT HIS
DESIRE TO BREAK RECORDS ULTIMATELY PROVED A
FATAL ATIRAC TION

a
BY D E REK O'CO N N O R

n November 7, 1 9 2 5 , a single-engine flying boat touched alight o n the Tigris River HALFWAY MARK
down on Rome's historic Tiber River to tumultuous at Baghdad. There the The flyi n g boat Gennarie//o
acclaim . At the controls were pilot Francesco de Pinedo resourceful Campanelli (top), p i l oted by Fran cesco
and mechanic/copilot Ernesto C ampanelli. In 3 7 0 flying reportedly used a copper fry­ d e P i n e d o (above), rests on
hours they had just completed an incredible 3 5 , 000-mile, ing pan from a local kitchen Austra l i a 's B r i s b a n e River in
three-phase aerial odyssey halfway across the world, from Italy to improvise a metal patch for A u g u st 1 92 5 , s h o rtly before
to Australia,Japan and back. a leaking oil tank. its return trip to Ita ly.
Born into an aristocratic Neapolitan family in 1 890, the Continuing along the
Marquis Francesco de Pinedo was a naval academy graduate Persian Gulf, they arrived in back to Italy via Hong Kong
who saw action in destroyers during the 1 9 1 1 - 1 2 Italo-Turkish at Karachi on May 5. After and Rangoon.
War, which witnessed the first use of airplanes in combat, by crossing India and the turbu­ In Rome de Pinedo was
the Italians. In 1 9 1 7, after pilot training, de Pinedo j oined the lent Bay of Bengal, on May lauded by Prime Minister
naval air division and spent the remainder of World War I fly­ 1 4 they reached Rangoon, Benito Mussolini and pro­
ing reconnaissance missions. Burma, where the flying moted to lieutenant colonel.
In 1 924 he transferred into Italy's newly independent air boat's hull was scraped and The trusty Gennariello was not
force, the Regia Aeronautica. Destined for staffwork, the repainted. They made it to only the first seaplane to fly
reserved young maj or soon requested a leave of absence to Singapore 1 0 days later and from Europe to Australia, it
embark on the first of a number of flights intended to demon­ arrived at Broome in north­ was the first airplane to do so
strate the superior long-distance potential of seaplanes over ern Australia on May 3 1 . and return-a magnificent
their land-based counterparts. After 1 0 weeks spent tour­ achievement for the two air­
De Pinedo elected to fly to Australia and the Far East in a ing Australia, the Italians men and the international
virtually stock SIAI S. l 6ter, an open-cockpit biplane flying headed northward from prestige of ltalian aviation .
boat. Powered by a Lorraine-Dietrich 450-hp engine, it could C ooktown on August 1 3 , De Pinedo's next venture,
fly for up to nine hours and had a range of more than 900 island-hopping by stages to enthusiastically supported
miles. He named the rugged little seaplane Gennariello after New Guinea, Manila and by Mussolini and the new
the patron saint of Naples, St. Gennario. Shanghai, reaching Tokyo air minister, Italo Balbo,
Setting off from Lake Maggiore on April 20, 1 92 5 , de Pinedo on September 2 6 . After an was a double crossing of the
and Campanelli flew eastward across the Mediterranean to engine change injapan, on Atlantic Ocean, beginning
North Africa before crossing the featureless Syrian Desert to October 1 7 they headed in the South Atlantic and

10 • SEPTEMBER 2020
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 A V I A TOR S
returning by a northerly
route. For this de Pinedo
selected the unorthodox but
proven Savoia-Marchetti
S.55 catamaran flying boat,
powered by two Isotta­
Fraschini engines mounted in
tandem above the cantilever
wing. Accompanying him
were copilot Captain Carlo
D el Prete, an experienced
long-distance flier, and
mechanic Lieutenant Vitale
Zacchetti. Their S . 5 5 was
named Santa Maria in honor
of Christopher C olumbus.
Leaving Italy on February
8, 1 92 7, Santa Maria flew by
stages down the '!\lest African
coast before heading out
across the southern Atlantic
from the Cape Verde Islands
on February 2 0 . Bad weather
forced them down after 1 , 500
miles off the Brazilian island
of Fernando de Noronha.
They reached Rio de Janeiro
six days later and Buenos
Aires on March 2. There the
airmen were feted while the
S . 5 5 's engines were changed
in preparation for the long
flight northward across
South America.
Departing Buenos Aires
on March 1 4 and lacking
adequate maps, Santa Maria's
crew navigated mainly by
dead reckoning and over­
nighted at river refueling
stops. They crossed the
Caribbean via Guyana
and Cuba, arriving in New
Orleans on March 2 9 .
Heading west, Santa Maria
alighted near Roosevelt
Dam, in Arizona, on April 5 .
During refueling a cigarette
butt tossed into the water by
a careless spectator ignited
residual gasoline on the
surface. De Pinedo watched
in horror from the shore as
Santa Maria was consumed by
the flames and his two com­
panions leapt overboard and
swam for their lives.
Air Minister Balbo immedi­
ately ordered a substitute S.55
shipped to New York, and the
U. S. Army Air Corps flew
de Pinedo and his crew there.
When Santa Maria II arrived
in early May, the punctilious
de Pinedo returned to New
IZ • SEPTEMBER ZOZO
UP IN SMOKE
Above: Santa Maria II was a
re p l acement fo r the S . 5 5 that
h a d been d estroyed by fire in
Ariz o n a . R i g ht: Firemen hose
d own the smoking wrecka g e
of d e P i n e d o 's B e l l a n ca after
he crashed a n d was ki l l ed on
takeoff fro m Fl oyd B e n n ett
F i e l d on Septe m b e r 3, 1 93 3 .
Orleans to restart the flight.
The Italians then headed
north to Chicago, Montreal,
Quebec and Trepassy, New­
foundland, from where, on
May 30, they set off across the
North Atlantic for the Azores.
Strong headwinds caused
Santa Maria II to run out of
fuel and force-land in the
ocean 200 miles short of the
Azores. Taken in tow by pass­
ing ships, the crew spent three
uncomfortable days on board
before they reached Horta.
Resuming the flight onjune
l 0, the ever-scrupulous de
Pinedo backtracked to their Not long after, de Pinedo's Minutes later de Pinedo
ditching position before star began to fade. Having was dead, engulfed in flames
setting course for Lisbon, fallen out with Balbo, he when the Bellanca, with more
Barcelona and finally Rome. resigned from the air force than I, OOO gallons of fuel on
They arrived to an ecstatic in early 1 9 3 3 . September 3 board, swerved and crashed
welcome onjune 1 6, having found him at Floyd Bennett during takeoff The Lord of
covered roughly 26,000 miles Field in New York, nattily the Distances had made his
in the two Santa Marias. dressed in a business suit, bow last flight. -r
A delighted Mussolini pro­ tie and derby hat. After mak­
moted de Pinedo to general ing a short speech de Pinedo Longtime Aviation History
and named him "Lord of clambered into the cockpit contributor and Royal Air Force
the Distances. " Balbo soon of his specially modified veteran Derek O'Connor passed
invited him to lead the first BellancaJ-3-500 monoplane away on May 1 0following a
of his justly celebrated "air Santa Lucia, intent on setting lengthy battle with Parkinson's
cruises" by massed forma­ a new distance record by fly­ disease. We are gratefUl to his son
tions of flying boats around ing solo 6,000 miles nonstop Anthonyfor allowing us to con­
the Mediterranean. to Baghdad. tinue his legary with this article.

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 WILDCAT FROM
THE DEEP
A WORLD WAR II FIGH TER
THAT WAS RAISED FROM LAKE
MICHIGAN IN 2012 IS UNDERGOING
RESTORATION AT KALAMAZOO'S
AIR ZOO
BY C H R I STOPH E R CH LON

n 1 942 the U.S. Navy desperately needed pilots trained built version of Grumman's TRAINING PLATFORM

I
to take off and land on aircraft carriers. Performing those F4F Wildcat) suffered engine The 1 944 accident came as
operations off the East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico failure while taking off from the F M -2 was taki n g off fro m
presented potential dangers from German U-boats, and on Sable on Lake Michigan. The USS Sable, a trai n i n g carrier.
the West Coast there was the threat of attack fromJapanese fighter rolled off the front of
submarines. The Great Lakes, and in particular Lake Michi­ the carrier and was run over two sections during the
gan, offered a safe place for training far inland. by the ship. Its pilot, Ensign crash, and the tail section
The Navy repurposed two commercial passenger vessels William Forbes, survived the was the first part recov-
and transformed them into inland practice carriers, USS incident unharmed. ered and towed to shore.
Wolverine and Sable. Both were coal-driven with side-paddle­ FM-2 Bu.No. 5 7 0 3 9 set­ The larger portion of the
wheel propulsion. Their flight decks measured 550 feet long, tled to the lake bottom in 1 65 damaged fuselage was then
roughly two-thirds the length of ocean-going carriers of the feet of water until it was dis­ brought up and towed to
time, making them challenging training platforms. covered by A and T Recovery Waukegan Harbor north of
On August 25, 1 942, the Navy launched Wolverine, followed in 1 990. On December 7, Chicago. A short time later,
by Sable on November 1 1 . During the time the training carriers 2 0 1 2 , the Wildcat was raised restoration efforts began at
served, naval aviators logged more than 1 20,000 landings on from the depths and exposed the Air Zoo Aerospace &
them and about 1 7,820 pilots qualified for carrier duty. to air for the first time in 68 Science Experience based in
On December 28, 1 944, an FM-2 (the Eastern Aircraft- years. It had broken into Kalamazoo, Mich.

14 • SEPTEMBER 2020
 Over the decades the
Great Lakes have been
invaded by zebra and quagga
mussels, two non-native
freshwater bivalve species
that had caused rapid and
damaging growth patterns on
virtually every exposed sur­
face of the aircraft. Equally
damaging were the effects of
the slow but destructive bi­
metallic electrolysis between
magnesium, steel and alu­
minum parts of the plane.
This caused a weakening of
casings and engine mounts
as well as the deterioration of
wiring, instruments and other
components. The fabric­
covered control surfaces were
also deteriorating. In short,
the Wildcat was slowly being
destroyed by the elements.
This is why recovery of air­
planes lost in Lake Michigan
has become more urgent.
Although dozens of World
War II wrecks have been sal­
vaged from the lake so far, it's
estimated that more than 7 0
still remain .
After an examination of
the FM-2, the Air Zoo res­
toration team found that the
airplane's basic components
appeared to be present and
conformed to original spec­
ifications. All aircraft used
for Great Lakes carrier qual­
ification were first stripped
of guns and ammunition, so
those artifacts were not there
to recover.
The torn-off tail section
was damaged at the base of
the vertical stabilizer, and the
port wingtip and port landing
gear had been impacted.
The windscreen was missing.
Technicians noted deteri­
oration of the fabric on the
ailerons, elevators and rud­
der. There was evidence of
multiple paint schemes.
Electrolysis had destroyed
all magnesium components.
The pilot's headrest was
gone. The fabric first-aid kit
was rotten and literally falling
apart when handled.
The airplane had been
resting upside-down and par­
tially sunken into the muddy
lake bottom. Any parts that
were in the muck were more
severely corroded.
All preservation and res­
toration programs at the Air
Zoo are under the leadership
of Restoration Manager
Greg Ward, a licensed
airframe and power-plant
mechanic for 3 1 years, and
Dan Brant, a former museum
volunteer. Both men lead
teams of dedicated volun­
teers of all ages. Additionally,
the Air Zoo routinely hosts
groups of young people from
local schools and universities
to share in the restoration
experience. A project of this
scope requires weekly meet­
ings, planning sessions, train­
ing and a dedicated inventory
control system.
The FM-2 Wildcat proj ­
e c t resides in two separate
fenced-off areas in the
museum. The first section
is reserved for the wings,
control surfaces and engine.
Across the aisle, the fuselage
section is mounted on a mas­
sive custom-built rotating
jig. The fuselage setup must
remain undisturbed since it
is used for alignment after
datum lines are established to
rebuild the tail section .
Air Zoo technicians fab­
ricate replacement parts for
the FM-2 in the metal shop,
which is used for any welding
or machining that may be
required. vVooden hammer
bucks for fashioning com­
pound-shaped metal parts
are fashioned in the state-of­
the-art wood shop.
While Ward and Brant
head up the overall effort
and highly qualified volun­
teers serve as project leaders
dedicated to various aspects
of the restoration, Air Zoo
CEO and President Troy
Thrash deserves credit for
negotiating contracts with
the Navy and pursuing the
required funding. "Since
the Wildcat arrived at the
Air Zoo in 2 0 1 3 , over 1 ,000
individuals have contributed
to its restoration, including
hundreds of young people
from local schools and com­
munity organizations," noted
Thrash. "Aircraft restoration
is a truly inspiring, interactive
CAGED CAT AT THE ZOO
C l ockwise from top l eft:
Kevi n M azer a n d Dave R u i z
c l e a n the e n g i n e cowl i n g ; t h e
fu s e l a g e rests i n i t s rotati n g
ji g ; B o y d N a y l o r works o n
the h o rizontal sta b i l i ze r.
educational activity for peo­
ple of all ages to be immersed
in science, technology, history
and hands-on training.
"The Wildcat restoration
is being done right on the Air
Zoo's exhibit floor. Our pub­
lic visitors not only are able to
watch, up-close and personal,
the remarkable work being
done in real-time, but they
can also engage with our res­
toration team to learn more
deeply about the aircraft and
our work to restore it to its
former glory. "
To date the proj ect is about
60 percent finished, with no
proj ected completion date
due to the pandemic. The Air
Zoo reopened to visitors on
July 1 3 . See airzoo org/plan­
your-visit for current hours
and policies. -r
SEPTEMBER ZOZO • 15
 E X T A EmES

COBBLED-TOGETHER FIGHTER
INCORPORATING PAR TS FROM THREE EXISTING AIRCRAFT, GM'S XP-75 EAGLE
SUFFERED FROM AN OVERLY COMP LICATED DESIGN AND OVERWEIGHT
EXPERIMENTAL ENGINE
BY STEPHAN WI LKI NSON

he Fisher XP- 7 5 Eagle was the worst aircraft that U. S. largest factory i n the world

T
nents of existing airplanes,
taxpayers bought during World War II. When the P- 7 5 at V\lillow Run to crank out so that it could be slapped
program was finally shut down in October 1 944, only B-24 Liberator bombers together in six months with
1 4 unarmed, useless aircraft had been manufactured. (though industry adviser a minimum of engineering.
Estimates vary wildly as to how much each airplane cost, but Charles Lindbergh called Curtiss P-40 wings, Douglas
the kindest guess is about $9,3 7 5 ,000 in 2020 dollars. (The early-production units the Dauntless rear fuselage and
Republic P-4 7 Thunderbolt, which the P-75 was intended to worst examples of metal empennage, Vought F4U
replace, went for roughly $ 1 . 2 million in today's dollars.) aircraft construction he had landing gear . . . why not? GM
How could this have happened? Blame it on stupidity, greed, ever seen) . General Motors knew that you could put a
poor management, an unfortunate engine choice and an over­ had quickly established an Pontiac engine in a Buick
rated aircraft designer. entire new division, Eastern or Cadillac suspension on
By the time the United States entered the war in December Aircraft, to produce W"ildcats a Chevy chassis, so there
1 94 1 , it was clear that traditional ideas about air combat had and Avengers for the Navy. should be no reason the same
become outmoded. Short-legged, medium-altitude bomber GM execs had the bright mix-and-match technique
interceptors weren't going to be of much use. The U. S. mil­ idea of designing their own wouldn't work for an air­
itary needed long-range, fast-climbing, high-altitude escort fighter under the brand name plane, right?
fighters that could outfty the best that the Germans and Fisher, to be manufactured by Ignored was the fact that
Japanese could be expected to develop, and it needed them their body-building division. wings aren't just the big flat
right away. They followed that up with things that poke out of the
The War Department had mobilized Detroit's car man­ the stupid idea of creating it fuselage, they are carefully
ufacturers to build tanks, guns and airplanes. Ford built the from already-built compo- engineered to maximize

16 • SEPTEMBER 2020
p erfor m a n ce without excess
drag, matched as well as pos­
sible to th e airframe t h ey
support. Nor are tail feathers
just the p o i nty surfaces back
aft , t h ey are engineered to
help c reate each ai rpl a ne
model's stabil i ty an d c ont ro l ­
l a bil i ty with the least drag.
Not su rpri singl y, the a
la carte manufact uring
approa ch was i n i ti ated by a
ca r guy : William K n u d s o n ,
former p reside n t of G eneral
M o t ors-ye t another G f
fi n ger in the pot vl10 had
been put i n c h a rge of the
U. S. govern me n t 's war pro­
curement and production
p rograms. Knudson believed
that t he c ou n t ry's aircraft
bu ilders n eeded to learn to
inte rch ange major compo­
nents, just as t h e car m an u ­
fa c tu re rs d i d .
GM's Don Berlin signed
on to this idea. Hi tory gives
us n o clue why a seemingly
intelligent aircraft designer
and en g i n eer w o u l d buy into
such a kludge . . . other than to
keep his job.
Berl i n was well known as
the designer of the P-40, the
Army Air Forces' obsoles­
cent fron tline f i ght e 1: The
P-40 was a re-e ngining of
Berlin's 1 93 8 P-3 6 H awk,
which could be called hi
l a st good d e si gn. At C urtiss
he had gone on to create the
uns tabl e Seamew Navy Aoat­
p l an e and the canard XP-55
cencl e r, q u i ckly dubbed
tl1e Ass- Ender thanks to i ts
pus h e r en gi n e . Berlin t h en
qui t C u rc i s an d wa h i red
by GM, which was wld by
the War D ep a rtm en t that it
needed a bi g name as part of
its aborning fighter program.
GM knew that i t had to use
the m o st po werfu l engine it
co u l d find i f i t was to ach ieve
the pe r fo r m a nce the AAJ<
was requesting: 440 mph
top speed, a 3 8 ,000-foot
ceiling, 2,5 00-mile range
and a remarkable 5,600 feet
per minute initial climb rate.
Prat t & 'Whi tn ey a nd C u rt iss ­
v \/r i g ht h ad powe rfu l c o n ­
te n d ers u n de r devel o p m e n t ,
but so did Alliso n , which h ap­
p e ne d to be ow n e d by G M .
So tl1e Al l ison V- 3 42 0 (ac t u­
alJy a W config u ratio n rather
than a V) became by default
the heart of the X P- 7 5 .
The 2 , 600-hp V-3420-B
was two V- 1 7 1 0 engin es-tl1e
familiar P-3 8 / P- 3 9 / P-40
powe r plan on a common
crankcase. But it had two
c ra n k h a ft s , and cran ks are
the heavie t part of a pi ton
engine. The crankshafts
co un terro tat e d , sp i n n ing
two 1 5 -foot-long d ri ve s ha ft s ,
which transitioned i n t o a
sing l e prop s h aft th rough a
large, heavy ge arb ox in tl1e
airp l a ne 's nose. I n the P- 7 5A ,
th e e ngin e sat b e h i nd t h e
c o c kp i t , like a P-38's Alli on
V- 1 2, and the d 1i ve s h afi:s
ran u nder the p il o t . Furth e r
c o m pli ca ti o n w a s created by
the need for two enormou ly
c om pl e x c o nt ra rot a t i ng
p ropellers to absorb the
V-3420's hors e powe r. ( Fou r
of tl1e P- 7 5 's never-instalJecl
1 0 . 5 0 - ca l iber m ac h i n e
guns were in t he n o se , fi ri n g
through the props. Imagi n e
t h e co mp l ex i ty of an i nt e r­
rupter mechanism ch o o s i ng
clear spaces between such a
C u isinart of prop bl a des . )
The V-3420 was n ever
i ntended to be a figh te r
e n gi n e . I t was t o o large a n d
he avy, and wa initially devel­
oped to power a ve1y long
ran ge , ve1y heavy f o ur- e n gi ne
intercontinental bomber.
The new V- 24 could have
used t h e mu ltiengi n e recl u n -
Above : The fi rst o f t w o XP-75
Eag l e p rototypes fl ies i n early
1 944. The plug was p u l led o n
the p rog ram t h a t Octo b e r.
Left: The Air Force m u s e u m 's
pro d u cti o n P-7SA takes w i n g .
cl ancy, t o o : A t one po in t, the
AAF prouclly reported that
th e V-3 420 's rel iability was
much the same as tl1at of two
V- 1 7 1 0 a not he r way of
s ayi ng the V-2 4 would fai l
t�1�ce as often as t he V- 1 2 .
One of the V-3420's major
p ro blem s was uneven mix­
ture di tri b u ti o n be t ween
its four banks of carbureted
cylinder , all four feel by a
single supercharge r th ro ugh
j ust two induction trunks.
This necessitated running t h e
e ngin e a t a s e t t i ng that would
not cause detonation in tl1e
leanest of those 24 cyl i n ders,
thus imp a c t ing both power
and fuel efficiency.
Lumbered "�th an u n cler­
p erf o r mi n g exp e ri me n tal
engine, the Fisher P- 7 5 was
fated to fai l . In an i nverse
affi rmation of the old cli­
che "If i t l ooks good, it'll
f ly good," the P- 7 5 looked
clumsy and flew badly. S l ow
and u n stable, it wou l d stall
and spi n during st a nd a rd
dogfighting maneuvers.
N ever a n E agle , it was cer­
t a i n ly a tu rkey. -r
SEPTEMBER 2020 • 17
On the 6 oth anniversary of the
erican Fighter Aces Association,
we honor the late Roy Grinnell ,
' Hicial Artist of the Ace s '
 STYLE
ART

War Paint

This year marks the 6oth

anniversary of the American
Fighter Aces Association,
with Roy Grinnell (1933-2019)
having gained distinction as
the group's Official Artist and
Honoree. Grinnell docu­
mented the American aces'
oral history in a collection of
51 original paintings of their
WWI, WWII, Vietnam War
and Korean War combat.
Tri p l e P l a y pays tribute to P-6 1 ace
Born in Santa Barbara,
Herman Ernst. The 24-by-30-inch
Calif., Grinnell joined the limited-edition lithograph is signed
Navy and later attended by Ernst and Grinnell, $ 1 50
the ArtCenter College of
Design. His Western, Native
American, wildlife and
aviation paintings garnered Zero F i g hter Sweep, signed by
many awards, including the Grinnell and Corsair ace
prestigious R.G. Smith Ken Walsh, 24-by-30-inch
limited-edition lithograph, $ 1 75
Award for Excellence in
Naval Aviation Art in 1999.
His artwork can be found
in many museums, the Roy
Lichtenstein Foundation
and in the private collection
of Star Wars director
George Lucas.

Above: Photo of Roy Grinnell

by his wife, Irene Grinnell.
"I took the photo of Roy
painting M o o n ey's Sacrifice
in 2005 at his studio in Little
Elm, Texas. Roy illustrated a
book that was published in
China and this was one of
the paintings in the book.
Roy traveled to China for
photography and research.
The jacket he is wearing is
Chinese camo from an army
and navy type of shop. "

20 Cl) SEPTEMBER 2020

 A TIME OF SACRIFICE
B Y CAR L VON WO DTKE
DOING THEIR BIT
Above: Citizens a n d
s o l d i e rs w a i t i n l i n e
to p u rchase rati o n e d
goods i n N ew O r l e a n s
i n M a rch 1 943. I nset:
Scrap a l u m i n u m pi les
u p d u ri n g a week­
long d rive i n s u p port
of the war effort.
24 '1) SEPTEMBER 2020
hen Emperor Hirohito announcedja­
W
pan's surrender 7 5 years ago on August
1 4, 1 945, the world celebrated the end
of a global nightmare that had claimed
an estimated 60 to 80 million lives. More
than 400,000 U . S . military personnel had died in
the defense of freedom, including some 1 00,000
American airmen .
But while celebrations erupted fr o m Times
Square to Hollywood Boulevard, the killing con­
tinued offJapan on the morning of August 1 5 ,
as Allied naval air forces and diehard japanese
fought on in the confusing melee surrounding the
surrender (story, P. 26). The final American casu­
alty would not be counted until August 1 8, when
a young sergeant from Pennsylvania died of
wounds sustained during a photoreconnaissance
mission over Honshu .
Aside from the cost in lives, the war had re­
quired significant sacrifices from the American
people. In a letter to the editor published in the
July 24, 2 0 2 0 , edition of The Washington Post,
reader Arthur]. Levine of Bethesda, Md., wrote :
"Having grown up during vVorld vVar II, I re­
member well the sacrifices we at home were asked
to make to protect ourselves and our neighbors.
Among them were severe rationing of food,
gas oline and other day- to-day essential s . We
were also asked to spend hours in blackouts in
our homes . At school, we hid under our desks
during the frequent air-raid drills. We, as a nation,
willingly put up with these restrictions. We did this
to ensure our 'freedom . ' At that time, the enemy
was thousands of miles away, not, as today, in our
restaurants, grocery stores and gyms . "
N o w we are a t w a r with an insidious enemy
that as of this writing has killed at least 1 5 0,000
Americans-more than the combined total from
all U . S . conflicts since WWII. In the midst of a
divisive political landscape, this enemy threatens
the very foundations of American democracy by
pitting citizen against citizen in a senseless ideo­
logical struggle.
The weapons in this war-wearing masks in
public, social distancing and frequent handwash­
ing--have proven effective in halting the enemy's
advances. They are passive weapons that rely on
everyone 's sense of patriotic duty and empathy
for others. It remains in doubt, however, whether
today's America can summon the national will to
effectively employ those weapons. There are those
who equate freedom with the ability to do as they
please, regardless of the potential consequences
for others.
As the United States prevailed in \i\TVVII, ulti­
mately it will defeat this enemy with the massive
ongoing national effort-in concert with its tra­
ditional allies-to develop an effective vaccine
and put an end to the current global nightmare .
The question is how many more Americans will
die before that victory is achieved, and how many
of those might have lived had all been willing to
make the small sacrifices necessary to contain the
enemy. -r
 CO N F U S I O N R E I G N E D 7 5 YEARS AG O W H E N JAPAN
AN N O U N CED ITS S U R R E N D E R B UT P I LOTS ON BOTH
S I DES KEPT F I G HT I N G BY BARR ETI TI LLMAN

26 SEPTEMBER 2020
THE MORNING AF TER
On August 1 5, 1 945-a aay afte�
Em peror H i ro h ito's s u rren d e r
a n n o u nceme nt-Lt. C m d r. T h o m a s
R e i a y of U . S . N avy fi ghter- b o m o e �
s � u a d ron VB F-83 shoots d own a
"sn ooper" N a kaji ma C6N 1 Myrt,
i n an i l l ustratio n by Jacl< F.e l l ows.
 WURLU WAR II WAS A GLOBAL canFLRGRRTIUn
THAT TRRnSCEnaEa GEUGRRPH� Ana TlmE
ITSELF-A FACT BEST ILLUSTRATED an THE UR�
THE SHUUTlnG STOPPED.
I n the Western Pacific o n August 1 4, 1 945 , thou­
sands of American airmen took off i n wartime
and landed in peacetime after midnight. Almost
simultaneously, Allied and Japanese fliers fought
and slew one another on August 1 5 , mostly with­
out knowing that Tokyo had agreed to surrender.
FINAL ACTS It had much to do with time zones.
A Vo u g ht F4U-4 Over the previous several days rumors and
Corsa i r of VB F-83 conflicting reports had skittered over radio broad­
l a u nches fro m the casts from \l\lashington, D. C . : Jap an was about
ai rcraft carrier USS to surrender; Japan was not surrendering. On
Essex i n Aug ust 1 945. the 1 Oth, Tokyo had announced tentative accep-
28 C!) SEPTEMBER 2020
tance of the Allies' Potsdam Declaration calling
for Japan's unconditional surrender, provided
that the emperor kept his throne. Meanwhile,
the Japanese war cabinet remained divided over
surrendering. The situation remained tentative,
viscerally uncertain.
The U. S . Twentieth Air Force had destroyed
Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs
o n Augu st 6 and 9 , imme diately followed by
the Soviets' declaration of war and invasion of
Japanese-held Manchuria. As Japan reeled under
the triphammer blows, millions of people antici-
pated Tokyo's capitulation. Days passed in gnaw­
ing uncertainty.
After 45 months of combat across the world's
greatest ocean, U. S. servicemen were bone weary
from the sanguinary slogging that ponderously
advanced westward from Hawaii to Honshu-at
an average rate of about three miles per day. In
that time more than 400,000 Americans had died
in combat or from war-related causes in defeating
first Italy, then Germany and now perhaps Japan.
Men were tense, dubious, sleep-deprived. T hey
0
did not know what to believe.
n the afternoon ofAugust 1 4 (Tokyo time),
Maj . Gen. Curtis LeMay's powerful XXI
Bomber Command launched 750 B-29s
from the Mariana Islands, some 1 , 5 0 0
miles south o fJapan. Deployed i n seven task forces,
the Boeing firebirds were to target transport and
oil targets, with overhead times between midnight
and 3 a.m.
The largest contingent was 1 40 Superfortresses
of the 3 l 5th Bomb Wing, led by Brig. Gen. Frank
Armstrong, an extraordinary airman and officer.
He had led the first U. S . strategic bombing mis­
sion in Europe almost exactly three years earlier,
striking transp ort targets in northern France.
Since then he had exchanged his B- 1 7 for a -29,
and now headed what would likely be the last
heavy bomber mission of the war-perfect book­
ends to a unique career.
It was XXI Bomber Command's longest non­
stop mission: 3 , 700 miles round trip to a refinery
300 miles north of Tokyo. Employing the wing's
new high-definition Eagle radar, Armstrong's
bombardiers smothered the target and turned for
home after more than eight hours en route.
O n the way back, the 8 , 2 5 0 men in LeMay's
bombers were acutely aware that they might be
caught in a time warp. Radio operators eagerly
monitored Radio Saipan and other stations, an­
ticipating confirmation of the war's end.
In a stunning tribute to LeMay's leadership and
his command's professionalism, every bomber
returned to base that morning. Meanwhile, Frank
Armstrong mused: " Every man aboard our air­
craft was outwardlyjubilant, but inside each expe­
rienced mixed emotions. \!Ve wanted no more of
war, but it was difficult not to think of those who A 'WORLD APART
had not lived to see the dawn of this day. These Above l eft: N ew
thoughts brought waves of sadness, irony and grat­ Yo rkers c e l e b rate V-J
itude. Too, there was a sudden surge of awe. Some Day, u n awa re that
of us had been in the business of killing for nearly hosti l ities h ave n ot
four years. How would we adapt to a peaceful exis­ q u ite ceased yet.
tence, and how much would we regret the havoc Above: B o m b s fro m
we had wrought, even though it had been abso­ G ru m m a n Ave n g e rs
exp l o d e on Tokus h i m a
lutely necessary?"
Then the U. S . State D e p artment declared a i rfie l d l ate i n the war.
that, despite the unconditional surrender dictate
from Potsdam, Emperor Hirohito could remain.
Unknown to the Allies, that set off a bitter dis­
pute, with the "big six" ruling Tokyo still divided.
At that point the emperor personally intervened,
stating that Japan would "bear the unbearable "
a n d surrender.
President Harry Truman announced the news
in the evening of the l 4th, Washington time. He
concluded, however, "The proclamation of V-J
Day must await upon the formal signing of the
surrender terms byJapan . "
The U n i t e d Newsreel showed t w o million
New Yorkers j ammed into Times Square. "It's all
over, total victory," the narrator intoned. ''.All night
long the rej oicing continues. Never before in his­
tory has there been greater reason to be thankful
for peace."
Thus began a three-day spree of j oyous cele­
bration and drunken revelry. But off Japan, the
killing continued.
"nEVER BEFORE
A
cross the international date line, where
L e M ay ' s b o m b e r s were returning In HISTUR�
to their roosts, the U. S . Third Fleet
had alre ady launched two of three HAS THERE
scheduled air strikes on the morning of the l 5 th.
Admiral William F. Halsey's command had mon­ BEEn GREATER
itored communications during the night, keeping
options open for continued operations or a stand­ RERSan TU
down . But when Admiral Chester Nimitz's Pacific
headquarters could not confirm Tokyo's surren­ BE THRnKFUL
der, he directed Halsey to continue hostilities in
the morning. FUR PERCE."
The Third Fleet's striking arm was Task Force
38, the most powerful military force on any ocean:
SEPTEMBER ZOZO • 29

TEAM EFFORT
Above: Vice Ad m i ra l
J o h n S . M c C a i n (l eft)
a n d h i s a i r operati ons
officer, C o m m a n d e r
J i m my T h a c h , w o r k a
p rob l e m o n b o a rd U S S
Hancock. B e l ow: Deck
crewm en re position a
G r u m m a n F6F-5
H e l l cat of fig hter
s q u a d ron VF-88 after
it b u rst a tire w h i l e
l a n d i n g o n Yorktown.
more than 90,000 men aboard 1 06 ships with 1 7
fast carriers, including Britain's HMS Indefatigable.
They carried more than 1 , 3 0 0 fighters, dive
bombers and torpedo planes-larger than some
air forces. Vice Admiral John S. McCain was a
Johnny-come-lately to aviation but he had the
seniority needed to command Halsey's carriers,
and his staff was up to the task. His fleet air oper­
ations officer, C aptain John S. ''.Jimmy" Thach,
was an outstanding Navy fighter tactician who
ran much of the task force for Mc Cain.
Some aviators had been fighting since 1 942, or
even earlier. Leading Fighter Squadron 86 (VF-86)
from USS Wasp was Lt. Cmdr. Cleo]. Dobson, sur­
vivor of Enterprise's unwelcome greeting over Pearl
Harbor on December 7, 1 94 1 . He still ached for a
shot at aJapanese aircraft.
Strike Able, with 1 03 aircraft, launched at 5 : 3 0
a.m. against airfields a n d other facilities around
Tokyo. But the first enemy contact that morning
was made by Vought F4U- 1 D Corsairs off Essex.
At 5 : 40 newly promoted Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Hamil
Reidy latched onto a long, lean bogey near the
task force. He closed in, identified it as a speedy
Nakajima C 6N l Myrt recon plane and dropped
it into the spume-tossed gray ocean. It was Reidy's
1 Oth victory, making him the last double ace in
U. S. Navy history.
Reidy subsequently received accolades for
having scored the last aerial victory of the war.
But another ace, Belleau Wood's 2 1 -year-old Lt.
G .g.) Edward Toaspern, actually carved his final
notches after Reidy that morning when he downed
two Mitsubishi A6M Zeros over land.
Belleau Wood's Air Group 24 was nearing its tar­
get when bandits tried to intercept about 25 miles
off lnubosaki Lighthouse, a familiar coastal land­
mark. Four Grumman F6F-5 Hellcats splashed six
single-engine fighters, two by pilots who had never
scored before.
San Jacinto, the "flagship of the Texas Navy,"
launched its first strike overland off Mi to, 45 miles
northeast of Tokyo. An estimated 20 Japanese
fighters engaged VF-49, which claimed seven kills
and two probably destroyed without loss.
At 6 : 3 0 the first fighter-bombers were in their
dives when the fleet broadcast the cease-fire order:
"A.II Strike Able planes return to base immediately.
Do not attack target. The war is over!" The Third
Fleet learned thatJapan had agreed to surrender,
accepting the Allies' offer to retain the emperor.
H owever, Ticonderoga 's Hellcats continued
their attack rather than pull out of their dives at
medium altitude within range of anti-aircraft
guns. Lieutenant G .g.)John McNabb was the "tail­
end Charlie," and his 500-pound bomb probably
was the last one dropped onJapan.
I n some squadrons, air discipline unraveled.
Pilots broke formation and indulged in j oyful aer­
obatics at the sheer thrill of being alive.
Among the inbound planes in Strike Baker was
Essex's Air Group 8 3 . Ensign D onald McPher­
son, a Nebraska ace, said: "W'e VF-83 pilots were
part of a large attack force that was approaching
the Tokyo B ay area when we were informed by
radio of the 'cease fire.' We were to proceed back
over the ocean and to j e ttison our bombs and
rockets. After following those orders we broke
formation and 'celebrated' by doing all kinds of
aerobatics! What great feeling to have ended the
conflict victoriously!"
 The third strike force 's aircraft shut down en­
gines on their carriers' flight decks. Bombers were
struck below to hangar decks while fighters stood
by to reinforce the combat air patrol.
Meanwhile, an impromptu celebration erupted
in Task Force 38. Men either shouted and pounded
the backs of shipmates or stood frozen in place, try­
ing to absorb the message. Aboard scores of ships,
sailors took turns tugging lanyards that blared
steam whistles. Many men blasted out the Morse
Code dot-dot-dot-dash. V for victory.
All offensive operations were cancelled at 7 a.m.,
but fleet defenses remained on full alert. And the
killing continued.

hether from ignorance or anger,

W numerous Japanese airmen contin­

ued resisting the intruders . Hardest
hit was Yorktown's VF- 8 8 , flying a
j oint mission with 24 Corsairs off Shangri-La and
Wasp . Lieutenant Howard M. Harrison's dozen
H ellcats were dispersed in worsening weather,
leaving six intact upon penetrating a cloud front.
"Rowdy" Harrison was enormously popu­
lar with his shipmates. They considered him the
"friendliest, straightest guy you could ever meet . "
Overflying Tokorozawa Airfield northwest o f
Tokyo w h e n t h e cease-fire message w a s broad­
cast, Harrison was about to reverse course when
the roof fell in. An estimated 1 7 enemy aircraft­
reportedly a mixed bag of imperial army and
navy types-dropped onto the Grummans from
ab ove and behind. It was a near perfect "six
o'clock" attack.
The attackers were from the 3 0 2 n d Kokutai
(naval air group) , based at Atsugi . They had
scrambled eight Zeros under Lieutenant Yutaka
Morioka, a former dive bomber pilot with four RESCUED AT SEA
victories, as well as four Mitsubishi J2M3 Jacks, To p : VF-88 p i l ots ho ist
big, rugged fighters with four 20mm cannons. Lieute n a nt H oward
Morioka set up the bounce well, hitting the " H owdy" H a rrison
Americans at 8 , 0 0 0 fe et. Spotting the threat, after he was p l ucked
Harrison knew there was no choice but to fight. His fro m the I n l a n d Sea.
pilots shoved throttles to the stops, maneuvered Above: VF-88 CO Lt.
for a head-on attack and opened fire. In that first C m d r. Dick C ro m m e l i n
frantic pass the Yorktowners thought they dropped c h a rts a m issi on with
four bandits, but the fo rmations were shredded (fro m l eft) Lts . (j . g . )
and the combat turned to hash. B l a i r " B uck" R o d g e rs,
Fighting 88 was a tight-knit outfit. The previous M a u rice Proctor and
week Lts. G . g.) Maurice Proctor andJoseph Sahloff J o s e p h S a h l off.

SEPTEMBER ZOZO • 31
 RO YAL TREATMENT
A S u p e r m a r i n e Seafire
takes off fro m H M S
Indefatigable a s
others p repare to
l a u n c h in Aug ust 1 94 5 .
The Roya l N avy carri e r
w a s atta ched to t h e
U . S . T h i rd F l eet's Tas k
Fo rce 38 a n d saw
p l enty of a ction on the
m o r n i n g of Aug ust 1 5 .
32 '1) SEPTEMBER 2020
had volunteered t o cover H arriso n , who had
ditched off Mito. They led the rescue amphibian
to Harrison's tiny life raft, knowing that otherwise
he likely would not be found.
Now, as Proctor took up a protective position
off Sahloff's damaged Grumman, tracers streaked
past his wings. He turned hard to starboard and
Lt. G . g.) Theodore Hansen shot the Japanese off
his tail . Proctor and Hansen rej oined above
Sahloff, observing two moreJapanese planes afire
but could not identify the victors.
Abruptly Proctor was boxed i n : six bandits
ahead and one astern. Unaccountably, t11e attack­
ers on his nose pulled up, allowing him to engage
the stalker behind him. He scored decisive hits,
sending the enemy down burning.
By the time the enemy sextet returned, Proctor
had enough of a start to dive toward some pro­
tective clouds. The Japanese hit his plane but he
evaded through the weather, reaching the coast.
There Proctor saw Sahloff's crippled Hellcat
spin out of control and crash into the sea. But
Proctor couldn't locate the others, and though
he radioed his shipmates for a rendezvous, only
Hansen replied.
Hansen returned to the ship alone, sick at heart,
believing he was the lone survivor. His spirits rose
when Proctor trapped a few minutes later. In the
debrief of the hard-fought combat Hansen claimed
three victories and Proctor two. Subsequently the
intelligence officer awarded one victory each to
the pilots killed in action: Sahloff, Harrison and
Ensigns Wright Hobbs and Eugene Mandeberg.
It had been Hobbs' 2 3rd birthday.
Postwar analysis of available Japanese records
indicated that the 302nd Kokutai had lost one Zero
and two Jacks. The only confirmed success went
to Morioka, achieving ace status on the last day
of combat.
he Royal Navy's Indefatigable contributed
T a mission that morning against a chem­
ical plant during which six Grumman
Avengers escorted by eight Supermarine
Seafires were j umped by perhaps a dozen Zeros.
The Seafires, though based on the RAF's immortal
Spitfire, carried heavy drop tanks that limited their
performance. With no choice, the British aviators
turned to engage, some unable to shed their exter­
nal fuel.
Hit in the first pass, Sub-Lt. Fred H o ckley
bailed out of his crippled fighter. However, despite
20mm cannon malfunctions, his squadron mates
claimed eight Zeros while an Avenger made a safe
water landing.
B ecause of continuing Japanese probes, the
Americans were leery of any inbound aircraft.
When Royal Navy Sub-Lt. Victor Lowden was
threatened by inquisitive C o rsairs, he lowered
wheels and flaps, b anking steeply to show his
Seafire's distinctive elliptical wing with blue and
white markings.
M e anwhile, Jap anese c o nventional bomb­
ers and kamikazes still posed a threat. A Corsair
from Hancock splashed a Yokosuka D4Y Judy dive
bomber attacking Indefatigable that morning, as
the British carrier narrowly avoided two bombs.
Halsey responded with a widely quoted order:
Investigate suspicious intruders and shoot down
hostiles "in a friendly sort of way. "
Attacks continued through the day. The penul­
timate victim crashed at 1 : 3 0 p.m. when Wa sp's
fighter skipper Cleo Dobson received a vector
from a radar controller. From 2 5 , 0 0 0 feet his
wingman, Lt. G . g.) M J. Morrison, sighted a lone
bogey 8,000 feet below. Dobson could not spot
it so he ceded lead to the youngster. As the two
Hell cats descended, he got a look at the dark-green
intruder, a single-engine bomber. "Boy, he really
made a splash," Dobson wrote. "That was my first
shot at aJap in the air and I'll tell you it really was
a thrill."
A half-hour later Ensign Clarence A. Moore of
Belleau Wood won the race to the last kamikaze. It
was another Judy, the 34th U. S. aerial victory of
the day and the final kill of World War II.
Throughout the day Task Force 3 8 lost a dozen
aircraft, with four Hellcat pilots killed and a Cor­
sair pilot briefly captured.
mperor Hirohito's message was broadcast
E
to the nation at noon. Thus, 70 million
Japanese learned what most of the rest of
the world already knew.
Many Japanese military men were astonished
at the news. Navy Captain Minoru Genda, who
had helped plan the Pearl Harbor attack, shared
the opinion of many. He expected Japan to con­
tinue fighting indefinitely-as long as imperial
warriors breathed.
Others were more outraged than awestruck.
Royal Navy Sub-Lt. Fred Hockley had bailed
out of his Seafire that morning.Just 22, he was cap­
tured by civil authorities and turned over to the
army. He was executed that night, several hours
after Hirohito's broadcast. Eventually two senior
officers were hanged as war criminals.
In a dingy prison near Fukuoka, three hours
after the emperor's announcement, 1 7 B-29 crew­
men were dragged from their cells and murdered
in outrage over Hirohito's capitulation. Most of
the killers escaped the gallows owing to Douglas
MacArthur's postwar "big picture" philosophy.
Meanwhile, some seniorJapanese naval leaders
took their own lives. Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki,
commanding the Fifth Air Fleet, felt he owed the
emperor a death and resolved to fly the war's last
kamikaze mission. He squeezed into the rear seat
of aJudy dive bomber alongside the radioman. Ten
planes left Kyushu, Japan's southern island, that
afternoon though three returned with mechanical
problems. U gaki's plane is thought to have crashed
on an islet near Okinawa.
Ugaki's friend, Vice Adm . Takij iro Onishi , had
formed the Special Attack C orps in the Philip­
pines in late 1 944. He returned home to become
vice chief of the navy general staff but sought
DOW N TO THE W IRE
Above l eft: A Navy
H e l l cat tot i n g a drop
ta n k shoots d own a
M its u b i s h i A6M Zero .
Above: The p i l ot of
the VB F-83 C o rsa i r
Killer's Hash Wagon
m a kes a hash of h i s
l a n d i n g a b o ard Essex.
PILOTS WERE
URUEREU TU
lnVESTIGATE
SUSPICIOUS
lnTRUUERS Ana
SHUUT aawn
HUSTILES "In A
FRIEnULH SORT
UF WAH."
atonement for the thousands of suicide aviators
he had dispatched. He committed hara-kiri but
botched the process and slowly bled to death the
next morning.
Reflecting on events of the day, Halsey recorded:
"I hope that history will remember that when hos­
tilities ended, the capital of the Japanese Empire
had j ust been bombed, strafed and rocketed by
planes of the Third Fleet, and was about to be
bombed, strafed and rocketed again. Last, I hope
i t will remembe r . . . the men on strike Able One
[who] did not return."
There were violent postscripts to the cease­
fire. On the following two nights, Okinawa-based
No rthrop P-6 1 Black Widows intercepted two
Japanese aircraft flying in violation of the cease­
fire and destroyed both. Neither of the victories
were credited because officially they occurred
in peacetime.
O n August 1 8 two C onsolidated B - 3 2 Domi­
nators from the 3 l 2th Bomb Group were inter­
cepted on a photo mission over Honshu. The
Japanese navy fighters, led by ace Saburo Sakai,
inflicted damage on one, wounding three crew­
men, though both bombers returned to Okinawa.
However, Sergeant Anthony Marchione of Potts­
town, Pa. , died of his inj uries-the last American
casualty of the war.
Thus ended World War II, a monstrous conflict
whose sulfurous breath had seared four continents
and claimed perhaps 60 million lives.
One fighter pilot spoke for all. Lieutenant G . g.)
Richard L . Newhafe r-a future n ovelist and
screenwriter--said the j oyous news brought "all
the hope and unreasoning happiness that salva­
tion can bring." -r
Frequent contributor Barrett Tillman is the author ef
nearly 900 articles and more than 40 books. For addi­
tional reading, try Tillman's Whirlwind: The Air
War AgainstJapan 1 942- 1 945 and U. S. Navy
Fighter Squadrons in World War II; Japanese
Naval Aces and Fighter Units of World War II,
by Ikuhiko Hata and Yasuho Jzawa; and Last to Die,
by Stephen Harding.
SEPTEMBER ZOZO • 33
FIRST IMPRESSION
B e l l Ai rcraft's i n a u g u ra l
B - 2 9 S u p e rfortress, serial
n o . 42-6222, l eaves its
M a r i etta , G a . , factory
on Nove m b e r 1 , 1 943.
 � -

an navEmBER l, 1843, THE FIRST UF SSB B 28

-

SUPERFURTRESSES PRUUUCEU BH THE BELL

AIRCRAFT CURPURATIUn UURlnG WURLU WAR II
RULLEU UUT UF THE COLOSSAL PRUUUCTIUn
PLAnT SPECIALLH BUILT In mARIETTA, GA., TU
mAnUFACTURE AmERICA'S nEWEST BUmBER.
36 '1) SEPTEMBER 2020
 •

then across the Atlantic GEORGIA TECH

and North Africa with B e l l 's massive M a rietta
stops in Marrakech, Cairo p l ant (opposite)
and Karachi to their new produ ced 668 B-29s
home at C h akulia, near fo r the U . S . war effort.
C alcutta, India. The Bell Fi rst off the asse m b l y
bomber was among the l i n e w a s 26222 (above),
first of what would eventu­ later d u bbed Deuces
ally become an armada of Wild by its crew, which
B - 2 9 s that would inflict a i n c l u d e d the a utho r's
fiery conclusion to the war father, navigator Ray
That first Superfort was a mile­ with japan. Its tail number Tro l l (i nset, l eft) .
stone for Bell, for Marietta and for was 2 6 2 2 2 , leading the crew
Georgia. What happened to it? to christen it Deuces Wild.
In April 1 944, 1 1 men boarded that first Bell It was clear from the out­
B - 2 9 , fired up its four massive Wright R- 3 3 5 0 set that Boeing, designer of the B-29, would not
engines and took off from a n airfield i n Pratt, Kan. have the capacity to produce all the Superforts
My father, Ray Troll, was among them. He was the Army Air Forces required. Other subcontrac­
the navigator and, at age 2 7, the "old man" of the tors and manufacturers were engaged, including
crew. As they flew the B-29 out of the Kansas prai­ Bell, then producing single-engine fighters from
rie, the crewmen knew that it was huge-one-third its small factory in Buffalo, N.Y In large part as
again the size of the stalwart B- 1 7; it was innovative, a result of lobbying efforts by Marietta and Cobb
with a pressurized cabin and a remotely controlled County officials, Bell selected an area of cotton
gun system; and it could fly faster, higher, farther fields and pine groves near Marietta as the site of
and carry a heavier bombload than any other its new plant. Ground was broken on March 30,
four-engine airplane. A "gentleman's aircraft" 1 942, for the largest construction proj ect under­
as the pilot, Captain Robert Haley, a hefty B-24 taken south of the Mason-Dixon line. \!\Th e n
instructor, first remarked when he slid into the left completed, t h e main building housed two parallel
seat and took the yoke with his burly hands. What half-mile-long assembly lines.
the crew most likely did not know was the signif­ At the h e ight of B - 2 9 production the Bell
icance of this particular B-29 to Georgia history. Bomber Plant employed 28,000 people, many of
Their destination was Gander, Newfoundland, them women. To accommodate the huge influx of

SEPTEMBER ZOZO • 37
 THE W ILD BUNCH
Deuces Wild's crew
i n c l uded (seated, fro m
left) Jose M o ra l es,
b o m b a rd i e r, l ater k i l l e d
a b o a rd a n other 40th
B o m b G ro u p B-29;
John Tweet, fl i g ht
e n g i neer; R o b e rt
H a l ey, c o m m a n der;
John N o rd h a g e n ,
co p i l ot; a n d Ray Tro l l .
T h e o n l y i d entified
e n l isted crewman is
rad io operato r Tu l l y
J o rd a n (sta n d i n g ,
seco n d fro m rig ht) .
38 '1) SEPTEMBER ZOZO
workers, hundreds o f houses, a divided highway,
several new schools and a large modern hospital
were built. The Marietta plant wrenched C obb
County from its cotton-bound past and helped
transform a Georgia rooted in agriculture into an
industrial state.
Production lagged at first due to the lack of an
experienced local labor force. Disorganization
and a shortage of tools also plagued the program.
Particularly frustrating were the thousands of
design changes that held up the assembly line.
It took five months of intensive labor by Bell's
then-skeleton workforce to produce Deuces Wild.
The first 1 4 B-29s to come off Bell's assembly lines
were largely built by hand.
The Army Air Forces accepted B-29 serial no.
42-6 2 2 2 on December 30, 1 94 3 , but it appears
the bomber remained at Bell for several months
to undergo design and engineering modifications.
Finally, in February 1 944, a newly trained crew
arrive d to ferry the airplane to Pratt, where it
would j oin the 45 th Squadron, 40th Bomb Group,
of the 58th Bombardment Wing (Very Heavy).
Despite the millions of dollars and the sweat,
angst and frustration exacted to get Deuces Wild
out the factory door, it came dangerously close
to crashing on that ferry flight. The crew was on
the runway waiting for clearance to take off when
orders came to detour to Fort Worth, Texas, where
AAF chief General Henry H. Arnold was visit­
ing the headquarters of the Air Forces Training
C ommand. "Hap" Arnold wanted to personally
inspect the first Bell B - 2 9 . According to pilot
Ira Matthews, the flight was uneventful until it
reached Texas, where the Fort Worth airfield was
obscured by a violent thunderstorm. Visibility was
made worse by ice that encrusted the glazed cock­
pit. Matthews aborted his first landing attempt
because he could not see the ground. He made
a second attempt sticking his head out the pilot's
window, found a hole in the clouds and managed
a downwind landing. Matthews wrote that he
would have abandoned the effort if the tower
had not advised him after his first attempt that
" General Arnold was waiting."
"We p arked the plane in front of base opera­
tions near a small fleet of G.I. staff cars," Matthews
recounted. "As we stepped out of the wheel well
it was easy to spot General Arnold, he was the
big man with the stars all over his shoulders. He
returned my salute, shook my hand warmly, and
said, ' C aptain I want to go aboard and see how
Bell Aircraft is doing with the B-29 . ' My flight engi­
neer and I followed him up the entrance ladder.
The great general spent almost an hour inspect­
ing the new bomber from its nose to its tail. We
scrambled after him, explaining the modifications
the Bell factory made to the original design. By the
time we worked our way from the nose to the tail
section of the plane we realized that Gen. Arnold
knew a lot about B-29 bombers."
C
aptain Haley and crew were elated to
finally get an airplane. They had been
training in war-weary B- l 7s with an occa­
sional flight in a YB-2 9 . That sense ofjoy
comes through in one of my father's letters home :
"We all feel so much better now that we have our
airplane . . . . This airplane is really quite marvelous.
It's got everything. And our airplane seems to be in
wonderful shape. We have four good engines. The
plane flies well, and it is equipped with almost all
the latest scientific gadgets. You know when you
have your own airplane you begin to take pride in
it and to 'baby it.' After all, we have to fly the thing."
Despite my father's glowing appraisal, all was
not well in Kansas. Deuces Wild, like many of the
early production models, still needed work. At least
twice Haley's crew had to make emergency land­
ings during training flights-once due to an engine
fire. Problems continued to delay the B-29s' depar­
ture for combat. To address the situation General
Arnold ordered hundreds of specialists to be sent
from production facilities to the Kansas training
fields to complete the modifications and repairs
necessary to get the bombers into the war.
It was unusually cold and harsh in Kansas that
Marc h . There was not enough hangar space
at Pratt or at the other Kansas training fields to
move the bombers inside. Most of the needed
repairs, including installation of new R-3 3 50s,
were completed outdoors in the bitter subzero
cold. Mechanics, specialists and even flight crews
worked around the clock for weeks, rotating shifts
about every half-hour to keep from freezing. In
the lore of WWII this herculean effort has been
dubbed the "Battle of Kansas."
Finally, in late March and e arly April 1 944,
bombers began to depart for India. Deuces Wild
left on April 6, the same day that the Twentieth
Air Force was officially created to enable Arnold
to oversee B-29 operations from his vVashington
office. Each bomber flew alone. Deuces Wild had
a relatively uneventful flight and arrived at 40th
Bomb Group headquarters in India on April 1 8 .
The weather conditions i n India could not have
been more different from those in Kansas. Midday
temperatures often approached 1 1 5 degrees. Little
could be done during the day. Accommodations
were still under construction, so crews pitched
tents under the wings of their aircraft to find shade.
Despite its long range, the B-29 could not reach
Japan from India. Forward bases in China, built by
hand one rock at a time by thousands of Chinese
laborers, made it possi­
ble to strike targets o n
the southern island o f
Kyushu. Tokyo and other
targets on the island of
Honshu were too far. To
reach the China bases,
however, the b ombers
had to fly over the for­
midable Himalayas­
"the Hump," as the air­
men called it. The 40th
Bomb Group's forward
base was at Hsingching, in western China. OVER " THE HUMP"
OnJune 5 the B-29s took off on their first com­ Above: B-29s cross the
bat mission, a shakedown effort launched from H i m a l ayas fro m I ndia to
the India bases to bomb Bangkok in Japanese-held t h e i r C h i n ese forward
Thailand. Deuces Wild participated, but it was not bases. Top : A S u p e r­
flown by Haley's crew, alternate crews having been fortress g a sses u p
established to provide redundancy. The mission p r i o r to the J u n e 1 5 ,
was a failure largely due to a cyclone that disrupted 1 944, raid on J a p a n 's
the raid. Few bombs struck the primary target and Yawata Steel Works.
five aircraft were lost.
Despite the poor results of tl1e Bangkok mission,
Arnold pressed for a strike onJapan. After enough
oil and fuel had been stockpiled in China to sup­
port the effort, the first raid was launched onJune
1 5 , timed to arrive over the Yawata Steel Works at
night. Seven B-29s were lost with marginal results,
but the mission was hailed as a public relations suc­
cess-a message to the Japanese that their Home
Islands were no longer safe from attack. THE �AWATA
Deuces Wild participated in the Yawata mission,
but the distinction of flying Bell's first bomber over m1ssmn WAS
Japan went to the crew of Captain Robert Copley.
However, the mission was costly for Haley's crew. A mESSAGE TO
Their bombardier, Jose Morales from Marfa,
Texas, volunteered to replace an absent member THE JAPAnESE
of another crew and disappeared with them on
June 14 while flying to the forward base in China. THAT THEIR
On July 2 9 Haley's crew took off for Anshan,
Manchuria, on their first combat mission in Deuces HOmE ISLAnas
Wild. The crew bombed the Showa Steel Works
and returned to China without incident. Most of WERE no
the bombers struck the primary target and the
results were significant-the first real demonstra­ LOnGER SAFE
tion of the B-29's lethal potential.
Deuces Wild had survived its first three combat FROm ATTACK.
missions, but its fourth, to Palembang on the island
of Sumatra, was nearly a different story.
SEPTEMBER ZOZO • 39

READ Y TO ROLL
S u p e rfortresses l i n e
u p t o take off fro m
C h i n a on the Yawata
mission, the wa r's fi rst
strategic b o m b i n g
attack agai nst t h e
J a panese h o m e l a n d .
BELLY FLOP
Deuces Wild l i es
damaged beyo n d
rep a i r after it ran
out of fu e l a n d crash­
landed at C h a k u l i a ,
I n d i a , o n Septe m b e r
1 1 , 1 944. The crew
wa l ked away u n h u rt.
0 n August 1 0 the longest combat mission
of the war to date, a round trip of nearly
4,000 miles, was launched from a British
airfield on Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) against
the oil refineries at Palembang. Haley's crew did
not participate, but Deuces Wild was flown by
Captain Ira Matthews, the same pilot whose fly­
ing skill had prevented it from crashing in the Fort
vVorth storm .
T h e mission began on a foreboding note. Short­
ly after takeoff the no. 2 engine began to leak oil
and Matthews returned to base, causing a delay in
the takeoff schedule for the remaining planes. The
leak was repaired and Deuces Wild continued the
mission well behind the main strike force.
Just before reaching the primary target the no.
4 engine started losing oil pressure. Flight engi­
neer Lieutenant Louis Grace advised Matthews
that they would have to feather the propeller and,
according to his aircraft performance charts, it
was unlikely the Superfort could return to base on
three engines if they born bed the target. Matthews
and crew elected to bomb the target anyway.
After "bombs away" copilot Lieutenant Bob
Winters reduced the RPM on engine no. 4 and
tried to feather the propeller, but the attempt failed
and it began to windmill. Now despe rate, the
crew began to jettison every removable obj ect not
needed to safely operate the crippled ship, hoping
the reduced weight would give them a chance to
make the 1 ,500-mile trip back to Ceylon without
ditching, or at least ditching closer to their base.
The gunners fired all remaining ammunition.
The bomb racks, armor plating, guns, gunsights,
computers, bombsight and gun turret walls were
all dismantled and thrown out the bomb bay. Even
the padded green upholstery was ripped out and
thrown overboard . After a short discussion on
the usefulness of parachutes and pistols over the
ocean, they too were discarded. " Sufficient weight
was j ettisoned that our plane was able to maintain
1 0,000 feet altitude at 1 5 0 miles per hour with rea­
sonable power settings on the three good engines,"
Matthews later recounted.
Not long after a depressing discussion among
the crew about ditching procedures, navigator
Lieutenant Herbert Hirschfeld reported that they
had picked up a tailwind. He calculated the boost
gave them a slim chance to make it back. Their
relief, however, was short-lived. About 200 miles
out from Ceylon the no. 1 engine coughed, sput­
tered and stopped. The crew successfully feathered
the engine and transferred the little fuel remaining
in its outboard tank. Deuces Wild was now flying
on its two inboard R-3 350s, one of which was the
troublesome no. 2 engine.
Deuces Wild made it back safely after more than
1 8 hours in t11e air, the last B-29 to return. While
taxiing after landing the two remaining engines
quit and the bomber had to be towed the last
few hundred feet. For his skilled piloting Captain
Matthews was later awarded the Distinguished
Flying C ross.
After nine days of repairs in Ceylon, Deuces Wild
returned to base in India. Because the bomber had
been stripped down to bare aluminum by its des­
perate crew, it was converted to a tanker assigned
to carry fuel from India to China. It was on one of
those Hump missions that the Superfort escaped
a third brush with oblivion.
Crews flying the Himalaya route were advised
to stay above the mountaintops. If caught in bad
weather, a fully loaded B-29 flying too low might
not be able to climb high enough to clear all the
peaks and would be forced to blindly weave a safe
path through the mountains, a task considered vir­
tually impossible.
Even though pilots were provided minimum
altitudes for each Hump mission, they were unwit­
tingly encouraged to disregard them. Group head­
quarters tracked fuel delivered to China by each
pilot and each plane. More fuel could be offioaded
in China if it was not consumed climbing to alti­
tude. This overt scorecard spawned a dangerous
competition among pilots.
On one of Deuces Wild's Hump missions Haley
leveled off at 1 8 ,000 feet despite a minimum alti­
tude of 24,000 feet having been established for
the flight. The weather suddenly changed and the
B-29 was soon socked in the "soup." With no visi­
bility, Haley told my father he needed some expert
navigation . My father replied that Haley had to
get above the clouds, but the captain said that icing
on the wings made it impossible for him to gain
altitude. The crew thought they were doomed.
Fortunately Deuces Wild was outfitted with some
early radar equipment and had a competent oper­
ator. Closely watching his monitor, the operator
was able to interpret the radar shadow cast by
mountains to provide Haley with a course to weave
the plane around them. My father said this was
his most terrifying mission and credited the radar
operator with saving the ship.
But another Hump mission and likely this same
competition would end Deuces Wild's career. On
September 1 1 , 1 944, C aptain William Renfro
and crew were returning to India at night after
a six-hour flight from China when three engines
quit during final approach. The 45th Bomb
Squadron's group history described what hap­
pened next: "Altitude at that moment was about
500' and they were still quite a way back from the
end of the runway. They pulled up gear, turned on
the landing lights, then called the tower notifying
it they were going to crash land. The application
of power to # l engine tended to bring them closer
to the field, but it also turned them until they were
to the right of the runway.
"As they leveled out to land, all engines regained
their power, so they climbed straight ahead hop­
ing to make a downwind landing on the proposed
runway. The power lasted for about a minute, and
PEAK PERFORMANCE
The towering peaks of
the H i m a l ayas posed
a constant c h a l l e n g e
to American p i l ots
cross i n g the H u m p .
T h i s 40th B o m b G ro u p
B-29, p i l oted by M aj o r
J o h n Ke l l e r, w a s t h e
first S u p e rfo rtress l ost
in com bat when it
crashed on takeoff
d u ri n g the J u n e 5
m ission to B a n g ko k .
THE BELrn
LAnmnG
TWISTED THE
FUSELAGE Ana
BROKE THE
8-2S'S BACK­
THE onE THlnG
THrn COULD
noT FIX.
then all four engines lost power. Making a steep
1 80° turn back to the field they crash landed with
wheels up.
"The landing was successful and no one on
board was injured. Fire broke out, but rapid work
by the base firefighting department soon put it
out," the history continued.
While the report praised C aptain Renfro's
skill, some, including my father, who was not on
the flight, believed Deuces Wild was the victim
of the dangerous fuel competition. The aircraft
commander decided how much fuel should be
offioaded in China and how much should remain
on the plane for its return to India. Renfro must
have encountered conditions on the return that
caused Deuces Wild to consume more fuel than he
had anticipated.
Charles Orlusky, one of the maintenance crew
and the man who painted Deuces Wild's evocative
nose art, shared the view that the loss of the aircraft
was an act of negligence. According to Orlusky
the belly landing twisted the fuselage and broke
the B - 2 9 's back-the one thing he said his guys
could not fix. "No way for a lady to die," he later
lamented in a letter to the author. At the time of
the crash Deuces Wild had completed more round
trips over the Hump than any other plane in the
40th Bomb Group.
And so Bell's first bomber met its end in a mud­
dy field in India barely I 0 months after it had rolled
out as a shiny new B - 2 9 , the pride of Georgia.
Although the airplane's life was short, Deuces Wild
always brought its crews safely home. -r
Tzm Troll'sfather became a squadron bombardier,
completing 26 combat missions and many trips over
the Hump. He was navigator aboard the.first B-29 to
return to the US. in Late September 1 9 4 5. Further read­
ing: The Bell Bomber Plant, by Joe Kirby; Building
the B-29, by Jacob Vander Meulen; and Bombers
OverJapan, by Keith Wheeler.
SEPTEMBER ZOZO • 41
 AFTER A SEVERAL-HOUR DELAM, THE
PRSSEnGERS an PRn Rm 1736 WERE FlnRLLH
RELRXlnG-THEIR PLRnE WAS GETTlnG RERUH
TU TAKE UFF. EVERHUnE an THE CHARTERED
BUElnG 747 WAS anLH m1nUTES RWRH FRam
THE BEG1nn1nG UF A mucH-RnTICIPRTEU
mEUITERRRnERn CRUISE VRCRTIUn.
44 C!) SEPTEMBER 2020

In the first-class section, C aroline Hopkins
finished letters she'd been writing to her two
daughters. Next to her, husband Warren slipped
a magazine into his seatback pocket. Through the
cabin, other passengers settled back for what was
supposed to be a short flight from Tenerife to Las
Palmas in the C anary Islands, where everyone
would be bused to their waiting cruise ship.
The Pan Am jumbo j et was moving slowly down
Tenerife's single runway when the passengers felt
a sudden sharp swerve to the left. B ack in the
economy section, passenger Isobel Monda imme­
diately looked out the nearest window. "The damn
fool's going to run off the runway!" she gasped to
her husband Tony.
In fact, driving the jet off the runway was exactly
what C aptain Victor Grubbs and his first officer,
Robert Bragg, were trying to do. The reason was
simple and horribl e : They had suddenly seen
a KLM 7 4 7 speeding down the foggy runway
directly toward them . Grubbs and his crew were
trying desperately to get out of tl1e way, even if that
meant getting stuck in the soft grass adj acent to
the runway.
But they didn't make it. FATEFUL PRELUDE
On March 2 7, 1 9 7 7, shortly after 5 p . m . local Left : A p h otograph
time, Pan Am 1 7 3 6 and KLM 4805 collided taken j ust b efore the
o n the runway of Los Rodeos Airport in the crash sh ows P a n Am
C anary I slands. More than four decades later, 1 7 36 o n the Los
the crash remains the worst disaster in aviation Rodeos tarmac with
history, killing 583 people, injuring dozens and the KLM 747, The
creating lifelong trauma fo r thousands. Flying Dutchman, j u st
How could this have happened? The crash of a in fro nt of it, b l o c ki n g
single 7 4 7 would have been terrible; a crash involv­ its way. Above: The
ing two j umbo jets was almost inconceivable. layout of the ru nway
In succeeding ye ars, much of the blame set­ exits at Te ne rife's tiny
tled onto KLM's captain, Jacob van Zanten, who a i rport was a cruci a l
began his takeoff roll before receiving air controller fa cto r i n t h e c o l l i s i o n .
clearance. But nearly a dozen mistakes and coinci­
dences had to line up with dismaying precision in
order for the disaster to happen.
Just for starters, neither of the airliners was
even supposed to be on Tenerife, let alone on the
same runway at the same time. Both were carry­
ing passengers to the beginning of their vacations
on Grand C anary Island. But on that Sunday
morning, shortly before the scheduled arrival of
the two 747s, a Canary Islands terrorist group set
off a bomb in Grand Canary's Las Palmas airport
terminal, causing injuries and panic. A telephone
threat to the airport switchboard made a reference
to "bombs," plural, and when that was relayed to mlSTAKES Ana
airport officials, all incoming flights were post­
poned or diverted. cmncmEncEs
While the ultimately unsuccessful search for a
second bomb was carried out, a dozen incoming HAU TU unE
aircraft, including the Pan Am and KLM 7 4 7 s ,
were s e n t to nearby Tenerife to wait until Las UP WITH
Palmas officials gave the all-clear. The search took
hours, and those on board both airliners could be msmA�mG
PRECISmn m
excused for becoming impatient.
Transcripts of the cockpit conversations later
showed that the Pan Am crew members were able
to fight that impatience better than the KLM crew. ORDER FUR
Trying not to j am up the airport's small terminal
building, Captain Grubbs, first officer Bragg and THE ACCmEnT
second officer George vVarns kept the 380 passen­
gers and 1 3 cabin crew members on board. After TU HAPPEn.
an hour or so, Grubbs invited anyone on board to
have a look in the 7 4 7 's cockpit.
SEPTEMBER ZOZO • �5
 Dozens of P a n A m ' s curious a n d bored pas­
THE KLm CREW
STARTED
sengers eagerly accepted the offe1: A line of peo­
ple waiting for a peek inside the 7 4 7 's co ckpit
extended through the second-floor lounge (the
cockpit sat in front of that lounge), down a circu­
lar stairway into the first-class section, then back
into the economy section.
FRETTlnG ABDUT "It wasn't much fun coming in here, was it?"
one of the passengers asked the flight crew. (Con­
STRICT DUTCH versations were now being recorded on the 7 4 7 's
cockpit voice recorder, which was recovered after
GOVERnmEnT the accident.)
"\!Ve didn't know why we had to land, except
RULES ummnG they ordered us down," Grubbs answered . "We
told them that we could hold [above Las Palmas]
OVERTlmE FOR because we had plenty of fuel . " His remark iden­
tified another of the day's painful coincidences­
FLIGHT CREWS. if Pan Am had stayed in a holding pattern, the
accident wouldn't have happened. Grubbs then
told and re-told successive cockpit visitors about
the delay.
"Thank you all; it was a new experience," one
passenger told the crew. "Thank you , " Grubbs
politely replied.
COLLISION AT LOS RODEOS AIRPORT
MARCH 27. 1977
At 4:58 p . m . the KLM 747
begins taxiing toward the Pan Am tries to get off
runway, fo l l owed by the Pan the ru nway but is struck
Am 747 three min utes later. by the barely a i rborne
KLM ai rcraft at 5:06:49.
Control Tower
Passenger
Terminal
Pan Am is instructed to follow KLM onto
the ru nway a n d take the third exit (C-3).
�6 C!) SEPTEMBER ZOZO
eanwhile, back in the KLM plane, the
M crew had let their 234 passengers leave
the aircraft and wander around in the
Tenerife terminal building. While they
waited, the KLM crew started fretting about strict
Dutch government rules limiting ove rtime for
flight crews-their scheduled continuing flight
from Grand Canary to Amsterdam would push
that limit.
"What are the repercussions" for cockpit crews
who violate those rules, \i\Tillem Schreuder, the sec­
ond officer, wondered.
"You'll face thejudge," said a voice in the cockpit.
"Is it a question of fines or imprisonment?"
Schreuder continued.
'1\t any rate it would mean revocation of your
license for quite a while, and that means money,"
Captain van Zanten answered.
Van Zanten then made an operational decision
that made perfect sense but later proved disas­
trously significant: Wanting to use the wait con­
structively, he decided to refuel his j et.
Ironically, just after the refueling started, Las
Palmas airport reopened. So now, although every-
After taxi ing the length
of the runway, KLM turns
1 80 degrees a n d begins
_________
its takeoff rol l at 5:06: 1 2.
-----,
Pan Am m isses
exit C-3 in the fog
and heads for C-4.
Pan Am Boeing 747- 1 2 1
Crew 1 6 (nine dead)
Passengers 380 (326 dead)
KLM Boeing 747-206B
Crew 1 4 ( a l l dead)
Passengers 234 ( a l l dead)
one was anxious to leave Tenerife, KLM was tem­
porarily immobile, waiting for the fuel trucks to
finish. Several smaller passenger jets were able to
taxi around KLM and onto the runway and leave
Tenerife, but Pan Am , parked behind KLM on the
apron and too large to scoot around, was immobile,
too. And with the extra fuel, KLM had become
tens of thousands of pounds heavier, meaning it
would need more speed and more runway to get
off the ground. The significance of that was now
only minutes away.
Meanwhile, the fog got thicker and the visibility
quickly decreased.
Well before the refueling had finished, KLM
rounded up all the passengers who'd been brows­
ing in the terminal and bused them back to the
waiting plane. All, that is, except for Robina van
Lanschot, an employee of a tour group based
on Tenerife. She thought it pointless to fly to Las
Palmas, then return to Tenerife with tourists. She
decided to wait on Tenerife, so she asked a friend
to send her luggage. Then she walked to a pay
phone, called her boyfriend on Tenerife and was
gone from the airport by the time KLM began
taxiing. KLM's 249 passengers and crew had just
become 248.
Eventually the mother of three, van Lanschot
said in a 2 0 1 7 interview that she struggled with
survivor's guilt for many years over her sponta­
neous decision-a decision that saved her life.
Shortly before 5 p . m . , the control tower gave
KLM permission to start its engines, enter the
runway at the northwest end, then move down
the runway and leave it on the third turnoff, C-3.
That would put KLM on the adj acent taxiway, The KLM crew did as directed, completing ASHES TO ASHES
from where it could continue to the southeast end. their swivel turn as Pan Am was entering the run­ Top : The b u rnt-out
Then KLM was to swing back onto the runway way on the other end. As with KLM, the Pan Am wreckage of P a n Am
for its takeoff run back to the northwest. Pan Am crew was instructed to leave the runway on the dif­ 1 7 36 l itters the Los
was about to start its engines, and would be given ficult C-3 turnoff, again causing confusion in the Rodeos runway.
exactly the same instructions, following KLM. cockpit. The voice transcripts showed that Grubbs Above: A S p a n i s h
But it didn't work out that way. Both airline and Bragg had trouble believing they weren't sup­ g e n d a r m e su rveys t h e
crews got confused about the runway exit they posed to leave at C-4. re m a i n s of KLM 4 8 0 5 .
were supposed to use. Neither crew was sure if the The elements of the coming disaster were now A l l 2 4 8 passe n g e rs
ground controller had told them "first" or "third" in place : a n d crew on the D utch
runway exit-the two words have an identical a i r l i n e r perished in
"ir" sound in the middle. And C-3 required a dif­ • Two j umbo j ets facing each other on the same the fi e ry cra s h .
ficult maneuver. Both pilots would have to turn runway, but unable to see each other because
their jumbo j ets 1 3 5 degrees to the left from the of the fog, with Pan Am 1 7 3 6 taxiing directly
direction of their taxiing to get onto C - 3 . Then toward KLM 480 5 .
each would turn back 1 3 5 degrees to the right to • A K L M crew anxious to g e t off t h e ground,
continue on the taxiway. By comparison, the C-4 following its earlier conversation about strict
turn off was only 45 degrees from the direction of Dutch overtime rules.
their taxiing-an obviously easier maneuver. This • Two cockpit crews who were having trouble
may have contributed to the confusion. understanding their taxi instructions from the
After several radio calls between KLM and tower.
the tower seeking clarity, the controller changed • Fog that was so heavy the controllers in the tower
his mind and told KLM to simply continue to couldn't see either plane, and neither plane's
the end of the runway and do a "backtrack"-a crew could see the tower or the other plane.
1 80-degree turn so that the jet was facing the di­
rection from which it had j ust come. And this airport had no ground radar.

SEPTEMBER ZOZO • �7
 The next few minutes saw a series of missed
and misunderstood transmissions between the jet
THE FOG WAS
crews and the control tower. In one exchange-in
retrospect, horrendous-Pan Am's crew even told
SU HERV� THAT
the tower it was still on the runway. That trans­
mission should have been audible in KLM's cock­
THE PRn Rm
pit, but at that exact moment an electronic buzz,
known as a heterodyne, interfered with the trans­
CREW TAXIED
mission, so KLM's captain didn't hear it.
Oblivious to this cockpit drama, the passengers
PAST THEIR
inside each plane were adj usting seats, putting
away items and getting ready for the short hop
RSSIGnEa C-3
to Las Palmas. C aroline Hopkins, gazing out her
left-side window, had even seen the KLM jet taxi
TU Rn OFF
down the runway a few minutes earlier, when Pan
Am was parked near the terminal. Isobel Monda
WITHOUT
finished reading a religious pamphlet a neighbor
had given her before she and her husband left on
nUTIClnG IT.
the trip. She tucked the pamphlet into the seatback
pocket in front of her. Later, she saw much signifi­
cance in that simple act.
As Pan Am taxied slowly down the runway, the
crew examined their airport map and struggled
to find their assigned turnoff to get onto the adj a­
cent taxiway. Bragg, the first officer, later said the
fog was so heavy that they taxied past C-3 without
noticing it.
J
ust before Pan Am passed C - 3 , KLM's
captain took the action that sealed every­
one's fate : He began his takeoff roll before
getting permission from the controller. As
first officer Klaas Meurs was finishing a radio con­
firmation with the tower of their post-takeoff flight
instructions, van Zanten pushed the throttles and
began rolling down the runwayj ust after 5 : 06 .
" Stand b y for takeoff I will call you, " t h e con­
HELL ON W HEELS troller said-the most tragically misunderstood
A piece of l a n d i n g eight words in the history of aviation. Apparently
gear was among the van Z anten heard only the word "takeoff " (It's
few reco g n i z a b l e important to note that this instruction would not
rem a i n s of the Pan have been appropriate in the United States then
Am jumbo jet. or now-the word "takeoff" would have been used
only when the actual permission was being given.
"Taxi into position and hold" or "Hold your posi­
tion" would have been the standard way to give
this instruction. The Tenerife accident changed
international guidelines about communications
between controllers and cockpits.)
Yet, even with van Zanten's unilateral decision,
there would be one last opportunity to avoid the
collision. Second officer Schreuder didn't like what
he (correctly) thought he'd heard on the radio. "Is
Pan Am still on the runway?" he asked van Zan ten,
speaking in Dutch, as KLM picked up speed.
Van Zanten didn't hear him clearly, and pre­
cious seconds were lost. "What did you say?" the
pilot asked his flight engineer.
"Is he not clear, the Pan American?"
" O h , yes ! " van Zanten resp onded. The last
words in the KLM cockpit, j ust before the impact
at 5 : 0 6 :49, were a horrified curse, when Pan Am
suddenly appe ared through the fog in front of
them: "Oh, Godverdomme . . . "
Van Zanten pulled hard on tl1e yoke and added
power in a futile attempt to clear the Pan Am 7 4 7.
He managed to get partially airborne, in the pro­
cess carving a 68-foot groove in the runway with
his plane's tail. The ensuing collision killed every­
one on board KLM 4805 and most of those on
Pan Am 1 7 3 6 .
P a n A m h a d b e e n struck a t an angle because
of that emergency left turn by Grubbs and Bragg.
As a result, some sections of the 7 4 7 weren't as
damaged as those that had taken the full impact
of KLM's engines and lower fuselage. More than
l 00 Pan Am passengers were alive and some were
even relatively unhurt at this point, according to
later interviews. What followed was the next phase
of this disaster: a frantic few minutes of evacuation
by some of the passengers, and a stunned immo­
bility by others.
Unlike the common "fight or flight" reaction,
there is a third, dismayingly common response
to emergencies: behavioral inaction-freezing,
being unable to react. It's been observed in many
 /
emergencies, including the 9- 1 1 attacks . As one
Pan Am survivor later described it, a disturbing
number of passengers sat motionless "like deer
caught in headlights. "
After the collision, t h e situation inside Pan
Am 1 7 3 6 required immediate action as fires and
smoke filled the cabin . The first people to respond,
other than the crew members, were those who'd
been in crisis situations before-former military
members, for example. (Importantly; others who
quickly responded included those who said they'd
looked at the safety cards and understood the cab­
in's layout.)
Warren Hopkins, a World War II combat vet­
eran, wasted no time. D e spite bleeding from
a deep gash on his head from falling debris, he
immediately unbuckled his belt and told C aro­
line, " Let's go ! " His quick response motivated his
wife and others nearby to move. Hopkins made
his way to the doorway area, only to find that no
slide was available because the doorway had been
ripped apart in the collision. He paused, then
leaped 2 0 feet down to the runway, managing to
land on his feet but severing tendons in his right
foot. C aroline followed, breaking her collarbone
when she hit the runway.
Other veterans, despite their age, had similar
quick responses. Tony Monda, another WWII
veteran, directed his wife Isobel out an opening
on the left side of the fuselage, then followed her
after retrieving his carry-on bag (an action now
strongly advised against). Although Isobel suffered
inj uries in the evacuation, Monda was remarkably
unscathed. Still other veterans responded similarly.
Retired U. S. Navy admiral Walter Moore guided
his wife Beth out of the plane but then stayed in
the cabin to help others-heroism that he paid for
with his life.
Several less-inj u red p assengers followed the
example of passenger David Alexander. Cleverly,
when he saw no easy exit through the side of the
fuselage, he climbed up through a hole in the ceil­
ing, tl1en down to the left wing.
The scene outside the plane was chaotic, with
huge orange flames and massive plumes of black
smoke billowing from the destroye d Pan Am
airliner. KLM 4 8 0 5 's wreckage was engulfed
in flames 400 yards farther down the runway.
Despite their own inj uries, Pan Am's cockpit crew
Left: P h y l l i s Wa lker
(l eft) of La g u n a Beach,
C a l if., a n d h e r
h u s b a n d , Larry, a re
treated for serious
b u r n s i n Te ne rife 's
hospita l . R i g h t : Rows
of coffi ns reveal the
g r i m to l l of histo ry's
worst a i r l i n e disaster.
HUGE URRnGE
FLRmES
Ano mRSSIVE
PLUmES OF
BLACK smoKE
BILLOWED
FROm THE
OESTRU�EO PAn
Am AIRLlnER.
and four surviving cabin crew members did their
best to guide passengers to safety. All later received
awards from the National Transportation Safety
Board for their professionalism.
At least 7 1 people on board-including tl1e three
cockpit crewmen, two observers in the cockpit and
four flight attendants-survived and were able to
get away from the burning fuselage. However, sev­
eral passengers later died of their injuries, bringing
the final total to 5 8 3 dead.
In addition to the change in international air
controller wording referred to earlier, other safety
changes in succeeding years included the expan­
sion of a traffic light system to warn taxiing air­
craft crews when approaching a live runway. And
a team-based approach to flying, known as crew
resource management, has become standard in
the industry. Such a system might have encouraged
KLM's first or second officer to speak up more
emphatically during those critical final moments
on the runway.
In the years after the Tenerife crash, the island's
government completed a new airport-one with
ground radar.
The Canary Islands disaster did more than gen­
erate a review of aviation standards. It also spurred
the process of addressing the mental trauma of
aviation accident survivors, thanks in good part
to Dr. John Duffy, a former U. S. assistant surgeon
general who'd gotten interested in the psychologi­
cal effects of surviving an air crash. In 1 9 7 8 he held
a conference on the subj ect, and was often quoted
in the media about the need to address long-term
victim trauma. Up until then, post-traumatic stress
disorder had usually been applied only to survivors
of military combat.
C aroline and Warren Hopkins exemplified
Duffy 's concerns. Both escaped from the Pan
Am j e t with what were considered minor physi­
cal inj uries: severed tendons and a broken collar­
bone. While those inj uries healed, the fears from
that experience stayed with C aroline for the rest
of her life. T
Jon :(,iomek is the author ef C ollision on Tenerife:
The How and Why of the World's Worst Aviation
Disaster, which is recommendedforfurther reading.
SEPTEMBER ZOZO • �9
A SWAS H B U C KLI N G ITALIAN-AM E R I CAN
CO N G R ESS MAN F R O M N EW YO R K P ROVED
H I S M ETILE IN TH E S KI ES OVE R ITA LY
D U R I N G WO R LD WAR I BY HOWARD M U S O N
But the "Little Flower"-at 5-feet-2 , a bundle of
volcanic energy and acerbic wit-was little known
outside of New York. And he still had much to
prove before he could attain the stature that would
propel him to three terms as New York City mayor
in the 1 9 30s and '40s.
As the sole Italian American in the 65th Con­
gress, La Guardia was determined to show that
the sons of Italian immigrants were as patriotic
as other citizens. Having supported President
Woodrow Wilson's declaration of war as well as a
controversial draft law, he felt duty-bound to join
the military himself Taking an unpaid leave from
Congress, he signed up for the Army's nascent air
service, then part of the Signal Corps.
On the brink of war, the U.S. military had only
about 50 obsolete aircraft, few flight instructors
and not nearly enough trained pilots. The Italian
government offered to build a base where Amer­
ican aviation cadets could be given preliminary
flight training, under Italian instructors, for service
on the vVestern Front. They chose Foggia, south­
east of Rome, which happened to be the birthplace
of Fiorello's father and generations of his family.
La Guardia was a natural choice to head one
of the Foggia training camps. H e had taken a
few basic flying lessons at an airfield in Mineola,
on Long Island, in a plane built by his engineer
friend Giuseppe Bellanca. Growing up an Army
brat on posts out West, La Guardia was famil­
iar with military discipline and routines. And he
spoke Italian, New York-style.
Commissioned a captain, La Guardia was sent
to Europe with a shipload of U. S. Army Air Service
student pilots going to flight schools in Britain,
France and Italy. There were already 46 Amer­
ican cadets at the Foggia base when he arrived
in October 1 9 1 7 with another 1 2 5 . He became
second-in-command to Major William Ord Ryan,
who later put him in
charge of a second
camp established at
the school.
La G u a r d i a ' s
close-knit fraternity
of avi ators s o o n
became known as
"Fiorello's Foggi­
ani . " They were an
elite group of well-born, well-educated, athletic
young Americans attracted to the risks and chi­ Top : C a p ro n i Ca.33s
valric glory of aerial warfare. Like his men, La asse m b l e at Fog g i a 's
Guardia had been bitten by the flying bug and a i rfi e l d . Above: An
yearned to prove his mettle and bravery in com­ aerial view of the
bat. He would take flight training alongside his tra i n i n g c o m p l ex.
Foggiani cadets, and eventually fly missions against
the armies of Austria-Hungary and Germany.
The American airmen couldn't wait to com­
plete the course in Foggia and get into the action.
But bad weather and a shortage of planes severely
limited their time in the air. Even on a good day,
they could hope for at most 1 0- 1 2 minutes of flight
with an instructor. The long down times were filled
with letters home, repairs and cleanup work, dice THE RmERICRn
and baseball games. (La Guardia coached one
team, keeping up a stream of chatter from the RIRmEn
sidelines in his high-pitched voice.)
caurnn'T WRIT
D
uring the j ourney to E urop e, C aptain
La Guardia had met accomplished vio­ TU camPLETE
linist Albert Spalding, who had played
on some of the world's most prestigious THE COURSE In
concert stages. As a young prodigy, Spalding had
studied for years in Europe and spoke Italian. La FUGGIR Ana GET
Guardia, from a music-loving family, knew him by
reputation and had heard him play. He requested lnTU RCTmn.
Spalding be assigned to his command.
The tall, slender Private Spalding arrived in
SEPTEMBER ZOZO • SJ

TOOLS OF THE TRADE
To p : Army Air S e rvice
p i l ots (fro m l eft) H a ro l d
H a rris a n d M owatt
M itch e l l stan d with La
G u ardia at the Caproni
m a n ufact u r i n g fa c i l ity
in Ta l ie d o . Above:
The Foggia a i rm e n
first tra i n ed o n Fiat's
l i g htwe ight S I A 7 8 - 1 ,
fi n d i n g it fast a n d
n i m b l e but structu ra l l y
weak. B e l ow: After
severa l accidents with
the S I A, La G u ardia
o rdered h i s " Fogg i a n i "
t o switch t o t h e C a . 5
fo r t h e i r trai n i n g .
Foggia in early 1 9 1 8 in a tailor-made uniform La
Guardia described as "the last word in what a
soldier should wear." He, too, was excited about
learning to fly, but La Guardia wouldn't let him;
instead, he made Spalding his adj utant, suggesting
that, at 29, he was a little too old for a military pilot
(La Guardia himself was nearly 36!). "I wanted a
good adjutant-not a mediocre pilot," he told the
violinist. Spalding suspected the real reason was
he wanted to spare harm to "a fiddler's fingers . "
Before soloing, t h e cadets h a d t o demonstrate
various maneuvers with an instructor close at
hand. At first they flew French-made Farman
pusher biplanes. C rackups were frequent, from
wild landings, engine failures, broken wing ribs
and splintered propellers.
Three of La Guardia's contingent were killed
when their two planes collided head-on i n a
fog bank over the field. Walter Wanger, later a
renowned Hollywood film producer, was famous
at Foggia for crashing seven planes. He walked
away unscathed each time, but, finally, to avoid
further losses of expensive equipment, was given
a desk j ob in Rome.
La Guardia himself crashed in a Farman while
on a solo cross-country "raid test." Luckily, his seat
belt snapped and he was thrown from the plane
before the wreckage and heavy engine could roll
over him.
La Guardia had to fit in his own flight trials
between administrative duties, but he let noth­
ing stand in the way of his mission and the well­
being of "his boys." When the cadets complained
that Italian rations were monotonous and barely
enough to sustain them, he hired a caterer to bring
in more substantial meals. To cope with swarms
of flies and mosquitoes, he had screen doors and
windows made for their barracks. And to protect
the men agillnst venereal disease, he introduced a
course in which he gave lectures on "social disease
and commercialized vice," while a j unior medical
officer spoke to them about prophylaxis.
La Gu ardia's immediate superiors in Italy
resented his tendency to use his standing as a
congressman to intimidate and go around them.
Major Ryan, for one, felt that La Guardia often
spoke for the base with higher-ups and the Italian
authorities even though Ryan outranked him .
The major ultimately filed a report with the Army
condemning La Guardia for "conduct unbecom­
ing an officer and a gentleman . "
B u t the top brass recognized L a Guardia was
a take-charge guy who cut through red tape and
moved comfortably among Italy's most powerful
leaders. In February 1 9 1 8 he was chosen to rep­
resent the U.S. Army and Navy Aircraft Board in
Italy, with an office in Rome. That made him vir­
tually the commander of trillning for all American
pilots in Italy It also put him in charge of working
with Italian industry to speed up production of
badly needed planes, spare parts and materiel for
the Italian front.
The obsolete Farmans were to be replaced by a
new, experimental version of a lightweight recon­
naissance plane, the SIA 7 B- l . Built by Fiat's air
subsidiary, the Societa ltaliana Aviazione, the SIAs
were fast, agile and good climbers. But the new
version had structural weaknesses that had already
caused the deaths of Italian test pilots. One of the
best American aviators, Marine Corps Lieutenant
MarcusJordan, was fatally injured when a new SIA
"pulled apart under him" in midair and crashed.
Acting on his own, La Guardia suspended all
training on the SIAs. Instead, he recommended
that American pilots take advanced training in
Caproni Ca.5 heavy bombers ordered by the U.S.
government. The C a . 5 was a giant wood-and­
fabric aircraft designed by aviation pioneer Gianni
Caproni. The main production version, the Ca.44
(also known as the C aproni 600), had a 7 7 -foot
wingspan and was powered by three 200-hp Fiat
engines-one on each side of the lower wing and
a central pusher engine mounted in the rear. The
four-man crew consisted of pilot, copilot, front
gunner and rear gunnerI mechanic.
A fully loaded C aproni carried 1 7 bombs and
enough fuel for 5 'lz hours of flight, with a top
speed of about 1 00 mph. The Fiat engines could
be erratic. "The big Fiat motor on the 600s . . . had
the bad habit of catching fire when throttled down
for glides or descents," wrote Foggiani airman
Frederick "Fritz" "Weyerhaeuser.
In his autobiography La Guardia called the
bomber "as efficient a plane as any then built . "
American cadet George M . D. Lewis wrote home
excitedly to his girlfriend in Scranton, Pa. : "I am
now soloing on the big Caproni-my, but it's some GeneralJohn]. Pershing, supreme commander of BROTHERS IN ARMS
wonderful machine. I was in the air alone, made a the American Expeditionary Forces, hinted that he Ca ptai n La G u ardia
'giro' [circuit, or turn] . . . and landed like a bird." might send a small force of American soldiers to ( l eft) poses with
bolster the Italian counteroffensive, but he didn't p i o n e e r i n g I ta l i a n
he rout of Italian armies at Caporetto, get around to it until a few months before war's ai rcraft d e s i g n e r

T
soon after La Guardia arrived in Foggia,
led to an even bigger role for him. By
October 2 5 , 1 9 1 7, Austro-Hungarian
armies, reinforced by elite German divisions, had
broken through the lines at several points along
the border with Italy. Panicked Italian soldiers
threw down their weapons and retreated in disar­
ray, j oining masses of fleeing civilians on the nar­
row roads. Upwards of 2 7 5 ,000 Italians were taken
prisoner and 1 0,000 were killed.
At the Piave River,just 15 miles from Venice, the
Italians managed to hold the line. But morale in
the country had sunk to rock bottom. Shortages of
food and worker strikes fueled a peace movement
that was growing stronger. The Russians had left
the war and the Western Allies worried the Italians
might do the same. The Germans were flooding
the country with anti-American propaganda.
The Allies had done little up to then to aid the
Italian cause; now they were under heavy pressure
to show their support by sending troops and air­
craft units to assist in throwing back the enemy.
end. The small corps of American aviators was G i a n n i C a p ro n i .
the only visible U. S. military in Italy. Reluctantly,
persuaded by La Guardia, among others, Pershing
agreed to allow some American pilots to tempo­
rarily fly combat missions in Italian squadrons as
part of the final phase of their training for action
on the Western Front.
Less than a month later, after a big sendoff at
Rome's Hotel Royal, 1 8 American pilots departed
for the front in Padua accompanied by La Guar­ LA GUARUIA
dia. There they were assigned to Caproni squad­
rons and crews, and onJune 20, 1 9 1 8 , a group of CALLED THE
the Americans took off on their first mission, flying
over the lines to bomb a bridge on the Piave and CAPROnl "AS
cut off retreating enemy forces.
La Guardia did not participate in the first raid EFFICIEnT A
because he was not yet qualified to fly combat mis­
sions. After returning to his office in Rome, he was PLAnE AS AnH
called on by U. S. Ambassador Thomas Nelson
Page to throw his talents into the war on another THEn BUILT."
front: the prop aganda campaign to convince
Italians not to give up the fight.

SEPTEMBER ZOZO • 55

ARM Y-NAV Y FLIGHT
To p (fro m l eft):
American Lieutena nts
G eorge Lewis a n d
H a r o l d H a rris, a l o n g
w i t h N avy E n s i g n R . S .
H u d s o n , pose with
Ca . 5 No. 1 1 57 7 before
taking off fro m Tu r i n ,
Italy, i n J u ly 1 9 1 8 .
Above: The Ita l i a n
gove r n m ent issued
this bronze medal to
U SAS Foggia tra i n ees.
56 '1) SEPTEMBER 2020
L a Guardia addressed patriotic ral­
lies in maj o r cities up and down the
peninsula, urging Italians to redouble
their efforts to win the war. Crowds of
as many as 2 00,000 people stamped
and clapped and roared their approval.
D e spite his street-pidgin Italian, the
crowds loved this son of Italy wearing
the uniform of the United States, a sym­
bol of Italian success in America. The stocky
Latin orator was sometimes j oined by his
Italian-speaking sidekick, Spalding--tall, Anglo­
Saxon-the American melting pot on full display.
While assuring Italians of American help, La
Guardia also scolded them in terms rarely heard
in the country. Italians ate too much, didn't work
enough, tried to evade military service. They had
diverted funds from U. S. loans meant for the war
effort to "build buildings . " Financial "slackers"
had failed to support the Italian war loans. "You
either win this war and preserve your place among
nations," he warned them, "or you will become the
gardeners of Germany. "
These speech-making trips, often involving two
nights away from Foggia, cut into La Guardia's
flight training. Somehow, however, he put together
the 1 80 minutes of air time needed to graduate
from basic training. Only one obstacle remained:
a pilot endurance test challenging La Guardia to
keep his machine in the air as long as he could on
a single flight.
Two j ournalists who knew him, Lowell Limp us
and Burr Leyson, described La Guardia's hair-rais­
ing experience as he took the exam in a patched-up
Caproni that had been wrecked in combat. Four
hours into the flight, "there was a sudden, rend­
ing crash-and the crankshaft splintere d . " La
Guardia quickly cut the ignition to prevent fly­
ing engine parts from tearing the aircraft apart.
He managed to nurse the bomber back to earth
intact, landing in a swamp. His Italian instructors
assessed this performance as proof of his ability;
in late August they cleared him for combat. At the
same time, his promotion to major came through.
a Guardia took part in bombing missions
L across the lines a total of five times, at least
twice at night, all in September 1 9 1 8 . His
total combat time was 1 0 hours and 20
minutes. He usually flew with two of Italy's best
aviators as chief pilot: Major Piero Negrotto, a
member of the Italian p arliament, and C aptain
Federico Zapelloni, an Italian bombing ace. They
called their Caproni the Congressional Limited, and
dared enemy gunners to try to bring it down . The
Austro-Hungarians did their best, without success.
La Guardia had a close call during his very first
mission, on September 1 3 , to bomb the Austro­
Hungarian air base at Pergine. Seventeen Italian
bombers were to lure enemy fighters into the skies,
where a flock of British and Italian pursuit planes
high above the bombers could swoop down and
pick them off. But to the surprise of the attacking
Italians, the fighters were slow to take off and never
made it into the air. The Capronis unloaded their
bombs, decimating the field and the planes still
lined up on it.
La Guardia filed this terse report on his partic­
ipation in the mission : "Enemy fire intense and
accurate. Plane hit twice in left wing. Right-hand
pilot. One large bomb hit on hangar. The rest seem
to have gone to the right. Enemy fire on return,
accurate and intense."
Ye ars later, Lieutenant D onald G. Frost, a
Foggiani airman who had seen the plane after
it landed, took issue with La Guardia's account:
" Plane hit twice! Hell! Why, I saw it myself, and
there were over two-hundred holes i n it! His
machine gun had a piece of shrapnel right through
the magazine. It was a wonder he wasn't blown
to shreds ! "
La Guardia w a s never really a polished flier,
but the Foggiani-as well as the Italians-loved
him for his guts. Lieutenant Willis S. Fitch de­
scribed La Guardia's response to an airman who
asked how he was doing with the Caproni: "I can't
take the buzzard off, and I can't land him, but I
CAN FLY the son of a gun ! " Fitch suggested La
Guardia was being overmodest. His takeoffs and
landings were sometimes ragged, he wrote, "but
they showed his daring."
Of the 450 American pilots trained in Foggia,
about 80 were kept behind to fly on the Italian
front. They took part in 65 missions, for a total
of 5 8 7 hours in combat. Te amed with Italian
fliers aboard the Capronis, they bombed Austro­
H u ngarian troop c o n c entrati o n s , airfields,
bridges, rail lines, munitions depots, and naval
bases and factories on the Adriatic.
Only two American airmen lost their lives on
the Italian front . Lieutenants Dewitt C oleman
andjames L. Bahljr. were killed with their Italian
crewmen j ust a few days before the armistice was
declared. Their C aproni 600 set out with seven
other bombers on the afternoon of October 2 7
t o support Italian forces at the Battle o f Vittorio
Ven e t o . Separated from the squadro n , their
C aproni was engaged by five enemy fighters. I n
a furious running battle, they drove down two
before their riddled aircraft went down in flames.
The Italians' decisive victory at Vittorio Veneto
led to the final collapse of the Austrian-German
army, and on November 3 Austria-abandoned
by Hungary as of October 3 1 -agreed to an
armistice. La Guardia had been ordered to return
to the U. S. in October for a mission that proved
unnecessary. Meanwhile, favorable press cover­
age of his role on the Italian front had earned him
nationwide acclaim as the "American congress­
man-aviator. "
Almost immediately he w e n t to work cam-
ALLIED CREW
( C l ockwise from left)
La G uardia sta nds
with Ita l i a n a i r force
col leagues M aj o r P i e ro
Neg rotto, Ca pta i n
Fed erico Zape l l o n i
a n d Sergeant F i r m a n i
i n fro nt of t h e i r
C a p ro n i b o m b e r, the
Congressional Limited.
THE CROWOS
LOVEO LA
GURROIR, R
son OF nRrn
WERRlnG THE
UnlFORm OF
THE umna
STATES.
paigning to preserve his seat in Congress. Critics
in his district had been attacking him for leaving
his voters unrepresented while abroad. There was
also substantial antiwar sentiment among district
voters. Nevertheless, La Guardia soundly defeated
his opponent.
The irony of Fiorello La Guardia's service in
World War I is that he had always said he was
against war. He had volunteered for service­
and dropped bombs-to end wars, to fight for
democracy. La Guardia remained a staunch paci­
fist throughout his life, fervently promoting many
peace causes. Nations, he argued, wasted millions
of dollars on wars better spent helping needy and
oppressed peoples around the world.
B arely a decade and a half after the Wright
brothers flew at Kitty H awk, the Foggiani had
shared the exhilaration of flying above snow­
capped peaks, winding rivers and deep gorges.
The experience left some of them with conflicting
emotions. "The sheer beauty of it all gave one a
feeling of unreality and of being in a dream . . . , "
Fritz Weyerhaeuser, a Yale graduate a n d heir to
a lumber empire, told his biographer. "It seemed
impossible that the killing of people could be the
reason for flight through such a paradise." -r
Howard Muson is ajournalist whose career spanned
stints at Associated Press, Time magazine and The
New York Times. Further reading: The Making of
an Insurgent: An Autobiography, 1 882- 1 9 1 9, by
Fiorello H. La Guardia; This Man La Guardia, by
Lowell M. Limpus and Burr Leyson; and Wings in
the Night: Flying the Caproni Bomber in World
War I, by Willis S. Fitch.
SEPTEMBER ZOZO • 57
SEPTEMBER 2020 e 59
 SlnCE ITS UEBUT UURlnG THE VIETnRm WAR,
THE U.S. AIR FORCE'S RC-130 GUnSHIP HAS
PLRHEU Rn lnTEGRRL RULE In CLOSE AIR
SUPPORT, AIR lnTERUICTIUn Ana FORCE
PRUTECTIUn PRUVIUEU TU U.S. GRauna TROOPS.
This includes not only close support o f troops un­
der fire and defending air bases, but also escorting
convoys, specialized urban operations and inter­
diction missions conducted against preplanned
targets. To accomplish these missions the gun­
ship's weaponry and electronic sophistication have
evolved exponentially over the years.
FIRST "PUFF" The gunship program began in 1 9 64 when
D o u g l as FC-47 0 ta i l U. S. Special Forces in Vietnam were in dire need
n o . 0-48 579-the of night firepower in their fight against localized
original "Puff the attacks by Communist insurgents on the fortified
Magic Drag o n "­ hamlets and mili tary outposts in the Mekong
carried t h ree 7.62 m m Delta. The gunship idea originated with an infor­
G E miniguns in mal suggestion by a staff officer in the 1 st Combat
m a kesh ift m o u nts. Applications Group, sister organization to the 1 st
Air C ommando Wing based at Eglin Air Force
Base in Florida. He suggested evaluating side-firing
guns mounted in an aircraft that could circle its
target at a constant airspeed at its pivotal altitude,
putting continuous fire on the target as long as
desired. (Pivotal altitude is based on ground speed
and allows the target to remain fixed in place along
a line parallel to the lateral axis of the aircraft.)
The idea was presented to the commander of
the Special Air Warfare Center, Brig. Gen. Gilbert
L. Pritchard, who immediately liked it. He had a
Douglas C-4 7 transport modified with a .50-caliber
M2 machine gun mounted on the floor by the
left-side cargo door, pointing out parallel to the
wing. Pritchard then piloted the C-4 7 out over the

60 '1) SEPTEMBER 2020

Gulf of Mexico and circled one of the raft targets
maintained by Eglin's Armament Development
Division. Flying at 1 2 0 knots at the airplane's
3,000-foot pivotal altitude, and using grease pencil
crosshairs on the left-side window pane as a gun­
sight, he tried shooting at the raft. He had no prob­
lem hitting the target and reportedly had a ball in
the process. Upon landing he made the gunship
program a top-priority development project for
the l st C ombat Applications Group.
The first fully modified C-47s were equipped
with three 7 . 62mm General Electric miniguns­
one in the cargo door and two mounted in the left­
side rear windows. All three guns were triggered by
a button on the pilot's control yoke and could be
fired individually or simultaneously.
The C-4 7 gunship could fly for hours in a coun­
terclockwise orbit over a target area. A three-sec­
ond burst from its miniguns provided suppressing
fire over an elliptical area approximately 52 yards
in diameter, with a round placed every 2 . 4 yards.
The gunships also carried flares that were manu­
ally dropped to illuminate the area. The combina­
tion proved devastating.
Under the leadership of Captain Ron W. Terry GUNNING FOR VC
from Air Force Systems C ommand, the project Top : An AC-47 's
reached fruition on December 1 1 , 1 964, with the m i n i g u n s, each fi r i n g
introduction of the FC-47. Operating with the call at a rate of 6,000
sign "Puff" (short for "Puff the Magic Dragon"), rounds per m i n ute,
the gunship had its first significant success on the u n leash o n Viet C o n g
night of December 23 when it flew in support of positio n s . Above l eft:
a Special Forces outpost in the Mekong Delta that The " S p o o ky" patch of
was under Viet C ong attack. The FC-4 7 arrived the 4th Air C o m m a n d o
and illuminated the area with flares, then fired S q u a d ro n i n Vietn a m .
4,500 rounds of 7.62 ammunition, breaking up the Above: T h e AC-47
VC attack. The aircraft was then called to assist a deve l o p m ent team
second threatened outpost about 20 miles away. poses with " Puff" in
Once again, the FC-47 blunted the assault and South Vietn a m .
forced the VC to retreat.
All of the gunships' combat sorties that Decem­
ber proved successful. Then on February 8 , 1 965,
an FC-47, flying for more than four hours over
the Bong Son area in the C entral Highlands,
expended 2 0 , 5 0 0 rounds of 7 . 6 2 ammo at VC
manning hilltop positions, killing an estimated 300
enemy troops.
SEPTEMBER ZOZO • 61
 DARK OPS
To p : An AC-1 30A
Spectre fires its 40 m m
g u n s . Above: A
Spectre sca n n e r h a n g s
out the r e a r ra m p t o
s p o t a nti-ai rcraft fi re.
R i g ht: C rewm e n s h ovel
20mm shell casi ngs
i nto a sack to keep
them fro m potenti a l ly
fo u l i n g the m i n i g u n s .
62 C!) SEPTEMBER 2020
T
o decrease vulnerability and increase
munitions capability, the renamed AC-4 7
S p o o ky gu nship c o n c e p t p i o n e e re d
in Proj ect Gunship I w a s applied to a
Lockheed C - 1 3 0 Hercules transport. In 1 9 6 7
J C - l 3 0A serial no. 5 4- 1 6 2 6 was converted to
prototype AC - 1 30A under Proj ect Gunship II.
New equipment included a night-vision tele­
scope installed in the forward door and an early
forward-looking infrared device mounted in the
left wheel well . The miniguns were fixed facing some brave American airmen experienced in that
down and aft along the left side. A prototype ana­ first iteration of the AC - 1 3 0 gunship. The best
log fire-control computer, handcrafted by Royal description of its combat employment comes from
Air Force Wing Cmdr. Thomas C. Pinkerton at the Master Sgt. David M. Burns, who was assigned to
USAF Avionics Laboratory at Wright-Patterson the l 6th Special Operations Squadron, based at
AFB , was also installed. In September 1 9 6 7 the Ubon Royal Thai AFB in Thailand, as a replace­
AC - 1 3 0 , call sign Spectre, was fl own to Nha ment aerial gunner during the "Palace Gun" pro­
Trang Air Base in South Vietnam for a 90-day gram. When he j oined the squadron in December
test program. It was an immediate success and in 1 9 69 there were six aircraft assigned to the pro­
1 968 seven more airplanes were converted to the gram, each manned with a normal 1 1 - or 1 2-man
same configuration. crew: pilot, copilot, flight engineer, table navigator,
Despite the Spectre's increased capability and night-observation device operator, right scanner,
awesome firepower, it's difficult to believe what forward gunner, aft gunner, two sensor operators,
illuminator (IO) and a combat cameraman. "Each
had a specific j ob and they all depended on each
other for their very survival," wrote Burns.
His description of the gunship's armament and
the duties of his fellow crewmen shows how prim­
itive those first few AC - l 3 0As were. The aircraft
were painted all black for their night missions.
Armament included four 20mm rotary cannons
and four 7. 62mm miniguns mounted in portals
along the left side. In attack mode they would orbit
the target in a 30-degree left bank, with the pilot
varying their altitude to complicate the enemy's
anti-aircraft solution.
In describing operations, Burns told of one very
l arge technical sergeant, 6-foot-5-inch Arthur
Humphrey, who had been in the squadron for
o nly a few months but was already a legend.
Among his j obs as an IO was to hang out from
the aircraft's rear cargo door and drop flares when
the pilot called for them. With his parachute har­
ness attached by a cable hooked to the top of the
aircraft interior, "he always hung out farther than
other IOs."
Humphrey was also tasked with calling out
anti-aircraft fire directed at the aircraft . " O n
o n e mission he yelled 'Accurate triple-A, break
right! ' " recalled Burns. "To escape the fire the pilot LOOK OUT BELOW
broke violently hard right and Arthur fell out of Above l eft: An AC- 1 30
the aircraft. As he was hanging out of the aircraft cuts l oose with its
by the cable he called on the ship's intercom to the miniguns during a
pilot and dutifully asked for permission to come live-fi re exercise over
aboard ! The pilot quickly told him to get his big F l o r i d a . Above: To
ass back in the aircraft . . . . " s u p p l ement the
AC- 1 30 i n Viet n a m ,
he Hercules gunship proved so effective
T
the F a i rch i l d AC- 1 1 9G
as a truck-killer and in armed recon­ a n d K (shown h e re)
naissance and interdiction of the H o were d eve l o p e d .
C hi M i n h trail t h a t the A i r Force had B e l ow: A Spectre
difficulty keeping up with demand for an air­ awaits its n ext mission
plane that also provided vital troop and cargo i n a revetment at
transport. Thus, with a stock of Fairchild C- 1 1 9 Th a i l a n d 's U b o n Roya l
Flying Boxcar airframes available i n the Air Thai Ai r Fo rce Base.
Force Reserve, in February 1 968 Fairchild-Hiller
converted 26 C- l l 9Gs to AC - l l 9Gs-call sign
S hadow-unde r Proj e c t Gunship I I I . Their
equipment included some of the most up-to-date
electronic countermeasures and radar technology
plus four GAU-2A/A 7 . 62mm miniguns and an
LAU-74/A flare launcher.
C oncurrently, another 2 6 C - l 1 9 Gs were con-
TRIGGER MAN
Above : AC- 1 30H p i l ot
Capta i n Timothy Young
scans for ta rgets during
a tra i n i n g exercise.
R i g h t : A Spectre crew
l oads 1 05 m m rounds
on their a i rcraft. Below:
An AC- 1 30U sports a
fu l l com p l e ment of
wea p o n ry as it flies
fro m H u r l b u rt Fie l d .
verted to AC - l l 9 K s , referred t o as Stingers. To
boost the aircraft's gross-weight-carrying capabil­
ity the two piston engines were supplemented with
underwing-mounted General Electricj85 turbo­
j ets. Designed specifically for the truck hunter role,
the Stingers were equipped with two M6 1 Vulcan
20mm cannons in addition to the four miniguns
already on the AC- l l 9 Gs. Both models eventually
were taken over by the Republic of Vietnam Air a Precision Strike Package, its armament includes
Force until the fall of Saigon in 1 9 7 5 . an internal 30mm MK44 cannon and a trainable
Today's AC- 1 3 0 gunships can best b e described M l 0 2 1 0 5mm howitzer (first used in a Spectre
as cutting-edge in both weapons and electronic in 1 9 7 2 over Vietnam), combined with the capa­
sophistication. The two primary versions still in bility to carry GBU-3 9 guided bombs and wing­
use are the AC - 1 3 0W Stinger II and AC - 1 3 0J mounted AGM- 1 1 4 Hellfire missiles.
Ghostrider, which recently j oined the fleet. The The Ghostrider's electronic equipment in­
improved AC- 1 3 0], Block 20, is powered by four cludes a laser range finder, low-light TV camera,
4 , 7 0 0 -hp Rolls-Royce turboprops , giving i t a crew night-vision capability, night-vision radar
speed of 3 6 2 knots at 2 2 ,000 feet. Equipped with and a moving-target indicator. The Block 2 0 con-

figuration also includes large-aircraft infrared
and radio frequency countermeasures. Like the
MC- l 3 0J C ommando II on which it is based, the
Ghostrider has inflight refueling capability.
The Air Fo rce reported that the first six
AC- l 3 0Js achieved initial operational capabil­
ity on September 30, 2 0 1 7. The Ghostrider flew
its first combat mission in late June 2 0 1 9 ove r
Afghanistan, replacing the retired AC- l 3 0 U.
Meanwhile, there are plans to replace the 3 0mm
C l o c kwise from top
l eft: The b u s i n ess end
of a 1 O S m m howitzer;
a n AC- 1 3 0 H at s u nset;
the evocative Spectre
patch; 4th S p ec i a l
O p e rati ons S q u ad ro n
crewm en operate a n
AC-1 30U's 1 OSmm g u n .
c a n n o n of a few Ghostriders with
a laser-like directed-energy weapon
that could be used to engage ships, vehi­
cles, aircraft and control towers. The Air
Force currently has 37 AC- 1 3 0Js ordered
and they are expected to reach full opera-
tional capability by 2 0 2 5 .
Gunships have come a long way since t h e first
FC-4 7 took to the skies more than 55 years ago. In
essence they have become very effective and indis­
pensable aerial battleships. T'
Retired US. Air Force Lt. Col. John Lowery is a
Korean and Vietnam war veteran. Forfarther reading,
try: Spectre Gunner: The AC- 1 30 Gunship, by
Master Sgt. David M. Burns; and Gunships : The
Story of Spooky, Shadow, Stinger and Spectre,
by Wayne Mutza.
 REVIEWS
> A 1 906 graduate of
the U.S. Naval Academy,
McCain Sr. served on a
cruiser in the Atlantic during
World War I and on war­
ships during the 1 920s. Like
his contemporary, William
F. Halsey, McCain was a
latecomer to naval aviation,
qualifying as a pilot at the
advanced age of 5 2 . Also
like Halsey, McCain quickly
developed an appreciation
66 '1) SEPTEMBER 2020
ADMIRAL
J O H N S. M c C A I N
A K O T H E T R I U MPH OP
NAVA L A I R P O W E R
WILLIAM F . TRIMBLE
for aviation's potential and air, McCain returned t o the
became one of the guiding Pacific in 1 944, becoming
forces behind the devel­ one of Halsey's most aggres­
opment of the naval air sive and successful carrier
arm that would play such a task group commanders.
prominent role in achieving McCain was present on
victory in WWII. In 1 942 the battleship USS Missouri
McCain commanded the during the Japanese surren­
naval air forces in the South der ceremony on September
Pacific. Subsequently serv­ 2, 1 945. Although he was a
ing as chief of the Bureau of tl1ree-star vice admiral at the
Aeronautics and then deputy time of his death, C ongress
chief of naval operations for voted McCain a fourth star
Vice Ad m i r a l J o h n S. M c C a i n
( l eft) a n d h i s s o n , J o h n S .
M c C a i n J r. , confer i n Tokyo
Bay p r i o r to the J a panese
s u rrender cere m ony.
posthumously in 1 949.
Perhaps the only reason
McC ain is not as well remem­
bered as some of his contem­
poraries is that he died of a
heart attack only four days
afterJapan surrendered. This
new biography will go a long
way toward reviving inter-
est in one of the war's most
important U.S. naval com­
manders. The book shows
that not only was McCain
a highly successful combat
commander, he was also one
of the principal architects of
the airborne Navy, without
which the war could not have
been won.
Robert Guttman
FLYING TIGER ACE
The Story of Bill Reed, F LY I N G
China's Shining Mark TI G E R AC E
by Carl Molesworth, Osprey
Publishing, 2020, $35.
On the night of December 1 9,
1 944, Lt. Col. William N. Reed,
commander of the 3 rd Fighter
Group, Chinese-American
C omposite Wing (CACW), was
forced to bail out of his Curtiss
P-40N somewhere in China's
Szechwan Province. He had been
leading two other P-40s on a flight from one base to another
when they got caught in extremely bad weather and could
not land at their destination field. But their field of origin was
also weathered-in, and they were forced to fly on, hoping for
a break, until they eventually ran out of fuel. Reed was killed
in the j ump. Earlier that day he had flown his 1 4 l st combat
mission in China. The leading ace of the CACW, he was three
weeks short of his 28th birthday when he died.
Flying Tiger Ace, by noted aviation historian Carl Moles­
worth, is one of the few books written about the CACW
Jointly manned by Americans and Chinese, it was a unique
organization of two fighter groups and a B-25 bomber group.
Officially part of the Chinese air force, it was attached opera­
tionally to Maj . Gen. Claire C hennault's Fourteenth Air Force.
The CACW's P-40s were painted with the traditional Flying
Tigers shark mouth, but with the Chinese 1 2-point star rondels
and 1 2 alternating blue and white stripes on the tail.
Reed was an important figure in the history of the Flying
Tigers. He was one of only seven pilots from the original
American Volunteer Group who returned to China for a
second tour of duty. Frying Tiger Ace is a must read for anyone
interested in the air war in C hina.
DOUGLAS D-558
D-558- 1 Skystreak and
D-558-2 Skyrocket
by Peter E. Davies, Osprey
Publishing, 201 9, $22.
In the history of aviation's great
leaps forward there is no patch of
open air as important in enabling
aeronautical progress as the azure
sky above Rogers Dry Lake in
California's Mojave Desert. The
remote location north of Los
Angeles that became Edwards
Air Force Base has been a hotbed of flight test activity since
World War II. The period between war's end and the begin­
ning of the space program was the heyday at the storied base,
and in Peter Davies' new book on the Douglas Skystreak
and Skyrocket readers are transported back in fine style to
that exciting time. These two research planes were flown in
a collaborative program of the U. S. Navy and the National
Advisory C ommittee for Aeronautics (NACA, NASA's prede­
cessor) . Part of the time the Skystreak sported a glossy crimson
finish that made it look like a muscle car of the stratosphere.
However, as a jet its performance was limited, so the follow-on
Skyrocket offered the higher thrust of rocket propulsion.
In addition to extensive technical details and exacting
illustrations, this book provides a sense of the drama that
played out as brave pilots ventured into the unknown, such as
when Scott Crossfield took the Skyrocket past Mach 2 for the
first time on November 20, 1 95 3 . Davies puts readers in the
cramped cockpits of the program's platforms for wild rides of
violent pitching and uncommanded rolls, making it clear that
the breakthroughs did not come easily or without loss of life.
This excellent account of two historic experimental types is
highly recommended.
Philip Randleman
SEPTEMBER ZOZO • 67
 REVIEWS

AIRWARE
DIGITAL COMBAT SIMULATOR
YAK-52
Eagle Dynamics SA and The Fighter Collection Ltd, $4 0.

The old phrase "You must tion. All these fascinating

learn to crawl before you can
walk" may be a cliche but
it is also true. Pilots live this
expression by starting their
flying careers with single­
engine trainers. Digital Com­
bat Simulator Yak-52 (Y52)
models a popular Russian
trainer that has also taken on
life as an aerobatics craft.
The Yakovlev Yak-5 2 is
an interesting addition to the
Digital Combat Simulator
(DC S) hangar (the core D C S
product is free and comes
with a few aircraft, and users
buy highly detailed addi­
tional aircraft for a fee) . The
Yak-5 2 's classic prop mono­
plane lines might recall the
North American T-6 Texan
and its elongated canopy
might be reminiscent of a
Beechcraft T-34 Mentor's
"greenhouse," but it is very
different upon closer inspec-
differences are illustrated
beautifully by the devel­
opers of Y52.
Start with the tricy-
cle landing gear, which
makes the Yak-5 2 friendlier
to novice pilots than tail
draggers. There are also
multiple signs of Russian
aviation's tendency to favor
ruggedness and expediency.
Retracted landing gear still
protrudes below the fuselage
to provide some support in
the event of a gear exten­
sion failure. Several of the
Yak-52's controls are driven
by pneumatics rather than
by hydraulics, an interest­
ing choice that trades some
response sensitivity for lower
maintenance costs.
The DCS Yak-5 2 is a
lovely craft and the flight
model is very good, as
attested to by Yak-5 2 pilot
John Knolla, who posts video
logs on YouTube of his flights
in both a real Yak and the
DCS version. The Yak-5 2 in
DCS feels like a responsive
but gentle steed and recovers
easily from stalls. The rendi­
tions of the plane and cockpit
are excellent, as are the audio
re-creations of everything
from engine noise to the slide
of a canopy. I noticed a few
visual quirks witl1 canopy
reflections, but this may have
been due to my setup.
Multiplayer support
allows players to occupy the
student and instructor seats
so a friend can help teach
or j ust enjoy the ride. As is
customary for DCS modules,
RUSSIAN AEROBAT
DCS's new m o d u l e featu res
the Ya kovlev Ya k-52 tra i n e r.
the Y52 package includes a
detailed manual with descrip­
tions of all the Yak-5 2 's sys­
tems and aircraft operation.
The Yak-5 2 is an unusual
aircraft for the normally
combat-focused DCS but
it fills a gap in the series. As
deep as most of the plane
modules are for DCS, Y52
gives players a welcome
option that is comparably
thorough without being as
complex. Virtual pilots can
focus on learning, and thus
the Yak-5 2 is doing its job.
Bernard Dy

PACIFIC ADVERSARIES thy incident is re-created from January

Volume O ne : Japanese Army Air Force vs
The Allies , New Guinea 1 942- 1 944 ;
Volume Two : Imperial Japanese Navy vs
The Allies, New Guinea & the Solomons
1 942- 1 944
by Michael John Claringbould, Casemate, 2 0 1 9, $36. 95 each.
An Australian with a lifelong fascination for wartime
Papua New Guinea, MichaelJohn Claringbould has
steeped himself in research from all protagonists in the
aerial struggle backing the grueling slog that stopped
and reversed the Japanese invasion of that territory.
In Pacific Adversaries, Claringbould applies his thor­
ough touch to a series of aerial encounters over New
Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Volume One deals
with the Japanese army air force while Volume Two
focuses on the Japanese naval forces. Opposing them
both is a fascinating potpourri of Allied aircraft.
Some of the dogfights covered may be familiar.
It is now Royal Australian Air Force lore that on
December 26, I 942, a C ommonwealth Wirraway, as
No. 4 Squadron reported to Port Moresby, "shot down one
Zeke, repeat, one Zeke. Send six bottles beer. " In his detailed
recounting Claringbould reveals that Pilot OfficerJohn
Archer did indeed have the right momentary meshing of skill
and luck to down his attacker, tl1ough it was not a Mitsubishi
A6M2 Zeke but a Nakajima Ki .43 Oscar. Another notewor-
3 1 , 1 943, when U. S . Marine Lieutenant
Jefferson DeBlanc was credited with
three floatplanes and tv10 "Zeros" over
Munda before being shot down himself
and surviving to later receive the Medal
of Honor. DeBlanc did down two of the
three Mitsubishi F l M2s he encoun-
tered and likely got the two fighters as
well (the Japanese lost four pilots in that
fight), but here again the latter were not
Zeros. DeBlanc was one of two victo-
ries credited to Sergeant Major Takeo
Takahashi in the first-and only-time that
Ki.43s ever fought Grumman F4F Wildcats.
Other "one-off" standouts include the only
Mitsubishi Ki. 5 1 shot down in air-to-air combat
over New Guinea, by a Bell P-3 9 Airacobra; the
only fighter-versus-fighter encounter involving
C ommonwealth Boomerangs; and the only time
that Japanese single-seat fighters intercepted a
flying boat at night, claiming a Short Sunderland
(actually an Australian C onsolidated Catalina
that, though damaged, managed to limp home from Rabaul).
Accompanied by a wealth of photos and color profiles of the
aircraft involved, both of these volumes have much to offer the
serious "South Seas" air war enthusiast. But save room on your
shelf-Volume Three should be out soon, with more to follow.
Jon Guttman

68 '1) SEPTEMBER 2020

ROLAND GARROS
The First Fighter Pilot
by Ed Cobleigh, Check Six Books,
2 0 1 9, $29. 95.

T H E F I R S T F I G H T E R P I LOT

ROlAND BARROS
Send just $2. 95 for shipping
and guaranteed delivery.

Get Your FREE

Somebody always has t o b e the

Pearl Harb o r
first to do something, though it's
often difficult to determine exactly
who was first. In the case of fighter
pilots, however, there is no doubt.
Today his name is associated prin­ 75th Anniversary C oin
cipally with the French Open tennis

N
an exclusive P earl : - - - -i>ea-rf iiarbor H:air:1>-0"1iar- -
-

tournament, but aviation historians ow own -

remember Roland Garros as the
man who invented aerial combat.
In 1 909 Garros bought an air­
plane, taught himself to fly and
began a career as a barnstormer
Harbor history coin honoring
those who lost their lives at Pearl
Harbor. Get thi s coin for FREE
- just send $2.95 for shipping and
guaranteed delivery.
: ie'Yes! Send me the FREE Pearl Harbor 75th
: Anniversary Coin. Enclosed is $2.95 for shipping
: and guaranteed delivery. Limit of one coin.
i Quick order at MysticAd.com/BBI 69
I

and racing pilot. At the outset of

: N ame _______________
World War I he volunteered to fly I
T h e attack on P e ar l Harbor
for the French . . . after first making : Address ______________

a daredevil escape from Germany. remains one of the most p ivotal I

I

Ci ty
C hauffeuring observers was not events of the 2 0th century. Now :
I
_______________

for Garros, who desired to take the own a p i e c e o f that h i story for
fight to the enemy. In April 1 9 1 5 : State/Zip -----------,N"'·v-=-s--c-:;,,-'--,.,
''-,'"'--
'"'·
"" " " " "

: 00 Visa
"

FRE E . You only send $ 2 . 9 5 for Check or money order

h e fitted a forward-firing machine 0 MasterCard 0 AmEX 0 Discover
shipping and guaranteed delivery .
1

gun to his airplane, attached steel I

deflector plates to protect the pro­ Reply today and you' ll also receive : Exp. Date _I_
1

peller from the bullets and, voila,

the single-seat fighter was born.
special collector' s information and
other interesting coins on approval.
ii I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I Ii
Garros' career as terror of the
' Please send to: Mystic, Dept. 88169
: 9700 Mill St., Camden, NY 1 3 3 1 6-9 1 1 1 :
sky did not last long. Brought down
Limit one coin. 1

behind enemy lines after only 1 8 � - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 4

days and three aerial victories,

both he and his airplane fell into
German hands. After three years
in a POW camp, Garros escaped

HISTORYNETNDW
and rej oined the French air service.
He scored a fourth victory but was
killed in action barely a month
before the war ended.
This highly readable biography
of one of aviation's most colorful
and significant characters will
appeal to those interested in early
Sign up for our free monthly E-NEWSLETTER at
aviation history and tl1e origins of
aerial combat. historynet.com/newsletters
Robert Guttnlan
 F L I Ci H T T E S T

BIG FOR
A FIGHTER
1 . Which "Zepp strafer"
had fo u r win gs, two 35-hp
e n g i n es a n d was too slow to
reach a Zeppe l i n 's altitude?

A. Parna l l Scout
B . AD Scout
C . S u permarine P. B . 3 1 E
N i g hthawk
D . Vickers F. B . 1 1

2. Which of these twi n­

e n g i n e reco n n aissance
ai rcraft saw use as an
escort fighter i n 1918?

A. C a u d ron G . 4
B . C a u d ron R . 4
C . Letord 1 A 3
D. C a u d ro n R . 1 1 A3

rth American
3. Which of these twi n­
-25H M itch e l l
engine fig hters co u l d
n o t h o l d i t s o w n agai nst
single-e n g i n e o p p o n e nts?

A. Lo ckheed P-38
B . Fiat C . R . 2 5
C . M essersch m itt Me-262
D . McDo n n e l l F4

4. Which of these fa iled

GUNSHIPS twi n-e n g i n e fig hters was a

successfu l n i g ht fighter?
Match t h e weapon t o the
A. M essersch m itt M e - 1 1 0
airplane that carried it.
B . N a kaj i m a J 1 N 1
A. Spad XII 1. T13E1 7 5 m m cannon C . J u n kers J u-88
D. A l l of the a bove
B. Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 2. Siemens motor machine g u n
c. Zeppelin L70 3. Ho-203 3 7 m m cannon
D. Voisin 8Aa 4. Davis 6-pounder recoilless g u n 5 . Which a l l -weather fig hter
with fo u r jet e n g i n es was its
E. Kawasaki Ki.45Kaic 5. Hotch kiss 47 mm cannon
desig ner's last a ircraft?
F. Al batros D.Va 6. Le Prieur rocket
A. C u rtiss XP-87 B l a ckhawk
G . N o rt h America n B-25 H 7. Becker M2 20mm cannon
B . McDon n e l l XP-67 M o o n bat
H . Nieuport 11 8. BK 5 50mm ca nnon C . C u rtiss XF1 SC
I. Curtiss H-16 9. Shortened Puteaux 37mm Canon Modele 1916 D . Ryan FR Fireba l l
J. M esserschmitt Me-410A-1/U4 10. N udelman N-37 ca nnon

ll"S ' O ' t ' S T 'a - z ' :n =�3lH 91� II �o� 918 ' B T ' t'l ' 9 " H · � · 9 ' l 'J '£'3 ' s · a 'C: J · o � · s ' 6"11 '5d l H S N n 9
A:io:is!q-oo(:&e!llE/WOJ iawbOlS!4 ie l! inoqe aJOUJ UJea1 TN !U!dw eJ !UOJd eJ =d l H S A� 3.1SA� :Sllll'\.SNY

70 '1) SEPTEMBER 2020

 ii
!
!

TODAY IN
HISTORY
MAY l, 1931
THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING OFFICIALLY
OPENS. '

WWW. HISTORYNET.COM/
TO DAY- I N - H I STORY
 R E A D AATI FACT

BIG BRASS
While serving a s Air Force Magazine's art direc­
tor in 1 98 8 , Aviation History photo editor Guy
Aceto visited Hurlburt Field in Florida for an
up-close and personal look at the l 6th Special
Operations Squadron's AC- l 30H Spectre gun­
ships. The highlight of his trip was participating
in a live-fire training mission over the Eglin Air
Force Base target range to demonstrate the air­
plane's capabilities.
At the time the gunship was equipped with
two 2 0mm rotary cannons, two 40mm guns and
the "big gun, " a I 05mm h owitzer. The recoil of
the l 0 5 would actually make the huge transport
fishtail with every shot.
Aceto was struck by the coordination
between the gun crew, sensor operators and
flight deck crew. At one point a gunner asked,
"You wanna give it a shot?" Putting what he'd
learned into practice, Aceto said he "shoveled
20mm brass away from the guns, taking care to
not get a faceful of cordite smoke in the process.
I was schooled in the correct way to cradle the
I 05mm round and guide it into the h owitzer's
breech and to load clips of 40mm rounds. "
After the debrief the squadron commander
gave Aceto brass casings from each of the three
types of guns he had loaded. "The I 05mm
piece of brass still helps hold the door of my
office open and serves as a reminder of what's
' special' about Special Operations," he said.

HANDS-ON APPROACH
G u y Aceto, c u r rently Aviation History's
p h oto editor, loads a c l i p of 40mm
rounds aboard a Lockheed AC- 1 30H
gunship during a l ive-fi re tra i n i n g fl i g h t
i n 1 98 8 . Aceto h a d tossed a d isposa b l e
ca m e ra to o n e of the g u n n e rs fo r h i m
to ca pture the s h ot. R i g ht: After the
flight he was g iven spent brass from
each of the wea p o n s fired by the
Spectre g u n s h i p (fro m l eft: 20mm,
1 OSmm a n d 40mm shell cas i n g s ) .

72 C!) SEPTEMBER 2020

Coin experts amazed by
"Incredible Opportunity"
./ Historic Morgan Silver Dollars
./ Minted in New Orleans
./ Struck and bagged in 1882
The Morgan Silver Dollar i s the most ./ Unopened for 138 years
popular and iconic vintage U.S. coin. They ./ 26.73 grams of 90% fine silver
were the Silver Dollars of the Wild West,
./ Hefty 38.I mm diameter
going on countless untold adventures in
dusty saddlebags across the nation. Finding ./ Certified Brilliant Uncirculated
by NGC
a secret hoard of Morgans doesn't happen
often-and when it does, it's a big deal. ./ Certified "Great Southern
Treasury Hoard" pedigree
How big? Here's numismatist, author
./ Limit five coins per household
and consultant to the Smithsonian®
Jeff Garrett:

"It's very rare to find large

quantities ofMorgan Silver
�'!l!iiiiiiiliil•ll".,.. third-party grading service Numismatic
Guaranty Corporation (NGC) , and they agreed to honor
Dollars, especially in bags that the southern gentleman by giving the coins the pedigree of the " Great
have been sealed... to find several Southern Treasury Hoard."
thousand Morgan Silver Dollars
that are from the U.S. Treasury These gorgeous 1 882-0 Morgans are as bright and new as the day
they were struck and bagged 1 3 8 years ago. Coins are graded on a
Hoards, still unopened, is really
70-point scale, with those graded at least Mint State-60 (MS60) often
an incredible opportunity. "
referred to as "Brilliant Uncirculated" or BU. Of all 1 8 82-0 Morgans
-Jeff Garrett
struck, LESS THAN 1 % have earned a Mint State grade. This makes
But where did this unique hoard come from? Read on . . . these unopened bags of 1 882-0 Morgans extremely rare, certified as
being in BU condition-nearly unheard of for coins 1 3 8 years old.
Morgans from the New Orleans Mint
In 1 859, Nevada's Comstock Lode was discovered, and soon its rich
Don't Miss This Rare Opportunity-Order Now!
Regular 1 882-0 Morgans sell elsewhere for as much as $ 1 3 3, and
silver ore made its way across the nation, including to the fabled
that's without the original brilliant shine these "fresh" 1 3 8-year­
New Orleans Mint, the only U.S. Mint branch to have served under
old coins have, without their special NGC hoard designation,
the U.S. government, the State of Louisiana and the Confederacy.
and without their ability to tell their full, complete story from the
In 1 882, some of that silver was struck into Morgan Silver Dollars,
Comstock Lode all the way to your collection.
each featuring the iconic "O" mint mark of the New Orleans Mint.
Employees then placed the freshly struck coins into canvas bags . . .
Given the limited quantity of coins available from this historic hoard,
we must set a strict limit of five coins per household. Call quickly to
The U.S. Treasury Hoard
secure yours today as supplies are sure to sell out quickly!
Fast-forward nearly 80 years. In the 1 960s, the U.S. government
opened its vaults and revealed a massive store of Morgan Silver 1 882-0 Morgan Silver Dollar NGC Certified BU from the
Dollars-including .fitll, unopened bags of "fresh" 1 882-0 Morgan Great Southern Treasury Hoard - $99 ea.
Silver Dollars. A number of bags were secured
by a child of the Great Depression-a southern FREE S H I PP I N G on 2 or More!
gentleman whose upbringing showed him the Limited time only. Product total over $149 before taxes (if any).
value of hard assets like silver. He stashed the Standard domestic shipping only. Not valid on previous purchases.
unopened bags of "fresh" Morgans away, and
there they stayed. . .
Call today toll-free for fastest service

The Great Southern Treasury Hoard 1 -888 -324-9 1 25

That is, until another 50 years later, when the Offer Code MSH236-0 1
man's family finally decided to sell the coins­ Please mention this code when you call
still in their unopened bags-which we secured,
bag and all! We submitted the coins to respected

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