What are /r/WWIIplanes' favorite Products & Services?

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Have a nice cake day. Came here to say just that. There were far more Hurricanes than Spitfires. The Spit was of course the most elegant of the two but let's be honest, If one plane should get the honour, the Hurricane saved Britain from the Nazis, however good looking the Spitfire is.

The other story is a very good book written by Paul Gallico.

May I recommend <em>Not Much of an Engineer</em> by Sir Stanley Hooker.

What a sad day, RIP sir.

If anybody wants to learn about what these incredible men did, I recommend reading The First Heroes which goes into the preparation for, execution, and aftermath of the raid from the crew's perspectives.

Jimmy Doolittle was a famous aviator who was known for developing instrument flying and general badassery...

>On May 10, 1921, he was engineering officer and pilot for an expedition recovering a plane that had force-landed in a Mexican canyon on February 10 during a transcontinental flight attempt by Lieut. Alexander Pearson. Doolittle reached the plane on May 3 and found it serviceable, then returned May 8 with a replacement motor and four mechanics. The oil pressure of the new motor was inadequate and Doolittle requested two pressure gauges, using carrier pigeons to communicate. The additional parts were dropped by air and installed, and Doolittle flew the plane to Del Rio, Texas himself, taking off from a 400-yard airstrip hacked out of the canyon floor.

Doolittle survived the raid, was promoted to brigadier general, and awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He then went on to earn 4 air medals flying even more combat missions. He ended his service as a 4-star general.

It was thought by many to be a suicide mission, but people were still bartering with the aircrews to trade places with them. According to the book, one man offered his car for a spot on the mission. After the mission several crews were lost, some were captured by the Japanese (who executed some), and some lived as de facto prisoners of the Soviets until they could escape.

The survivors of the raid used to meet every year at Eglin AFB in Florida (where they trained for the mission) and have a reunion.

There was even a German test pilot whose job was to evaluate captured Allied aircraft. He wrote a book about it. His description of sitting down in the cockpit of a captured B-24 is worth the price of the book.

If anyone wants to know more, my grandpa’s good friend piloted B-25s in the South Pacific during WW2 and wrote a book about it. Fantastic book, I’ve read it a few times through.

https://www.amazon.com/Air-Combat-At-20-Feet/dp/1418477893

Yeah dude!! At Oshkosh in 2003 I met Hal Shook. I’m his book fighter pilot jazz he talks about taking friendly fire on d-day, having flak blow open his ammo compartment cover which tilted upwards maybe at a 70* angle making it effectively an air break, spoiler, and upward deflected aileron. He managed to fly the sucker home.

I tried to find a picture of some artwork I had in my mind, but all I could find was a picture from the cover of his book which is on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Fighter-Pilot-Jazz-Spirited-Air-ground/dp/097462795X

>It looks like it's been taken with a 21st century camera.

Search 'kodachrome' on Google Images and you'll see that our ancestors where the real inventors of HD.

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This is indeed beautifully colorized. I did a reverse image search, seems like this photo has been posted sometime in this sub before, found larger image.

The photo is in a book I have and labeled as a G6/R3 sourced as from the Bundesarchiv.

Book: Bf109 Text by Robert Grinswell Illustrations by Rikyu Watanabe It's part of a series of books on different planes and the finely done & labelled 3D cutaway illustrations are a real joy. They aren't detailed histories, more an outline of development and operational use, but the board books are more like coffee table books for WW2 aircraft fans. I imagine the regular hardcover ones are very nice as well but haven't seen one myself.

I highly recommend them if you just like to look at airplanes sometimes.

This airplane was lost on the mission after this photograph was taken.

From page 40 of B-24 Liberator Units of the Pacific War by Robert Dorr and Mark Rolfe:

> B-24-J-1-CO 42-72969 Our Baby of the 27th BS/30th BG, piloted by Lt Frederick F Garrett, is seen just prior to being refueled at Nanumea, in the Ellice Islands, in preparation for a raid on Maleoelap island, in the Marshalls, on 15 December 1943. This proved to be the bomber's last mission, for it was hit over Taroa and crashed in the sea with the loss of all on board, including the deputy commander of the 30th BG.

You're welcome :)

Install the TinEye addon for your browser: If you find an interesting photo online but in small size, you can right click it and use the addon to search for a larger one. That's how I found the larger pic.

The later chapters of Tim Vigor's autobiography "Life's Too Short to Cry" has a description of the ground crew setting these fighters up and the problems they had with them. There's also a description of him getting shot down over Penang Island, Malaysia and trying to avoid getting straffed in his parachute.

Reasonably good book about the Air Apaches was written by one of the vets sons.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0811738019/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_mH8wFbPY72MTW

Particularly enjoyed the late war details about attacks on the home islands from Okinawa by medium bombers and their escort duties when the Japanese flew to visit MacArthur before the surrender ceremony.

Hi Shack_Rabbit,

That P.51 Mustang you saw is DEFINITELY the one I mentioned,above.

It's civil-register is G-SHWN & is NOW painted-up in proper USAAF 8th Air Force colours & markings - Actually, it represents the 4th Fighter-Group (Red noses), flying out of RAF Debden in Essex throughout WW.II (their regular home base)

It WAS previously painted-up in RAF camo', but the new owner had it painted-back as a more typical 8th Air Force P.51 - I've caught it several times recently, over on one of the "Flight-Radar-Tracking-Sites" Here's An Example, Recently of it

BTW Don' be mislead by the (old, now removed) RAF paint-scheme.

Here's What It Looks Like Today, in Sept' 2021

BTW, it's NOT owned by Maurice Hammond, nor any of his family

(just to clear that up)

If this Fold3 page and this Google books hit are correct, this is "Coral Queen" / "Georgia Ann" when designated Z Square 22 of the 882nd Bomber Squadron / 500th Bomb Group on Saipan. This airframe survived the war.

:) Yeah...

I actually lifted the title verbatim from the title in the Marine Corps Archives &amp; Special Collections

Here's the description that goes with the title:

Marines Clean Hellcat, Okinawa, May 1945

"Yontan Airfield, Okinawa, May 1945: Men in ordnance section MAG 31 clean guts of a Hellcat. Left to right are PFC Elroy J.C. Karl, PFC Joe L. Levy, Sgt. Herbert W. Curtis, and Cpl. Leland L. Wheeler."

From what I've read lots of T-6 time is a great start. Scott Yoak who owns the P-51 Quicksilver did an episode about getting into warbirds on his podcast if interessted.

Wikipedia: Brewster F2-A Buffalo in the Dutch East Indies
Source photo: Warthunder.com

Check out this book for more info on this sort of thing!

His book

He shows up in Chuck Yeager's Autobiography quite a bit as well since they served in the same squadron in WWII and then at Edwards AFB together.

Absolutely riveting book about Dresden in particular and the firebombing tactics in general. Horrifying and sad. unrelated to the OP but the Germans removed all the AA guns from Dresden and sent them to the East at the end of the war. A few night-fighters got up but for the most part the city was defenseless. https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Darkness-Bombing-Dresden-1945/dp/1250258014

There's not a lot of books out there that deals with this particular subject, and the few that do, are hard to find and expensive.

The Battle of The Hague 1940 Airborne-Operation.

The battle was overlooked due to the overall speed and ferocity of the German advance through the Low Countries and France. The Dutch were forced to surrender in just five days. The Belgians in less than three weeks, and tiny Luxembourg lasted just one day.

Most books out there deal more with the Dutch resistance efforts.

This is my favorite:
The History of German Aviation: Kurt Tank: Focke-Wulf's Designer and Test Pilot
https://www.amazon.com/History-German-Aviation-Focke-Wulfs-Designer/dp/0764306448/ref=sr\_1\_1?crid=2C8DFTYTUI7JE&amp;keywords=kurt+tank+book&amp;qid=1646596069&amp;sprefix=kurt%2520tank%2520book%2Caps%2C71&amp;sr=8-1

I bought my dad this book a few years ago for his birthday. Growing up, I had a smaller version of this that I’d look through everyday. Many drawings of WWII aircraft.

What are your top three WWII planes?

For those interested in the Royal Navy's actions in the Pacific in 1944-45, I recommend The British Pacific Fleet: The Royal Navy's Most Powerful Strike Force by David Hobbs. Good book about a formation rarely talked about.

Spitfire Mk 14's could make it to the western suburbs of Berlin from bases in SW England. Infact there is a book about. Mk 14s were powered by Griffons.

https://www.amazon.com/Spitfires-Over-Berlin-Desperation-devistation/dp/1911658042

The first aircraft to sink a major warship - Cruiser Königsberg in Bergen harbour, Norway April 1940. Always had a soft spot for this bird.

This is a good book charting its development and operational history.

The G2 and G4 were the same basic air-frame. The addition of night-fighting equipment was made in the field to the G2 series until it was standardised, at which point the night-fighter variant was designated by the RLM as the G4 and the majority of G4 models were produced as such from the factory, although further modifications to the G4 continued to be made in the field. The G4 retained many of the features of the G2, for example the wing and fuselage drop-tank/bomb shackles remained consistent, although for the most part these were field-removable features.

This is a good book on the subject. If you have Amazon Prime it is free to read.

I just found out that many of the bombers didn't have the Norden and just bombed when the Norden equipped leader did. If that plane was blown out of the sky....well then thing fell where they may. Also timing/movement/chaos caused errors even when the lead was undamaged. Read that in this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Higher-Call-Incredible-Chivalry-War-Torn/dp/0425255735

For those interested in this topic I can recommend Paul Fussell's "Wartime - Understanding Behavior in the Second World War." Among other things he charts how official images went from cheerful troops to dead Americans on the beaches of Tarawa as the war dragged on.

https://www.amazon.com/Wartime-Understanding-Behavior-Second-World/dp/0195065778

Mensch that would be awesome . I read a fictional war novel many years ago called Bomber Stream Broken which tells the story of a Bf110 crew battling a Halifax crew over Germany and since then have been fascinated by nightfighter variant of the Bf110. I'll look forward to more of your vids ;)

During the lead-up to the invasion several hundred gliders were produced and stored on airfields, waiting for their one-way trip. In English weather this caused a lot of them to develop mould and collect water inside, which could have caused the gliders to break up in flight.

In The New Science of Strong Materials by JE Gordon, we are told about the problems this caused and how they were overcome. This is in the chapter Glue and Plywood which also discusses the problems of constructing planes such as the Horsa and the Mosquito out of plywood.

A fascinating book and an interesting look at some of the technicalities involved in constructing them.

Link to the book in question, "Fly West". It's a collection of gripping events that were experienced by several RAAF Sunderland crews stationed in England, told in a very humorous way by one of the pilots. Fantastic read.

Well I think its only in German....

Its this one: http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/3613028387?psc=1&amp;redirect=true&amp;ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

Make sure to get the recent 2008 edition, not the 2005 one.

James Salter just died. His book &quot;The Hunters&quot; is about F-86 pilots in the Korean War. It is short, bleak and beautiful. I haven't got on with his other stuff, but this is one of my all time favourite books.

Yes, I have the book written by Hanns Joachim Scharff the interrogator in question. He recounts basicly the entire operation that researched and interrogated all the western pilots that crashed in Europe.

That specific incident has pictures and some additional explanation. He was allowed a quick takeoff and landing with a planes with very little fuel.

The book in question &quot;the interrogator&quot; is a bit weirdly written but very enjoyable.

This was a one of as I recall but the object of the interrogator was to put the people they had at ease, they went for walks outside the compounds, visited stuff, talked about theatre and did this thing. Once they got people to losen up and talk about anything really they could easily find out information on what they wanted.

In this case the pilot in question was given info on how to fly the ME109 and land it. During that conversation and certainly later he must have talked about his plane, his experiences and thus the interrogator learned perhaps new information on enemy planes, formation, units, etc, etc.

It's really a super interesting book on the war, human psychology and general interrogation tactics.