aviation history 2004-11

Editorial

One of the world's neglected aerialoddities gets a reprieve.

I HAVE ALWAYS LOOKED up when any-thing flies overhead (and often wonderwhy everyone else doesn't), a habit thatsometimes gets me in trouble when it in-terrupts a conversation with someonewho expects my undivided attention.This occurred all too frequently when Iwas enjoying the "pleasures" of Air Forcebasic training at Lackland Air Force Base,San Antonio, Texas—once in 1955 andagain a year later. (Taking basic twice?Yes,only the second session had a fanciername, "preflight training," but turned outto be no more fun.)

The latest, hottest fighter, the NorthAmerican F-lOO Super Sabre, was goingthrough operational introductions at thetime, and I would frequently find myselfwith a stiff neck from stealing glancesupward when I should have been payingstrict attention to my training curriculum.Another result was loud rebukes for air-plane gawking that was considered irrev-erent inattention to the training by mytech instructor (drill instructor elsewhere),who seemed to enjoy any excuse to barkat us scum-of-the-earth recruits in ourunsnazzy, sweat-stained fatigues.

The overhead distraction that made thebiggest impression on me during thoselong-ago days, however, was not a sleek,deadly fighter, but the ConvairXC-99, anaerial behemoth of a cargo plane createdby adding a fat fuselage to B-36 wings andtail. It looked like a B-36 on steroids. Its sixengines, when they were all running,made a distinctive throb in the sky, and itwas large enough that it was easy to spotwithout looking all over for the source ofthe sound.

I used to wonder what it would be liketo fly that big, lumbering tbing. But it flewwell, apparently, because I saw it passoverhead frequently, going to and from itsbase at nearby Kelly airfield.

Only one XC-99 was ever built, and themanufacturer's hopes for a fleet of mili-tary or airline super cargo carriers neverreally materialized beyond polite intereston the part of the U.S. government andmilitary services. I would eventually flydie Douglas C-124—a shorter, four-enginecargo airplane that had a similar fat fu-selage and a cargo elevator behind the

6 AVIATION HISTORV NOVEMBER 2004

wing, just like the XC-99's. That experi-ence gave me a taste for what it wouldhave been like to pilot the lumberinggiant I had often gazed up at while I wassweating out basic training programs.

The beautiful—in its own way—XC-99would soon be put out to pasture and leftto languish for years. As time passed,there were some aborted plans to reviveit for its intended purpose, to clean it upfor display or to consign it to the scrapheap. More or less abandoned, it becamethe home of flying things with featheredwings, and the bird droppings it even-tually collected probably outweighedsome of the airplanes I flew.

The bulky XC-99 was soon well on theway to the junk heap. What many of uswho had seen that leviathan in actionhoped for was a benefactor, a knight inshining armor that would rescue thisaging, ratherplump, one-of-a-kind dowa-ger from extinction.

In recent years I have been delightedto hear that there was some interest inacquiring the XC-99 by the world's oldestand largest military aviation museum,the U.S. Air Force Museum at Wright-Pat-terson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio.However, just moving such a behemoth,to say nothing of restoring this large-scale derelict, posed formidable chal-lenges.

But a recent issue of Friends Journal,the house organ of the Air Force MuseumFoundation Inc., published several photosproving that wonderful project had notonly begun but was already well under-way, with careful dismantling in progressfor shipment to the museum, where alengthy and arduous restoration willsomeday allow one of aviation's major ar-tifacts to be put on permanent display forus all to gawk at—without getting in trou-ble for it and without getting a stiff neckin the bargain.

We tip our Aviation History hat to re-tired Maj. Gen. Charles D. Metcalf, the di-rector of the U.S. Air Force Museum, asweO as to the many other forward-lookingindividuals who are working hard tomake possible the rescue and preserva-tion of one of the world's greatest aerialoddities. A.H.S.

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DiscussiomThis issue's "Art of Flight"department focuses on an unusual artform: airplane trading cards. Can youthink of similar types of aviationmemorabilia tbat document andillustrate aircraft and aviators but are notcommonly regarded as aviation art?

Gotowww. TheHistoryNet. comJahi

for these great exclmives:

B-24 Raid on Magdeburg—The curtainsare pulled back, revealing a big map ofEurope with red ribbons leading to ourtarget—the synthetic oil refineries nearMagdeburg. Germany. There is a lowmurmur among the crew members asthe target is announced....

Extraordinary Career of RAF aceStanfordTUck—luc^s hard-won flyingskills and a remarkable run of good for-tune contributed to victory in the Battleof Britain.

Friendly Rivals: Spitfires andHurricanfis—Although the relativemerits of these two World War II aircraftcontinue to be debated, the dissimilarstablemates complemented one anotherin combat and together saved a country.

Eagle of the Aegean Sea-Rudolf vonEschwege was the only German fighterpUot on World War I's MacedonianFront, but in a little more than a yearthe intrepid and resourceful flierachieved 20 victories.

NO ROUND-THE-WORLD AUTOGIROI enjoyed "Around the World in the Flying Carpet," Ron Gilliam'sarticle in the May issue on Richard Hailiburton's 1931 aerial tour.It is not generally known that early on, Halliburton contemplatedmaking that tour in a Pitcairn Autogiro. He telegraphed HaroldPitcairn on November 1,1930. proposing that a PCA-2 Autogirobe made available for a "vagabond flight around the world byaeroplane." His appeal to Pitcaim was straightforward:

The Journal has a circulation of three million and goes into threemillion high class American homes. Kach article will be read byseven to ten million people. My three previous books have been inturn read in ten other countries. As they cost $5.00, they are boughtby people with money..,. lthe| Autogiro ship would fix the attentionon my flight, and cause a sensation wherever I landed.

Pitcairn politely declined the offer, recognizing that the then-underway certification process for the PCA-2 Autogiro would takeconsiderable time (the PCA-2 would receive ATC 410 on July 2,1931, the first rotary aircraft in America to be certified). He mayalso have been hesitant to provide an aircraft for Hailiburton's use,given the relatively high cost of the PCA-2 ($15,000) and, of greaterimportance, the fact that a .support network did not exist for it.

The Autogiro's future could only be advanced when aviatorscould rely on its safety, backed by a support system for servicemaintenance and repairs, and Pitcairn immediately telegraphedHalliburton stating that the Autogiro was not ready for a round-the-world trip. Halliburton replied on November 4, offering to cometo the Pitcairn factory witli his pilot to "take a thorough schoolingin the servicing and operation of your new device." Even thoughthe possibility of publicity was certainly appealing, it was not to be.The journey took place as described in Gilliam's excellent article.

Bruce H. CharnovHempstead, N. Y.

Editor's Note: Bruce Charnov is the author of "From Autogiro toGyroplane" in the September 2004 issue o/Aviation History.

B-45 GROUND CREWMANWell, it's about time. After 50 years of reading articles on aviation,your May issue was the first time I was able to see a little effortput forth toward an aircraft I worked uith during the Korean War("Operation Backbreaker," by E.R. Johnson). A lot was accom-plished with those aircraft that was never heard of in the press.

Our 3rd Squadron received all the RB-45Cs from the manufac-turer, practiced high and low altitude photorecon and developedin-fiight refueling techniques with the "flying boom" from KB-29swhile we were at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. We wereassigned to the 91st Stragetic Reconnaissance Wing. After abouta year, we relocated four RB-45Cs to England with four KB-29sto support us there. The same number also went to lapan. I wasa ground crewman while they were at Manston Royal Air ForceBase, right above the White Cliffs of Dover. Our group then relo-cated to Schulthorpe Royal Air Force Base, up the coast. I reallyenjoyed Mr, Johnson's article. One thing I was surprised to readwas that there were so many B-45s rigged up as atomic bombers.

After tbe 91st relocated to Lockbourne Air Force Base inColumbus, Ohio, I became a crew chief and flight mechanic on a

B-45A-5 that was used for flight training and couriering film todifferent Strategic Air Command bases where B-36s were sta-tioned throughout the country.

Tech. Sgt. Richard ReighterU.S. Air Force (ret.)

Hunlington Beach, Calif

FOND C-47 MEMORIESI very much enjoyed the article on the Douglas C-47 that ap-peared in the July issue ("Enduring Heritage," by Dick Smith), Itbrought to mind some things that might be of interest to readers.

In 19441 checked out as first pilot in C-47s while stadoned at GoreField in Great Falls, Mont. On my final check flight, the check pilottold me that he would pull an engine as soon as I got the tail upand I was to complete the takeoff and come around and land. Com-pleting this successfully certainly gave me confidence in the C-47.

The article mentioned that the maximum takeoff weight was26,000 pounds. I was assigned to take new C-47s from Creat Fallsto Fairbanks, Alaska, where they were turned over to the Russiansunder the Lend-Lease program. These were always loaded withsupplies for Ladd Field in Fairbanks. We often fiew tbem at 31,000pounds with no problem, and the Canadian airfields we used onthe way up were quite short.

Ray C. FrodeyFremont, Mich.

DC-5 NOT FORGOTTENRegarding E.R. Johnson's "Aerial Oddities" department in the Julyissue, for me, the Douglas DC-5 is not a forgotten airplane. As ayoung graduate aeronautical engineer, my first job in March 1939at the Douglas F.1 Segimdo division was checking stress analysisof major components of that aircraft. I can assure you it was anew design and not a derivative of the DB7/A-20 series.

This airplane featured full-length wing flaps and leading-edgewing slots that enabled a phenomenal rate of climb and a very shorttakeoff and landing run. Further, it was designed to precise com-mercial (then CAA) requirements, not military. The first customerwas the Dutch airline KLM, for 24 aircraft. Several aircraft weredelivered, but the start of WWII precluded contract fulfillment.The balance of the aircraft under construction were purchasedby the U.S. government and dispersed to the Navy as R3D- Is andR3D-2S. For military service, a large cargo door was cut into theleft side of the fuselage, requiring major structural reinforcement.

The DB-7/A-20 was originally designed by Jack Northrop as anattack bomber for the French government and designated theN-7, The company was then the Northrop Aircraft Company, adivision of Douglas Aircraft Company After Northrop left to formhis new company in Hawthorne, Calif., the aircraft was furthermodified, becoming the DB-7, and a large quantity were built anddelivered to the French. Approximately 50 of the French DB-7swere delivered and wasted away on the French aircraft carrierBeam at Martinique, held there by the Vichy French government.The British then contracted for the balance of the French order,plus additions, and the DB-7 Boston was born.

The success of the British version resulted in the U.S. govern-ment's purchasing the aircraft, later designated as the A-20 Havocseries. The U.S. version was almost identical to tlie Boston, except

Continued on page 57


Aerial Oddities

Saab's J21 was among the few aircraft produced inboth piston engine and turbojet versions.

BY E.R. JOHNSON

TheSaabJ21R,aGoblin II turbojet-powered prototype,first flew in March1947.

TO MOST AMERICANS. THE NAME SAAB brings tomind a line of modish and distinctively Swedish auto-mobiles. It migbt come as a surprise tbat Saab is actuallyan acronym for Svenska Aeroplan Aktie Bolaget, or "Swed-isb Airplane Company." Althougb tbe company bas beenin tbe car business since 1947, it got its start in aviation 10years earlier and remains one of Europe's leading manu-facturers of military and commercial aircraft and relatedsystems. Saab also began as a state-owned industry butis now a publicly held corporation with about 40 percentof its ownership outside of Sweden.

The circumstances tbat led to tbe development of tbeunorthodox )21 (1 fovjakt, or figbter), tbe first figbter de-signed by Saab to be built and flown, are connected to theorigins of tbe company itself. Despite being traditionallyneutral, tbe Swedish government by tbe mid-iy30s wasbecoming increasingly alarmed by tbe rising political andmilitary tensions in Europe, and in particular, tbe growingpower of nearby Nazi Germany. Tbougb Sweden was a rela-tively advanced industrial power at the time, it possessedpractically no domestic industrial base for manufactur-ing aircraft. In fact, its small air force, the Flygvapnet. wasentirely equipped with aircraft imported from Great Brit-ain, Germany, tbe United States and Italy. In the event of

a general European war between Germany and tbe Alliednations, Sweden was understandably concerned that itwould be cut off from its traditional trading partners.Against that backdrop, in April 1937 Svenska AeroplanAktie Boiaget came to be.

Saab's earliest aircraft manufacturing experience wasgained by license-producing foreign aircraft designs (e.g.,junkers ju-86K bombers |B3s], Nortbrop 8A-1 /A-17 attack/dive-bombers lB5s] and North American NA16/BT-9trainers |Skl4s|). With tbe help of American consultants,tbe Saab engineering team led by Erid Wanstrom was by1939 already developing completely original designs fora dive bomber, tbe B17, a twin-engine ligbt bomber, tbeB18, and two figbters, the J19 and 121. The J19 was a con-ventional all-metal monoplane designed for a radialengine, but tbe 121 had an unusual twin-boom pusherconfiguration. After tbe outbreak of hostilities betweenGermany and the Allies in September 1939, bowever, tbeboped-for supply of aircraft engines from the UnitedStates and Britain dried up, and Saab was forced to placebotb of its fighter projects on hold.

In 1940 Svenska Flygmotor (Swedish Aero Motors) begantooling up to produce a copy of tbe Pratt & Wbitney R-1830(a nonlicensed-built example also known as the STW, or


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"Swedish Twin Wasp"), but initial productionwas already earmarked for Saab's B17 divebomber, whicb was in the final design stages,and possibly after that, tiie J22 fighter, whichwas being designed and planned by FFVS(an aircraft factory run by the Flygvapnet).The STW-powered 122 had been conceivedas a conventional monoplane design, butunlike Saab's earlier J19, was designed to beconstructed primarily of wood, since it wasfeared that strategic metals would be in shortsupply. In 1941 the cotnpany was advisedthat an arrangement was being reached withthe German government to procure andeventually license-build Daimler-Benz in-line engines (i.e., the DB 601,603 and 605),and that future aircraft should incorporatethose power plants. Saab at that point revivedthe idea of the twin-boom J21, but added asecond proposal for a more conventionalfighter designated the J23, both to be pow-ered by Daimler-Benz in-line engines. Theso-called trading relationship with the Naziswas essentially a one-way proposition underwhich the Swedes were expected to supplysteel and allow troop movements across theirsoil in return for not being absorbed into theReich. Only a small number of German-made engines actually made it to Sweden,the bulk coming later as license-built ver-sions produced by Suenska Flygmotor.

The exact chain of events thai led to thedecision to develop the 121 isn't entirelyclear, but sometime in the fall of 1941 theSwedish government apparently told thecompany to discontinue work on the twin-boom J21 and to proceed with the 123. Then,in December 1941, the government com-pletely reversed itself. A possible explana-tion might be that the J23 and the FFVS's J22were too similar to be placed in productionat the same time. In any case, detaileddesign work began in earnest on the 121 andcontinued throughout 1942 and into 1943.Frid Wanstrom had originally proposed theunusual twin-boom pusher layout becausehe believed it would offer a better gun plat-form. Planned armament would consist ofa 20mm cannon and two 13.2mm (51.97-caliber) machine guns mounted in the nose,plus a 13.2mm machine gun mounted ineach boom (comparable firepower to theLockheed P-38). On the other hand, the cen-terline pusher arrangement would obvi-ously present a grave hazard in the event thepilot was forced to hail out, A parallel proj-ect at Saab was already testing the ejectionseat, meaning to make it a standard featureon all of its combat aircraft. A compressed-air system was tried first but was later re-placed by two Bofors gunpowder cartridges,which, in ground testing, propelled a spe-cially designed seat straight upward.

The final design of the J21, as it emergedin 1943. was an all-metal, low-wing mono-plane featuring tricycle landing gear and a


12 AVIATION H I S T O R V NOVEMBER 2004

Enduring Heritage

A small town in Maine cherishes an unlikely artifactfrom Lindbergh's historic transatlantic flight.

BY RICHARD W. O'DONNELL

WHEN CHARLES LINDBERGH MADE his solo flightacross the Atlantic in May 1927, he earned instant fame.His plane, Spirit of St. Louis, is today one of the Smith-sonian Air and Space Museum's leading attractions. Butwhat happened to the huge wooden containers used totransport the airplane hack home from Europe aboardUSS Memphis'? Believe it or not, one of those crates hasalso received a modicum of acclaim. While the containerthat held the wings seems to have disappeared, the giantbox that held the fuselage is currently serving as amuseum on Easy Street in the community of Canaan,Maine. Canaan resident Larry Ross paid $3,000 for thecrate in 1990 and moved it from New Hampshire, whereit had been sitting, to a lot next to his home. He also trans-formed it, after a lot of repair of work, turning it into whatis now known as the Lindbergh Crate Museum.

"It's open year-round," said Lindbergh buff Ross. "Hun-dreds of people, mostly schoolchildren, visit it annually.Every June, about the time summer vacation begins, wehold a 'Lindbergh Crate Day' for the youngsters. It hasbecome quite an event since we started it back in 1992.The young people learn a lot about Lindbergh and the im-portance of having a vision of what they want to achievein their lives. We do a variety of activities and also spon-sor an airshow. The kids have a great time."

Ross recalled that when he bought the historic cratefrom former owner David Price Sr., he wasn't exactly surewhat he wanted to do with it, but he did know that he

wanted to share it and his Lindbergb collection withpeople: "I have photos, clippings, publications, and—mostimportant to me—letters from people with their recollec-tions of the impact that Lindbergb and his flight had onthem. Every year, the collection gets larger." He decidedto buy the wooden box after learning that it was hiddenin the woodlands of Contoocook, N.H. "It was a slice ofhistory, and I didn't want it to rot away," he said.

Lindbergh's crate has a storied past. For several years,it was owned by Californian Harry Holt. He was the onewho sold the big box, as well as the land on which it waslocated, to David Price Sr., who eventually sold the giantcontainer to Ross. "A new roof had been put on the crate,and we put some windows into the ramshackle old thing,"recalled Holt. "The idea was to make a guest house out ofit, but if you must know, not many guests were interestedin staying in the place. We had a few tenants, but not verymany of them.

"I had been hoping it would end up in a museum, orthat some airplane club might buy it," said Holt. "When Iowned it, souvenir hunters would search the woods look-


Visitors today flock to the Lindbergh Crate Museum(above left) to celebrate the life and lore of "LuckyLindy," shown (above) with his crated aircraft aboardUSS/Wemp/7/sin1927.


OdditiesContinued from page 12

laminar flow vAn% with approximately 15degrees sweepback in the panels outboardthe booms, and vertical fins located at theend of each boom, connected by the hori-zontal tailplane. The plane's general dimen-sions included a wingspan of 38 feet and alength of 24 feet 2 inches, and loaded weighttotaled 11,466 pounds. Three landing gearlegs of unusual length gave the pusher pro-peller adequate ground clearance. The 121was powered by a German-made DB 605Bengine rated at 1,475 hp, driving a fully con-trollahle-pitch, three-bladed pusher pro-peller. The coolant radiators were huried inthe wing roots, giving the J21 a fairly cleanoverall appearance.

The first prototype 121 flew on luly 30,1943. Flight trials demonstrated a maximumspeed of 403 mph, a cruising speed of 304mpb, a service ceiling of 33,450 feet and arange of 1,920 miles. Though 45 mph fasterthan the FFVS |22. the J2l was still 30 to 50mph slower than the Focke Wulf Fw- 190D,Supermarine Spitfire Mk.XTV and NorthAmerican P-51B, which all flew about thesame time, and was not nearly as maneu-verable. Nonetheless, the Flygvapnet—nodoubt hard pressed lor new fighters—or-dered 484 of the type into production as theJ21 A-1, with deliveries starting in June 1945.

Fven as J21A-ls hegan reaching opera-tional units, the Plyguapnet expressed disap-pointment with the plane's performance asan air-to-air fighter, and hegan replacing it inthe immediate postwar period with NorthAmerican P-51 Ds. By the end of 1949, the typehad heen completely withdrawn from front-line fighter units. Yet, as early as 1945, Saabhad started developing a follow-on versiondesigned for an air-to-ground attack role. Theresulting J21A-2s and A21A-3s retained thefighter's gun armament but were specificallymodified to carry hombs and rockets and useRATO (rocket-assisted takeoff) to improvetakeoff performance. In 1945 Saab proposedan improved J2IB with heavier armament,radar and a more powerful DB 605E engine,but the project never went beyond the pro-posal stage. Later still, Saah suggested yet an-other version with a 2,050-hp Rolls-RoyceGriffon engine, but by this time the Flygvap-nelwas seeking new designs urith jet propul-sion. When the last A21A-3 was delivered in1949, a total of 298 of all versions had beenbuilt. J21A-2S and A21A-3s continued toserve with Flygvapnet attack units until 1954.

As World War II drew to a close, Swedenfound itself years behind Britain and theUnited States in the development of jetpropulsion. In an effort to gain experiencequickly, Saab investigated the feasibility ofwedding turbojet power to a 121 airframe

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and purchased British-made de HavillandGoblin engines, rated at 3,100 pounds staticthrust. Three incomplete J21 A- Is were takenfrom Saah's assembly lines to undergo theconversion, which turned out to be morecomplex than originally expected: Theentire fuselage section aft of the cockpit wasreplaced in order to house the larger diam-eter turbojet; the empennage was re-designed to move the horizontal stabilizerabove the thrust line; and the stance of thelanding gear was modified to compensatefor the change in thrust angle.

The first Goblin Il-powered prototype,designated the J21R, flew on March 10,1947.Flight testing revealed a maximum speed of496 mph, a cruising speed of 378 mph, a serv-ice ceiling of 39,350 feet and a range of 558miles. It was ordered into production as theA21RA, to be used in a ground attack role,with the last examples delivered to the Ffy-gvapnet in 1952. Production versions wereadapted to carry a belly-mounted pod con-taining an additional eight 13.2mm machineguns. The last 30 produced as the A21RBwere powered by the Swedish-huilt GoblinIII, which boosted them to 3,300 poundsstatic thrust and a top speed of 520 mph.The greatest drawback of the aircraft wasrange: When fully loaded, the A2 IR's combatradius was only 118 miles. All A21Rs werewithdrawn from service by the end of 1956.

IftheA21R had fallen short of success, itgave Saab's engineers a wealth of experience.Even before the last A 21R was retired, Saabwas rapidly moving up the ladder as one ofthe world's leading designers of military jetaircraft. The sweptwing J29 Tunnan, whichflew in 1948, began equipping Flyguapnetfighter units in 1951; the two-seat, all-weather 132 Lansen flew in 1952 and servedin fighter-interceptor units until the mid-1970s; and the strikingly innovative double-delta J35 Draken, when it flew in 1955, wasperhaps the most advanced second-genera-tion supersonic fighter aircraft in the world.

Saab was developing a controversiallylarge, expensive multirole fighter when itbegan partially privatizing and merged withAktie Bolaget Scania-Vabis in 1970. In 1972the IA37 Viggen (Thunderbolt) fighter en-tered service, subsequently joined by attack,conversion trainer and other variants. The1980s saw the development of a single-engine multirole successor to the Viggen, theJAS 39 Gripen (Griffin), a close-coupled deltacanard designed to satisfy a Swedish militarythat, as one parliamentarian put it, "wants aMercedes, but can only afford aVolkswagen."Passing its flight tests in December 1996, theGripen offers a fourth-generation jet fighterthat can change directly to the attack and re-connaissance role by means of its upgradablecomputer software. What is now called theSaab Aircraft Division of Saab-Scania hasgone a long way since its failed direct transi-tion from the piston to the jet age, the ]21. "t"

18 AVIATION HISTORY NOVEMBER 2004

People & Planes

Douglas Mawson and his 'Wingless Wonder' headedfor the Antarctic in 1911.

BY BETHANY ROBINSON

a mTHE THREE MEN WERE YOKED like pack animals toa sled carting their supplies. They suffered from unre-lenting frostbite, trudging along through the ice and snow,carrying with them only enougli food to barely sustainlife. Along the perilous route, hidden crevasses threatenedto swallow them, and their objective was elusive. Ex-hausted by hunger and cold, the youngest man confidedin his diary: "The Prof had talked of returning down coastin Jan, when much ice out, at average rate of 20m[iles| perday. I guess I would like to see [us| fly"

It was 1908, and the writer was Douglas Mawson, a 26-year-old Australian professor at the University of Adelaide,in Antarctica as part of the 1907-09 British Antarctic Ex-pedition (BAE) led by Sir Ernest Shackleton. Together withEdgeworth David ("the Prof") and A. Forbes Mackay,Mawson journeyed 1,260 miles in 122 days to ascertainthe position and directional movement of tbe south mag-netic pole.

Mawson's wry comment about flying was not just fa-tigue-induced sarcasm. An engineer and geologist,Mawson was fascinated with emerging technology andscientific advances. Always an innovator, throughout hislife (1882-1958) he displayed a breadth of technical skills,including engineering, industrial and architecturaldesign. He patented advances in ore processing, and pi-oneered techniques in forestry and erosion control. After

Modified to serve as an "air tractorsledge," the Vickers monoplane—minuswings—is tested while held stationaryvia a barrel roped to one ski.

gaining international acclaim for his rolein the BAE, be became one of the fore-most scientific figures in Australia, wellknown for leading two subsequent ex-peditions to Antarctica, championingenvironmental conservation and power-ing national-level Australian scientific re-search, education and policy. He wasknighted in 1914, and today his likenesscan still be seen on Australian currency.

In 1911 Mawson began planning hiscwn expedition, tJie Australasian Antarc-tic Expedition (AAE), to map the Antarc-

I tic coastline directly south of Australia.g The AAE would depart from Australia ini December 1911 in the expedition ship

Aurora. Under the command of CaptainJohn King "Gloomy" Davis, the ship would return to re-trieve the expedition in early 1913. Tbe AAE was primari-ly supported by the Australian scientific community, agroup long on enthusiasm but sbort on funds. Tbis didnot stop Mawson from ambitiously planning to be tbefirst to take an airplane to the Antarctic.

But the fates were against him—his plane would neverfly in Antarctica. In fact, 18 years would go by beforeanyone actually fulfilled that dream. Mawson's plane didnot even arrive in Antarctica intact. It did, bowever, helpto save his life.

Mawson's plans called for an aircraft that was durableand reliable enougb to witbstand the harsh Antarcticconditions. In May 1911, he had made an unsuccessfulbid on a Breguet biplane. 1 lis unidentified agent sent himthis message: "Here is the Breguet—this is a very fine ma-chine, I think about as good as any biplane—but I knowno one in connection with it and therefore could get noreduction in price....I greatly recommend a monoplanebut not a Bleriot, their only advantage is that they are fastand you don't require that. There's a lot of jobbery in tbeaeroplane market, tbat it is scarcely safe to take anyone'sadvice. One should really rather fly lit]."

Later, assisted by noted British aviator Claude Grabam-Wbite, Mawson purchased a Vickers 1 monoplane, one of


20 AVIATION HISTOHV NOVEMBER 2004

British Squadron Leader Lance C. Wade,leading a group of eight SupermarineSpitfire MarkVIIIs, was not expectingto encounter enemy aircraft as his

Royal Air Force patrol neared the Italian coastnear Termoli on October 3,1943. Suddenly theRAF fiiers sighted FockeWulf Fw-19OAs at 12,000feet. Wade led his fighters from 6,000 feet in aclimbing turn in hopes of approaching theenemy planes from their blind spot in the rearand below. After gaining tbis position and ap-proaching unseen to within 200 yards. Wade de-stroyed the rearmost Fw-190 witb a burst ofcannon fire. He then moved behind the nextfighter, and with another hurst sent the enemyplunging earthward.

The remaining German pilots broke in all di-rections, trying to escape. Diving after a fieeingFw-190, Wade heavily damaged it, but he did notsee it crash. German records subsequently re-vealed that III Gruppe of Schlachtgeschwader(battle wing) 4, or III/SG.4, had lost at least one ofits Fw-190 fighter-hombers inthat fight, and the pilot. Ser-geant 1st Class Peter Pellan-der, had been killed. With theconfirmadon of those two vic-tories. Wade ended his secondcomhat tour. His score had p^.,risen to 25, making him theleading Allied fighter ace ofthe Mediterranean Theaterof Operations at that point,

I first encountered LanceWade by accident severalyears ago, when I was search-ing for World War II historybooks and visited a usedbook store owned by HenryJohnson. That day turnedout to be lucky for me inmore than one way. 1 foundseveral new hooks for my li-brary, and I also learnedahout an American-born acewho had slipped through thecracks in hooks ahout WorldWar II. As I was rummagingthrough works on the Euro-pean air war, Johnson said to

ONE OF BRITAIN'S

MOST DECORATED

AND HIGHEST SCORING

FIGHTER PILOTS WAS A

FORMER MULE SKINNER

FROM EAST TEXAS.

By Michael D, Montgomery

tne: "My Uncle Bill Wade's son was a RoyalAir Force fighter pilot in World War 11. Hisname was Lance Wade, and he shot downover 40 Axis aircraft." I listened politely butinitially attached little credibility to hisclaim, for I had already been studying the airwar for many years and thought I couldreadily recognize the names of high-scoringAllied fighter aces. Johnson went on to tellme that the 40-pius kills were in Wade's log-book, hut not his official record. He also ex-plained that these were not confirmed, asWade had flown in the desert war of NorthAfrica, and many of his kills had lacked wit-

Above: Royal Air Force ace LanceC. Wade was photographed in thefall of 1943, while serving ascommander of No. 145 Squadron.Opposite: In Mark Postlethwaite'spainting, Wade downs aMesserschmitt Me-109—likelypiloted by a Sergeant ErtI of 3Staffel, JagdgeschwaderSZ—over Medenine, Tunisia, whileflying a Supermarine SpitfireMk.Vbon March 1,1943.

nesses. But Johnson claimed that the RAF hadcredited Wade with 25 confirmed victories.

1 listened to the bookstore owner's story, stillin doubt, then told lohnson I was not familiarwith any pilot named Wade and asked if he knewof any books about him. Johnson explained thatbecause Wade remained in the RAF after theUnited States joined the war, and be died in afiying accident before the conflict ended, theyoung pilot's achievements had not been widelypuhlicized after his death.

When I returned home, I could not get John-son's tale off my mind. Going to my booksbelves,I picked up Edward H, Sims' The Greatest Aces,which contains the semiofficial records of airwarfare, As expected, I did not find Lance C. Wadelisted in the American aces ofWorld War II, norin the listing of RAF aces. But then I spotted afootnote at the bottom of a page; "This list doesnot contain one of the Royal Air Force's greatestfighter aces. Lance C. Wade, an American whovolunteered in 1940 to fly and fight for England."

Sims added that Wade was one of the highest-scoringAmericans in the air war, witb 25 confirmed kills, alsonoting that he died in an accident in 1944.

A product of the east Texas hill country who came ofage during tbe Depression, Lance was born in 1915in Broadus, a small farming community near theTexas-Louisiana border. Tbe second son of Bill andSusan Wade, he was actually given the name L.C. atbirth. In fact, he became Lance C. Wade only after theRAF demanded that he list a name rather than ini-tials—he called himself Lance Cleo Wade just to sat-isfy regulations. In 1922 the family moved to a smallfarm near Reklaw, Texas, where he went to school andhelped v ath the farm work. Family members recalled

NOVEMBER 2004 AVIATION HISTORY 23

that whenever an airplane flew over, Wade wouldstop whatever he was doing and say, "Someday Iwill fly." in 1934 at age 19, Wade traveled toTucson, Ariz., to take advantage of a New Dealprogram, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC),which provided johs for young men. For Wade,however, the CCC work turned out to he muchlike the farm work he thought he had lefthehind—driving a team of mules, huilding roadsand planting trees in a national forest.

With war clouds looming. Wade earned apilot's license and acquired 80 hours of flyingtime. License in hand, he tried to join the U.S.Army Air Corps, only to be turned down becauseof his lack of education. Undeterred, he was soonplotting to join the RAF.

Due to heavy losses during the Battle of Brit-ain, the RAF had started recruiting Americanpilots for its war effort. Fearful that he might herejected again. Wade suhmitted a flctitiousresume in which he claimed that he had learnedto fly at age 16, when he and three friends hadpurchased a plane and a World War I flying buddy

FAMILY MEMBERS

RECALLED THAT

WHENEVER AN

AIRPLANE FLEW OVER,

WADE WOULD STOP

WHATEVER HE WAS

DOING AND SAY,

'SOMEDAY I WILL FLY.'

of his father's had taught them to fly. Wade alsosaid that his father had heen an ace in World War1. Years later, on hearing that story. Wade's cousinHenry Johnson laughed and said that the high-est Uncle Bill (Wade's father) had ever been wasthe top rail of his fences, and that the family wasunaware of Wade's ever owning an airplane.Whatever the facts, in December 1940 Wade wasaccepted by the RAF.

Britain's recruitment program resulted in 240American pilots who flew and fought for Fng-land. Most of those men served with Nos. 71,121and 133 "Fagle" squadrons, which were made up

A consignment of HawkerHurricanes undergoes flight-testing before being sent tothe Middle East. Wade used the"Hurri" to score his first victories—two Italian Fiat C.R.42s over theLibyan desert on November 18,1941—and became an acethe following week.

of American volunteers. In the course of theirservice, members of the Eagles destroyed 73I/'Axis aircraft and earned 12 Distinguished FlyingCrosses (DFCs) and one Distinguished ServiceOrder (DSO). The battle-tested Eagles also pro-vided the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) vdthvaluable combat experience after the UnitedStates joined the war. Wade, however, did notserve with the Eagle squadrons but witb theregular RAF squadrons, and as a result his awardsand victories are not included in the Eagle tally

Soon after being accepted in the RAF, Wadewas sent to No. 52 Operational Training Unit(OTU). Units such as these provided pilots a fewweeks' training in the aircraft that they would flyin combat—in Wade's case, the Hawker Hurri-cane. After completing his OTU training. Wadeflew a land-based Hurricane Mark I ofl'flie Britishaircraft carrier Ark Royal to the beleagueredisland of Malta. His was one of 46 Hurricanessent as reinforcements to the island. Because ofthe need for flghters in North Africa, 23 Hurri-canes were flown to Egypt, where Wade joined

No. 33 Squadron in Septem-ber 1941 as a pilot officer.After the unit received re-placement pilots and aircraft,it was deployed to Giarahuhairfleld, located in the Libyandesert, a fly-infested waste-land of sand, rocks andhrush. The mission of No. 33Squadron was to provideclose air support for the up-coming British offensive,duhhed Operation Crusader,scheduled to he launched onNovemher 18, 1941, againstthe Cerman Afrika Korps.

Numher 33 Squadron wasequipped with the HurricaneMark I and later the Mark II.Hurricanes were the work-horses of the RAF during theBatfle of Britain, responsiblefor attacking German bomherforces while the more ad-vanced Spitflres took on theenemy fighters. The Hurri-cane was a transitionalflghter, vifitb thick wings and

a steel-and-wood frame covered with fabric. Thelack of streamlining resulted in a design that hadlittle room for improvement; even equippedwith more powerful engines the Hurricanes didnot show a dramatic improvement in their per-formance. In fact, the Hurricane of the desertwar was nearly 100 mph slower than the Luft-wajfe's Messerschmitt Me-109E

The "Hurri" was not without good points,however. Many pilots believed a Hurricanecould outturn the Me-109, and it was a stablegun platform—whicb made it easier for Hurri-cane fliers to achieve hits on opposing aircraft.


The Hurricane's wide-tracked landing gear alsomade takeoffs and landings on unimproveddesert fields safer.

The key to success in the war in North Africawas controlling the airspace. The RAF faced twoexperienced and well-equipped foes: Italy's RegiaAeronautica and the German Luftwaffe. ManyItalian pilots had been flying combat since theSpanish Civil War, and their equipment wasequal to that of the RAF. Luftwaffe aircrews wereconsidered the best in the world; they includedmany veterans of the Spanish Civil War and ear-lier campaigns of World War II. One of No. 33Squadron's principal opponents was the Luft-waffe's Jagdgeschwader 27, a fighter wing com-manded by Captain Fduard Neumann, one ofGermany's outstanding air combat leaders. Fur-thermore, the pilot many Luftwaffe leaders con-sidered the best fighter pilot of the war, HansJoachim Marseille, flew with I/IG.27. Marseilledestroyed 158 British and American aircraft.

Commanded by Squadron Leader I.W. Mars-den, No. 33 Squadron had been brought up tostrength with replacementplanes and pilots to supportOperation Crusader. The of-fensive's purpose was to re-lieve the British Tohruk gar-rison and to destroy Axisarmored forces commandedby German Maj. Gen. ErwinRommel, the famed "DesertFox." Crusader was sched-uled to begin early in themorning of November 18,and No. 33 Squadron's as-signment was to attack El Frgairfield, located deep in theLibyan desert. As the Hurri-canes approached the enemyairfield, three Italian FiatC.R.42S jumped them. De-spite the fact that the C.R.42was one of the most ad-vanced and maneuverablebiplane fighters ever pro-duced, with a top speed of270 mph. Wade managed toshoot down two of the Italianplanes, while the other C.R.42 was downed by hissquadron mates.

Four days later, on November 22, nine JunkersJU-88A bombers of I Gruppe, Lehrgeschwader(training wing) 1, with supporting Me-109s, at-tacked Allied airfields in the area. Given warningof that attack. No. 33 Squadron managed toscramble six Hunicanes to intercept the enemyformation. The squadron destroyed two Ju-88s,while Wade heavily damaged another Ju-88 inthat same fight. After landing and servicing itsfighters. No. 33 was ordered to intercept anotherenemy formation, this time made up of ItalianSavoia-Marchetti S.M.79 trimotor bombers. Dis-playing the aggressiveness that soon earned him

FIGHTING TO KEEP HIS

PLANE IN THE AIR, WADE

STRUGGLED ON FOR

ABOUT 20 MILES

BEFORE SETTING DOWN

IN THE DESERT.

the nickname "Wildcat Wade," He destroyed oneS.M.79 and teamed up with another pilot tobring down a second. On November 24, Wade andhis wingman intercepted a flight of S.M.79s withC.R.42 escorts and, in a low-level fight over thedesert. Wade notched up another S.M.79. Thatafternoon he shot down another C.R.42, thusachieving ace status in his first week of combat.

On the morning of December 5, 1941, No. 33Squadron was ordered to make an early morningattack on the Axis landing field at Agedabia. Thesquadron mounted its attack from the east sothat the glare of the morning sun offered someprotection fi:om groundfire. As Wade approachedthe enemy landing field, he concentrated his fireon an S.M.79 parked near the fiight line. Whenhe roared over the damaged enemy bomber, itexploded and heavily damaged his Hurricane.Fighting to keep his plane in the air, Wade strug-gled on for about 20 miles before setting downin the desert. In an attempt to help. Sergeant H.RWooler landed his own aircraft nearby, butWooler's Hurricane was damaged during the

British airmen examine thewreckage of a Junkers Ju-87Bin Italian markings, shot downby a Hurricane pilot on theLibyan battlefront.

landing, and he was unable to take off afterward.Now there were two British pilots stuck in the

desert without food or water. Fortunately, theDesert Air Force was prepared for such an emer-gency. If stranded airmen could be located, theywere supplied with essential rations by air. Thefliers were given directions on where to head,and if the men could find firm sand to facilitatea landing by another aircraft, a plane would besent in to rescue them. Wade and Wooler wereamong the lucky ones, as they were quicklyspotted and supplies were airdropped to them.After walking hack to base, Wade and Wooler of-ficially became members of the "Late ArrivalsClub," which meant they could wear a special

NOVEMBER 2004 AVIATION HISTORV 25

patch on the left breast of their flying suits.During Wade's first tour of duty from Septem-

ber 1941 to September 1942, the Desert Air Forcetook heavy losses due to the limitations of its out-dated Hurricanes. But despite his plane's obviousshortcomings, Wade's victory total continued torise. He also hecame the unofficial deputy com-mander of No. 33 Squadron.

Wade's last week of his tour came during aperiod of intense air comhat. That action startedon September 11,1942, with a large dogfight be-tween Hurricanes of Nos. 33 and 213 squadronsand the Me- 109s of I/JG.27 and n/JG.27 that wereescorting Junkers Ju-87s on a dive-bombing mis-sion. The Hurricanes were supported by the twonew Spitfire squadrons, Nos. 145 and 610. In aswirling fight, Wade destroyed a Ju-87 on the11th. Five days later, he tangled with a highly

DURING WADE'S FIRST

TOUR OF DUTY, THE

DESERT AIR FORCE TOOK

HEAVY LOSSES DUE TO

THE LIMITATIONS OF

ITS OUTDATED

HURRICANES.

touring the big city. Wade returned to east Texasto a hero's welcome. An auto dealership offeredhim the use of a new car during his leave, whichhe politely refused, and be also received invita-tions to speak throughout the region.

During his time at home. Wade spoke to hisbrother Oran ahout some of bis experiences inthe desert war. Oran later recalled hearing howon one mission Lance had become separatedfrom bis flight hy three Me- 109s and in a swirlinglow-level dogfight had shot one down and dam-aged another. He reportedly lost the third byflying down a desert gully Tbere had apparentlybeen no witnesses to confirm what had hap-pened, however. He also told Oran that enemypilots seemed to have recognized his aircraftduring the last half of his tour and started avoid-ing him. Tbat may have heen thanks to the fact

skilled Italian pilot flying a Maccbi M.C.202, whodamaged bis Hurricane. This was the first timean enemy pilot bad hit Wade's fighter in a year ofair combat, and he conceded that the enemypilot was good. As his tour came to an end. Wadewas sent home for a well-deserved rest. His scorethen stood at 15 confirmed kills.

The Texan RAF pilot's exploits had heen widelyreported in U.S. newspapers, and now the Ameri-can press corps clamored to meet the man whobad become a bigh-scoring ace and also been in-vited to tea with Britain's royal family Upon hisarrival in New York, be held a press conference atRockefeller Center and was featured in the Octo-her 14, 1942, issue of The New York Times. After

Wade had borrowed this SpitfireMark Vb from his wing leader,Wing Commander Ian R. Gleed, onFebruary 26,1943, the day hedamaged an Me-109—and thencrash-landed after being hit byBritish anti-aircraft fire.

tbat Wade's Hurricane was distinctive—deco-rated with bis ovm design, a fighting cock, orrooster, standing in front of an American flag.Tbat same aggressive-looking hird would laterbe adopted as tbe emblem of the U.S. Army AirForces' 4th Fighter Group, which included manyformer Eagles in its ranks.

Wade was next sent to Wright Field to test newAmerican fighters. He later reported to tbe RAFdelegation in Washington and was introducedto President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the WhiteHouse.

Wade eventually returned to North Africa totake command of No. 145 Squadron, which wasequipped with Spitfire Mark Vbs. By the time he

26 AVIATION HISTOHY NOVEMBER 2004

joined the squadron in January1943, he had been awarded theDistinguished Flying Cross and abar [representinga second DFC).The squadron's assignment wasto keep enemy fighters from at-tacking the Hurricanes and Cur-tiss P-40 fighter-bombers. Hisnew unit was made up of pilotsof many nationalities: Britons,New Zealanders, Argentines,Trinidadians, Canadians, SouthAfricans and Australians. Alsoattached to the unit was thePolish Fighting Team, made upof 15 expert pilots who had beenfighting the Cermans since thebeginning of World War II. Ledby Stanislaw Skalski, Poland'sleading ace of the war, thatgroup had a reputation for beingdifficult to manage, But underWade's leadership, the squadrondeveloped into a highly success-ful combat unit.

Throughout the Nordi Afiicancampaign, fighter units werecommonly based near the frontlines so that they could respondto ground units' requests quicklySometimes enemy ground unitsbroke through Allied lines andoverran the landing fields wherethe fighters were assigned. OnFebruary 25, 1943, German ar-tillery' fire began hitting the air-field where No. 145 Squadronwas stationed. In a hasty scram-hle to save aircraft and person-nel. Spitfires, jeeps and trucksraced from the field. The squad-ron managed to escape with allits aircraft except for one thathad been under repair. Even so,Wade's own fighter had its star-board wing damaged by an ex-ploding shell, but he flew thedamaged plane to El Assa andsomehow came down safely.

As March 1943 ended. No. 145 Squadron haddeveloped into an effective fighter unit, creditedwith 20 enemy aircraft destroyed for the month.(In comparison, all the RAF units in the Mediter-ranean theater were credited with 59.) Themonth also marked a turning point in the air war,with enemy aircraft becoming increasingly diffi-cult to find. Wade had started the month off bydowning an Me-109 over Medenine that was con-firmed later—probably killing a Sergeant Ertl of3/IG.53.

He went on to take out another Me-109 northof Mareth on the 22nd and two south of Sfax onthe 23rd. During that same period he also re-ceived news that he had been awarded a second

Top: Wade {second from right)poses with other leaders ofNo. 244 Wing after Desert AirForce Spitfires destroyed 30enemy vehicles in one day'soperations. Above: During theItalian campaign in the fall of1943, Wade was photographedwith 145 Squadron adjutantFlight Lt. Norman Brown (left).

bar to his DFC.In September 1943, No. 145 Squadron pro-

vided support for the invasion of Italy. It wasduring the Italian campaign that Wade took partin what may have heen his most notable aerialcombat. That battle occurred on November 3,1943, while he and a wingman were patrollingthe front lines and encountered a large flight ofFw-190s of II/SG.4 attacking a target. Wade ra-dioed for help but did not receive a response.Nevertheless, he and his wingman decided toattack the enemy formation. In the dogfight thatfollowed, an Fw-190 crossed in Wade's front, of-fering him a brief opening, and with a burst ofcannon fire Wade shredded the German plane.


As tbe engagement continued. Wade damaged twomore Fw-190s before making a low-level escape. Bothhe and his wingman survived the fight. Wade badbeen too hard pressed to really determine whatbecame of the enemy planes he hif, so they werecredited to him as "three damaged," but II/SG.4 sub-sequently reported that Sergeant Georg Walz hadbeen killed by Spitfires nearTermoli.

As Wade's second tour drew to a close, a ceremonywas held in his honor. Air Vice Marshal Harry Broad-hurst, air commander for the RAF's Mediterraneantheater and himself a high-scoring Hurricane acefrom the Battle of Britain, reviewed No. 145 Squadronon that occasion. In his remarks, Broadhurst pointedout that Squadron Leader Wade was the most suc-cessful commander of No. 145 Squadron from bothWorld War I and World War II. Wade was subsequentlypromoted to wing commander, with the rank of lieu-tenant colonel, and posted to Broadhurst's staff.

WHATEVER CAUSED THE

CRASH MAY NEVER BE

KNOWN, SINCE SOME

RAF CRASH RECORDS

OF WORLD WAR II ARE

STILL CLASSIFIED.

After the war, one of Wade's friends visitedhis family and expressed his belief thatWade's plane had been sabotaged, Whatevercaused the crash may never be known, sincesome RAF crash records of World War II arestill classified. Shortly after Wade's death,news was received that he had beenawarded the Distinguished Service Order.

In less than three years. Lance Wade, aformer mule skinner from Texas, rose like ameteor to become the leading ace of his thea-ter. After his first tour. Wade bad been offeredhigher rank and more pay to transfer to theUSAAF. But he had declined at the time,saying, "Thanks, that's mighty fine, but I'drather keep stringing along with the guys Ihave been with so long now." As The NewYork Times wrote, "He strung along withthem to the end"—the end of his life.

Wade's future looked bright at that point, givenhis new rank and assignment. His private life wasalso prospering, as he had become engaged tomarry a young British woman. Sadly, all thatbright promise was about to come to a tragic andpremature end.

Missing his old squadron mates. Wade decidedto pay diem a visit. On January 12,1944, he flew atwin-engine Austerlightbomberfrom the theaterheadquarters to No. 145's base at Foggia, Italy. Atthe end of his visit. Wade climbed into the Austerand took off again. But as bis plane climbed fromthe runway, it suddenly went into a spin andcrashed. Wade was killed instantly.

Wade's funeral procession atFoggia, Italy, after he crashed ontakeoff. The recipient of a Distin-guished Flying Cross and twobars, the Texan RAF pilot was thetop-scoring Allied fighter pilot inthe Mediterranean theater at thetime of his death.

I^nce Cleo Wade was buried in a quiet coun-try cburcbyard just down tbe road from bis boy-hood farm near Reklaw. Even in bis bometown,there are no markers to honor his remarkableaccomplishments, and that seems a terribleshame, given his immense contribution to theAllied air war. "t"

First-time contributor Michael D. Montgomerywrites from Haughton, La. For additional read-ing: Aces High; A Tribute to tbe Most NotableFigbter Pilots of the British and Commonwealthi^orcesofWlor\(i\NArU, by Christopher Shores andClive Williams.


Build Your Own SupermarineSpitfire Mk.Vb

As the Battle of Britain raged, Reichs-marchall Hermann Goring report-edly asked Luftwaffe ace Adolf Gal-

land if there was anything he needed tomake the Nazi campaign go more smoothly.Major Galland is said to have responded,"Give me a squadron of Spitfires."

Galland's response was only one indica-tion of the reputation that SupermarineSpitfires attained on both sides of the war.When they were sent as replacements forHawker Hurricanes as the front-line fighter, the contrihution of"Spits" reached iegendar>' pro-portions in the defense of Maltaand the desert war in NorthAfrica. American wing com-mander Lance Wade, who joinedthe RAF in 1940 and soon becamean ace, flew a Mk.Vh Spitfire inNorth Africa, and his aircraft isour model project for this issue,

The Mk.V Spitfire was a Mk. Ior II airframe fitted with an up-graded Merlin 45 engine. The"h" suffix indicated that the air-craft was armed with two 20mmcannons and four Browning.303-caliher machine guns.

Tamiya produces an excellentMk.Vh Spitfire in l/72nd scale.The cockpit consists of sevenpieces, and should he paintedModel Master "RAF InteriorGreen." The instrument panel, £which has a decal provided for 3the faces, is semigloss black. The ISpitfire's seat, according to sev-eral sources, was made from Bakelite andwhen left unpainted was a deep reddishcolor. I painted mine Gunze Sangyo's "redbrown," No. 47. Another decal, depicting thepilot's harness, can be applied at this time.

Cement the fuselage pieces together andslip the completed cockpit into placethrough the space in the bottom. The in-structions next call for the placement of theexhaust stuhs. Hold off on this step untilyouVe completed the painting. They can,however, be painted "rust" and set aside todry Glue the wings together and attachthem to the fuselage.

Since this kit will allow you to build eithera standard Mk.Vh or a Mk.Vh tropical ver-sion, you'll have to select the standard orclipped wingtip parts at this time. Squadron

commander Wade's Spitfire did not have theclipped wings common to some Spitfiresused in the desert for low-level attacks,

There are two types of air-and-sand filtersprovided in the kit. Since Wade's aircraft ar-rived in North Africa by way of the British airbase at Aboukir, Egypt, I chose the "Ahoukir"air-and-sand engine filter developed by the103rd Maintenance Unit at that base. (Thekit also contains the larger Vokes filter, usedon some desert Spitfires and Hurricanes.)

org/SqnMarkl45-150.htm.I sprayed a coat of Testor's Glosscoat over

the entire aircraft to provide a smooth finishfor the decals. The kit decals were used forthe roundels and fin flashes. The "ZX E" air-craft codes and "ES-252" aircraft serialnumber came from an old decal sheet ofBritish squadron markings from HisAirDec,Inc. (1 found this 6 x 9-inch sheet of lettersand numbers at a recent model swap meetfor 25 cents.) Since these decals were quite

Finish the basic mode! construction byattaching the horizontal stabilizers and ce-menting the radiator cover and oil coolershroud to the bottom of the wings. Check allthe seams, then sand and fill where neces-sary. The undersides of British desert Spit-fires were painted "Mediterranean blue" or"Azure htue." I airbrushed the topsides withGunze Sangyo's "middle stone," No. 71, and"dark earth," No. 72, in the standard Britishcamouflage pattern.

Wade's No, 145 Squadron painted thespinners of their propellers hright red. Theprop blades are Model Master "aircraft in-terior black" with yellow tips. The paintschemes and markings for No. 145 Squad-ron from Novemher 1941 to February 1942can be found at the Web site www.rafweb.

old, I brushed on a coat of MicroScale'sliquid decal film before using them, (liquiddecal film coats the printed images andkeeps them from "shattering" when placedin water.)

The wheels should be painted "tire black"and then attached to the landing gear legsand undercarriage doors. The canopy andwindscreen in this kit are very small. Asteady hand and a triple zero artists' brushwill work well for painting the frames.

Use a light coat of dulling spray to simu-late the weathering that commonly tookplace in the desert. When all is dry, attachthe clear pieces with white glue, and yourSpitfire is ready for action against the AfrikaKorps and the Luftwaffe.

Dick Smith

NOVEMBER 2004 AVIATION HISTOnV 29

IN THE

Hard-pressed aircrews of the 11th Aero Squadronwho flew Liberty D.H.4s in America's first hombing

campaign during World War I learned most of theirskills from combat experience—if they survived. BY JON GUTTMAN


'he great bomber armadas of World War II saw tbeir precur-sors in WorldWar I. By 1918, German, Frencb, British and Ital-ian bomber groups were disrupting enemy supply lines andstaging areas, while multiengine strategic bombers struck at

enemy cities and industrial centers, although the damage they did wasgenerally more to morale than material.

The U.S. Army Air Service (USAS) sent its own bomber force into thefray in September 1918--only to discover that it had a lot of catching upto do. One of the four squadrons making up that pioneer bombinggroup was the 11th Aero Squadron, and its short but costly combatcareer typified the difficult learning process that all the first Americanbomber units had to undergo.

The optimism with which the United States entered World War I onApril 6,1917, soon subsided in the USAS. For one thing, it had nothingcomparable to the fighters, bombers and reconnaissance aircraft thatthe European powers had developed in the crucihle of three years ofwar. While designers and manufacturers struggled to create competi-tive military aircraft. Colonel Raynal C. Boiling led a technical com-

Far left: FirstLieutenant CliffordW. Allsopp standsthird from leftamong pilots andobservers of the11th Aero Squadron(Courtesy of JonGuttman). Top: AnAmerican-builtLibeily engine deHavilland D.H.4carries two 155-pound bombs oneach underwingrack. The cutawayfabric beside thefuselage gave thecrew a measure ofdownward visibility(National Archives).Above left: The"lucky swastika" on2nd Lts. John LGarlough andRobert C. Payton's0.H.4 must haveworked—theplane miraculouslygot through 16missions undam-aged (LafayetteFoundation).


mission to evaluate the latest European designs forlicense production as an interim measure. Of thefour types he selected—the Bristol F.2B, S.E.5 andSpad 13 fighters, and the de Havilland D.H.4 homber-reconnaissance plane—only the D.H.4 went intoproduction in time to serve over the front.

The first D.H.4 arrived in the United States on July27,1917. The airframe was delivered without its 250-hp Rolls-Royce Eagle engine, but the Americans al-ready knew that the plane was compatible with theirnew 400-hp Liberty V-1650. The Liberty engine ver-sion underwent its first test flight on October 29 andthen was quickly contracted out to three manufac-turers. The Dayton-Wright Company of Dayton,Obio, built 3,106 D.H.4s, the Fisher Body Division ofGeneral Motors in Cleveland huilt 1,600 and theStandard Aircraft Corporation of Patterson, N.J., built140. Of that total of 4,846 planes, 1,213 were even-tually shipped to France and 696 reached the Zone ofAdvance, but only 196 actually saw frontline combatwith the USAS, as well as with the combined U.S.Navy and Marine Northern Bombing Group, basedon the Belgian coast.

The first "Liberty' D.H.4s," as they came to be called,reached the U.S. Army depot at Romorantin, France,on May 11,1918, but they were in such poor condi-tion that they had to be reworked by the groundcrews. The plane's normal armament was two for-ward-firing synchronized .303-caliher Marlin machine guns and twinLevds machine guns on a British Scarff ring for the observer. SomeLiberties had an additional Lewis or Marlin mounted in a "tunnelgun" position under the fuselage by the ground crewmen, fired bymeans of a Bowden cable. Cameras, fiares and a wireless radio couldbe carried in the cockpit, while wing racks could cany up to 12bombs, weighing a total of 322 pounds.

Twelve of the new planes, attached to the 135th Aero Squadron,flew their first reconnaissance mission on August 9, 1918. MoreD.H.4S were rapidly allocated to corps observation squadrons andlater to bombing units, the Uth and 20th Aero squadrons.

The observation outfits seemed relatively happy with theirD.H.4S, but the bomber crews soon had the demoralizing impres-sion that they were not being sent into battle with the best equip-ment. That fact became apparent after September 10, 1918, whenthe lltb and 20th joined the 96tb Aero Squadron at Amanty and thethree units were formally amalgamated into the 1st Day Bombard-ment Group, under the command of Major lohn L Dunsworth. The96tb, which had been operational since mid-June, was equippedwith the French-buCt Breguet 14B.2. The Breguet, powered by a 300-hp Renault EE.V engine, was superior to the D.H.4 in overall per-formance, bomb capacity, handling qualities and communicationbetween crewmen. The Breguet's airframe, made of oxy-welded alu-minum alloy tubing, could also take more punishment than couldthe wood-framed D.H.4's.

rhe 1st Day Bomhardment Group had been hastily organized tosupport the first American-commanded offensive of the war.

General John J. Pershing's drive to eliminate the German salientaround St. Mihiel. The group's primary mission was to strike at railcenters, staging areas and other key positions in the German trans-portation system. In addition to having less than the best in aircraft,however, the group was so incompetently led in its first weeks thatcrewmen came to refer to it as "The Bewilderment Group."

Those factors had to be balanced against the deadly oppositionthat awaited the bombers. By the time the St. Mihiel offensive com-

Major John L. Dunsworth (right) supervises the loading of a Breguet 14B.2of the 96th Aero Squadron on July 29,1918. In September the D.H.4-equipped11 th and 20th Aero squadrons joined the 9eth to form the 1 st DayBombardment Group under Dunsworth's command.

menced, the Germans had moved one of their most seasoned fightervdngs, Jagdgeschwader II, to help defend the sector from airfields atTichemont and Giraumont. Commanded by 1st Lt. Oskar Freiherrvon Boenigk, JG.II was equipped with the superb Fokker D.VII, sup-plemented by a handful of fast-climbing Siemens-Schuckert D.IIIand D.IV interceptors. All of the wing's aircraft had blue fuselagesand tails, vdth each of its four Jagdstajfeln or Jastas (squadrons)identified by a different color on the nose—white for Jasta 12, greenfor Jasta 13, red for Jasta 15 and yellow for Jasta 19.

The 11th and 20th Aero squadrons only fought for21^ months, buttheir combat tours made up for the short time span with intensity—in what a surviving pilot of the 11th, Clifford W.Allsopp, describedas "the dirtiest aerial missions of the war." Born in Newark, N.J., onMarch 18,1896, Alisopp joined the New Jersey National Guard in1916 and patrolled the Mexican border later that year. He transferredto aviation in 1917 and graduated from the Princeton UniversitySchool of Military Aeronautics on September 15. Alisopp went onto primary fiight training at the 8th Aviation Instruction Center (AJC)at Foggia, Italy, and advanced training with the 3rd AIC in France.He was then assigned to the 11th Aero Squadron, commanded by1st Lt. Thornton D. Hooper.

The USAS decreed that its squadrons could not apply unit in-signias until they had at least a month of frontline service, so thellth's D.H.4S were initially marked only with white individual iden-tification numbers on the fuselage sides. A few pilots added per-sonal markings, usually on the engine cowling. Eor example, theright cowl of D.H.4 No. 17, crewed by 2nd Lts. John L. Garlough andRobert C. Payton, bore a small white swastika for luck—which musthave worked, because No. 17 was the only D.H.4 to get through thellth's entire combat tour without any battle damage.

The first frontline missions fiown by the 11th and 20th Aerosquadrons were probably the brainchild of an officer who was car-ried away by propaganda regarding the Liberty D.H.4's versatility.Both units were ordered to fly "barrage patrols" when the St. Mihieloffensive began on September 12—in essence, providing bigb-alti-tude fighter escort for the single-seat Spad 13s of the 1st Pursuit


Reserve 2ncl Lt. Hans Besser's Fokker D.Vil sports the Prussian blue fuselage ofJagdgeschwaderW and the white nose of JagdstaffelM, along with his personal marking—a broom to "sweep the sky" of enemy planes. Besser shot down a D.H.4 of the 11th AeroSquadron on September 18,1918, and one from the 20th on September 26.

Group. The absurdity of that experiment was best summed up byan observer of the Uth:" Wben it was demonstrated that the D.H.4scould not keep up to pursuit planes, let alone protect them, thesquadron was sent back to its proper work of day bombing."

All three squadrons of the 1st Day Bombardment Group flewbombing missions on September 14. Striking at the rail yard at Gon-flans, the 11th ran into its first aerial opposition in the form of red-nosedFokker D.VIIs. The bomber crews claimed to have downed one enemyfighter in flames—the pilot of which nevertheless seems to have sur-vived—but two D.H.4S were lost. First Lieutenant FredX Shoemaker,2nd Lt. Robert N. Groner and 2nd Lt. Horace Shidler were broughtdown, all wounded and taken prisoner, while Shidler's observer, 2ndLt. Harold Sayre, was killed. The D.H.4s were credited to 2nd Lt.Georg von Hantelmann and Staff Sgt. Theodor Weischer ofjasta 15.

The Uth and 20th were detailed to bomb Bayonville on the fol-lowing day, during which each of the D.H.4s carried 400 pounds ofbombs. That proved to be a mistake—although no aircraft were lostin combat, only six of the 20 bombers that started—four from the20th, and Hooper's and 1st Lt. Gyrus J. Gatton's from the Uth—man-aged to complete it. One plane of the 20th crashed on takeoff, in-juring the observer and killing the pilot, 1st Lt. G.B. Stephens Jr., ina manner that highlighted another reason for the D.H.4's unpopu-larity. The 67-gallon main fuel tank was vulnerable-earning theD.H.4 its nickname of "Flaming Coffin"—and its location betweenpilot and observer distanced them from one another, making com-munication difficult. The landing gear had been set too far back onthe original British plane, and the heavier American engine onlyserved to make noseovers upon landing all the more frequent—onwhich occasions the fuel tank was prone to break loose and fall for-ward, crushing the pilot, as was the case vrith Stephens.

Hooper, for one, had learned the folly of overloading D.H.4s, andwhen nine of his D.H.4s set out on a second raid against Longuyonthat day, they carried only two UO-pound bombs each. Eventben,five planes dropped out and made forced landings in the Frenchcountryside.

Three missions were flown on September 16, with the more reli-

able Breguets of the 96th pressing on totheir target more often than the D.H.4s.The third, a raid on Gonfians, ran into theyellow-nosed Fokkers of 2nd Lt. OliverFrd/ierrvonBeaulieu-Marconnay'sMra19, resulting in the loss of four aircraft,with six crewmen killed and two takenprisoner. At that point the 96th, whichbetween combat and operational losseshad lost 14 aircraft and 16 aircrews in fourdays, had to be withdrawn.

No flying took place on September 17.Then on the 18th, the Uth and 20th Aerosquadrons were ordered to bomb LaGhaussee. Seventeen D.H.4s took off, butone crashed soon after takeoff, and 10did not reach the objective. Of the sixLiberties of the 11th that made it to LaChaussee, only one came back. "Thiswas the day I had been sent to pick up anew plane," Allsopp recalled, "and re-turned to hear the had news that ourmajor had ordered the raid at 5,000 feet!!What a bastard!!"

The 11th had been ambushed by thewhite-nosed Fokkers oijasta 12, com-manded by Reserve 2nd Lt. HermannBecker. One of his pilots, Reserve 2nd Lt.

Hans Besser, described what ensued:

The earth was almost completely covered by balls of clouds andthe holes in between were very hazy. We were high above it, at 4,000meters, and searched the sky for enemies. The weather looked tous as if it had been made for bombing attacks, for it allowed a cov-ered approach between the clouds. And really, we had not beenmistaken. Cleverly they flew around ever>' mountain of cloud andstayed in the valleys, thereby using the change of light and shadowas camouflage. The colorful cockades, however, had betrayed themto us and we dove vertically down onto them. What happened waswithin a matter of seconds. We fell onto the formation like a hail-storm and the observers hardly had time to fire at us. We used theFokker's speed to hang immediately at their tails. Almost all of ushad an enemy in front of us. Becker and myself fire almost simul-taneously at two Americans. But mine waits to take fire whileBecker is so fast he has already produced the first torch in the sky.Almost at the same moment Becker's second victim is also on fire,as is my American.

cker and his flight landed to a jubilant reception at Giraumont,then drove to Gonfians to examine their victims. Becker's were

1st Lts. Lester S. Harter, McGrea Stephenson, John G. Tyler and UanyH. Strauch, all dead. Besser had downed D.H.4 No. 14, killing its crew,1st Lt. Edward B. Gomegys and 2nd Lt. Arthur B. Garter. A Germanflier named Wilke brought down 1st Lts. Roger F Chapin and GlairB. Laird, who were captured. The Germans found one more D.H.4forced down at St. Jean by Reserve 2nd Lt. Alfred Greven, the crewof which—1st Lts. Hooper and Ralph Root—were wounded andtaken prisoner.

The only D.H.4 to return was No. 12, crewed by 1st Lt. Vincent P.Oatis and 2nd Lt. Ramon Guthrie. The pair managed to shake offtheir pursuers by skillful dodging through the clouds and employ-ing some desperate gunnery. They got lost, were shot at by anti-air-craft batteries and were hounded across the lines by one moreGerman fighter, but they crash-landed in Allied territory and even-


Above: D.H.4 crewmen of the 166th Aero Squadron, which under the experiencedleadership of Captain Victor Parks Jr. had a remarkably successful combat debuton October 18,1918 {Lafayette Foundation). Right: Bombs from 96th AeroSquadron Breguets rain on an already burning Montmedy during the 1st DayBombardment Group's last raid, on November 4.

tually made it bacic to Amanty.The 11 th dropped a message streamer in the German lines some-

time later, asking. "What happened to our squadionl" Jasta 12 soonsent a reply, "Come and look for it!" The Geschwader log remarked,"It surely gave/asta 12 grim satisfaction to have achieved such a con-siderable success, for although one couldn't deny the Americans'dash, these insolent characters had daily hombed the German trainspacked with men going on furlough."

rhe loss of five planes and 10 men in one day sank morale in theUth to an ail-time low. Individual markings were no longer ap-

plied to aircraft—nobody expected them to last long, anyway And,as Alisopp expressed it, "September 18th was also the day I stoppedwriting in my diary and many of us made out our wills!!"

Such was the situation when 1st Lt. Charles L Heater arrived totake command of the squadron on September 21. Heater went toBritain in October 1917 and flew D.H.4s with No. 55 Squadron of theRoyal Air Force's Independent Force. He had been awarded theBritish Distinguished Flying Cross before transferring to the USAS.

"Coming to the American forces from ten months of very activeparticipation in long-distance bombing with No. 55 Squadron, RAI;I found that American formation flying was most haphazard,"Heater wrote. "I tried to impress upon the pilots of the 11th that tightformations warded off attacking fighters and saved lives. On the firstraid after I took command, I elected to fly the rearmost position, butwarned that I would move forward any time there was an openingahead of me that would permit it. Before we started back from thetarget, 1 had moved all the way up to the leader! On the next raid, Icame home in the tail position!"

After St. Mihiel, the 1st Day Bombardment Group moved toMaulan, a smaller airfield on a narrow ridge, surrounded by woodedglens—hardly a reassuring location for aircrews flying aircraft with-

out brakes. Chastened by his losses. Major Dunsworth called a con-ference with all flight leaders to improve the group's tactical doc-trine. Larger formations were the obvious answer, but numbersalone, even when backed by escorting fighters, could not preventheavy casualties at the hands of the crack German Jastas. "Lack ofradio and teamwork had accounted for much of this," remarked Ali-sopp, who added: "The fighters could turn hack if the odds wereagainst 'em, but we had to continue over the lines to our objectivesNo. 1, No. 2 or No. 3."

Tbe 96th had replaced most of its lost aircraft, but had not yetreplaced its experienced aircrews. Dunswortb therefore farmed outpilots and observers of the 11 th and 20th Aero squadrons to the 96th.Tbe two depleted D.H.4 units also flew their remaining aircraft to-gether. Alisopp and his gunner made up one of 22 teams from theUth Aero Squadron that were temporarily assigned to the 96th,flying two of bis 12 wartime missions in that unit's Breguets.

The Americans launched their offensive into the Argonne Foreston September 26, and eight Breguets of the 96th started the bomb-ing campaign with a sortie to Dun-sur-Meuse. Only six planes madeit to the target and came back, with one observer, 1st Lt. Paul J.O'Donnell, dead.

The Uth, on its first combat mission since September 18, joinedtbe 20th on a second strike, but 1st Lt. Gatton, unable to keep hisformation together, aborted the mission. One D.H.4 pilot who didnot come back with him was 1st Lt. William W. Waring, who—vriththe squadron operations officer, 1st Lt. Sigbert A.G. Norris, as hisobserver—pressed on to join up with the 20th's formation,

Its numbers raised to seven, the flight dropped 8,864 pounds ofbombs on tbe road and railroad junction west of Dun-sur-Meuse,but then it ran into the same Jasta 12 pilots who had mauled the11th eight days earlier. One of the D.H.4s was hit and began strag-gling, butWaring dropped out of formation, positioned himself over


the cripple and escorted it home, while Norris brought down aFokker. For their selfless act of heroism, Waring and Norris were hothawarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

Ironically, the rest of the 20th Aero Squadron suffered a fate similarto that meted out to the U th. Two D.H.4s were shot down by Becker,another by Besser and a fourth by Staff Sgt. Otto Klaiber, resultingin the deaths of six crewmen and the capture of two others, 1st Lts.Merian C. Cooper and Edmund C. Leonard. Lieutenant Creven forceda fifth D.H.4 to land with a punctured fuel tank, bringing about thecapture of 2nd Lt. Guy Brown Wiser and 1st Lt. Glenn Richardson.

Golonel Thomas DeW. Milling, chief of Air Service, First Army, ar-rived at Maulan and conferred that evening with the 1st Day Bom-bardment Group's squadron commanders regarding MajorDunsworth's leadership. Aside from some officers of the 96th, withwhom Dunsworth had flown combat missions prior to his promo-tion, the general appraisal was negative. Milling and Dunsworth hadbeen classmates at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.,but as a consequence of his visit. Milling relieved Dunsworth ofcommand on October 2. He replaced him with another West Pointclassmate. Major Thomas S. Bowen, whose experience harkenedback to the 1st Aero Squadron's earliest reconnaissance missionsagainst PanchoVilla in Mexico in 1916.

On that same day. Cliff Allsopp had his closest brush with deathor capture—not in a D.H.4, but in a 96th Aero Squadron Breguet. "1can assure you that 1st Lt. Lawrence Ward was a very modest andlionest 'old man,'" Allsopp said of his observer on the mission."Ward was called the 'old man' because he was 29 at the time, andbecause he had seen previous service with the French, in EscadrilleBr.l29. My regular gunner or observer, George Perry, had his facebadly frozen on a previous flight with me. So Lieutenant Ward wasassigned to me... .1 had made one previous raid with the 96th withLieutenant Morton F Bird, who was a lousy gunner. Turned out

lucky, as Ward really knew the sector."The 96th's target was St. Juvin, which it bombed

from an altitude of 14,000 feet. "We went over in for-mation of course," wrote Allsopp, "and carried only125 pound bombs, as we flew in a 'protective posi-tion.' We were directly over our objective anddropped our load as other machines let theirs go,and then suddenly the motor went dead."

At that moment, eight Fokker D.VIIs pounced onthe lone straggler. Five Germans held back to give theother three room to maneuver, and the chase was on.

"I sure got a good look at the two E.A. [enemy air-craftl on my right, as our wings almost touched sev-eral times and 1 clearly saw their faces—helmets, gog-gles, etc.," Allsopp continued. "But it was no time tosalute! I was calling 'em every name unmentionableand ducking their tracers. I'll swear to this day I sawmy wings start to bend as I'd come out of a steep diveand then pull up and turn right into them. With nomotor it was quite a trick, but all 1 could do to giveWard a chance for a good shot at them. I only saw theone on our tail once—as 1 glanced back."

The German on Allsopp's tail was Jasta 19's 20-year-old commander, 1st Lt. Oliver von Beaulieu-Mar-connay, who eventually sent the Breguet crashinginto Allied lines. Had it not been for Ward—and theback-to-back proximity of the Breguet's cockpits—the two Americans might have ended up in enemyhands instead.

"My compass was spinning and useless," Allsopprecalled. "At last Ward got a fine burst into the re-maining Boche and he turned off^'out of control'

Ward then shouted to me, 'Turn south, boy! For God's sake, gosouth!' and indicated to my right with his arm. We landed over aroad and turned up on our nose in a shellhole. I looked back at Wardand thought he was wounded—there was blood on his face—hut itwas only a scratch from the jar of landing. I then took out my 'prideand joy' and pissed all over the compass, etc. The Breguet was rid-dled with holes and I am convinced I would not be here today if Ihad been shot down in a D.H.4.

"We requested an Army captain to put a guard on our crashedBreguet, but he refused and said the Germans were in control wherewe landed and he was 'moving up' after them. We located a hugedugout headquarters and phoned the First Army and told 'emwhere we had crashed, etc. The damn fool never relayed our mes-sage to our 1st Day Group. Hence, we were reported 'missing inaction' for two weeks in my home papers. This was why our lousymajor claimed we were AWOL, etc."

Allsopp paid a visit to his infantryman brother, Edward E. Allsopp,on the way back to rejoin the 11th at Maulan. Ward joined a newD.H,4 outfit, the 166th Aero Squadron, commanded by CaptainVictor Parks Ir. Parks had previously flown Breguet 14B.2s in FrenchEscadrille Br. 123, and like Heater of the 11th, he did a good job of in-stilling a sense of teamwork in his pilots and observers.

The 11th took part in a strike on Grandpre on October 3. TenBreguets of the 96th—five of which carried crews from the 11th—struck at Dun-sur-Meuse the next day and fought their way homethrough 15 Fokkers. A pilot from the Uth, 1st Lt. loseph R. Pearson,was hit in the leg, and his enlisted observer. Private Cedric J. Newby,was seriously wounded, but Pearson managed to crash-land withinAllied lines.

Bad weather brought on a few days of inactivity after October 6. The11th marked more than 30 days at the front during that rest period,which qualified it to apply a squadron insignia to its aircraff. Its chosen


Allsopp's Liberty Bell marking is visible on the cowling of his Dayton Wright-builtD.H.4 No. 23 after 1 st Lt. Harlan L. Shrader landed it on top of a D.H.4 that wastaking off on November 23,1918. The other plane's observer, 2nd Lt. Lawrence J.Bauer, was killed in the accidenL

symbol was the long-suffering husband in the popular comic stripabout "Maggie and liggs." "While we were at Maulan," Allsopp recalled,"a contest for a unit emblem was won by two enlisted men, Hal L.Green and Lawrence D. Larsen. These produced a white disc bearing'Jiggs' with a bomb tucked under his arm (going home to Maggie?}."

Personal markings began to reappear, a sign of improving morale.Regarding his own plane. No. 23, Allsopp said: "I had my mechanicpaint the 'Liberty Bell' fin Philadelphia) in a light blue circle ap-proximately 12 inches, with a dark blue-gray bell, approximately 10inches, with a black crack in the bell....six inches ahead of Jiggs."D.H.4 No. 12, crewed by Oatis and Guthrie, had a marking on the leffside of the cowling depicting the upper part of a seductive cigarette-smoking French "femme fatale" in a red dress. "Another was a beau-tiful 'Parisian' girl," Allsopp recalled, "practically naked—standingin a large wash basin (or bowl) taking a spongebath—or whatever."Yet another was a green four-leaf clover on the nose of D.H.4 No. 2,crewed by 1st Lt. George Spear and 2nd Lt. lohn |. Curtin.

Meanwhile, on October 8, new German fighter reinforcementsarrived at Marville airfield. Jagdgeschwader I, comprised oijastas4,6,10 and 11, and under the command of 1st Lt. Hermann Goring,was already well-known—and feared—as the "Flying Circus" of thelate "Red Baron," Manfred von Richthofen.

rhe 1st Day Bombardment Group resumed operations on Octo-ber 9, with growing success. First Lieutenants Bruce C. Hopper

and Arthur H. Kelly of the 96th led a raid on Bayonville on October18 that involved an unprecedented total of 42 aircraff from all foursquadrons. Even Major Bowen took part, as an observer in 1st Lt.David H. Young's Breguet. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of theground crews, most of the D.H.4s flew to the target and back; evenin the 166th, flying its first combat mission, eight out of 10 of itsplanes made it over the lines.

The 96th encountered about 20 Fokkers of IG.II, but the Ameri-cans' tight formation prevented the enemy from pressing hometheir attack. Five Germans milled around the llth's flight, led byOatis and Guthrie, but the Americans held them off until a flight of93rd Aero Squadron Spad 13s pounced on the Fokkers, shootingdown two, The entire group dropped its bombs square on target,and French intelligence later claimed that they killed or wounded900 German troops. Jasta 15 attacked the 166th on the way back,

leading to claims by both sides. The 166tb's Cap-tain Parks, with Lawrence Ward as his gunner,shared credit for a Fokker with 1st Lts. Russell H.Pedler and John H. McKeon, although7fl5/a 15 lostno planes that day. Lieutenants Josef Veltjens andGeorg von Hantelmann claimed two D.H.4s; infact, three of the 166th's planes were forced to landin Allied lines, but no crewmen were wounded,and all three planes were soon repaired.

The 20th Aero Squadron may have encounteredJG.I over Buzancy on the morning of October 23,with the D.H.4 of 1st Lts. J.H. Weimer and H.E.Turner probably falling in flames to Reserve 2ndLt. Uirich Neckel, commander of Jasta 6. During asecond raid that afternoon, German fighters at-tacked all four squadrons. The Germans concen-trated on the still-green 166th's shaky-looking for-mation, but the 11th moved into position above itto provide extra protection, and the team of 1 st Lt.Walter A. Stahl and 2nd Lt. Hassell D. Archer wascredited with a Fokker. The 96th accounted for twomore, while 1st Lts. Karl G. West and William FFrank of the 20th were credited vrith another. Sev-eral aircraft were badly shot up, and Frank was

wounded, but all the Americans made it back—a tribute to their im-proved teamwork, not only within each squadron, but also as a group.

The 11th led a four-squadron raid against German facilities atBriquenay on October 27. All six of the llth's D.H.4s reached thetarget, then had a running fight with 12 Jasta 19 Fokkers, one of whichwas driven down out of control by 1st Lt. Dana E. Coates and 2nd Lt.Loren R. Thrall. First Lieutenant Donald C. Malcom's riddled D.H.4dropped out of formation with his observer, 2nd Lt. LewW. Springer,wounded in the shoulder. Reserve 2nd Lt. Max Kliefoth was tryingto force Malcom to land in German territory when he was attackedby a Spad 13 flown by Captain Edward V Rickenbacker, commanderof the 94th Aero Squadron. Malcom crash-landed near the Ameri-can hospital at Froidos, while Kliefoth ended up being forced to landbehind Allied lines by the American ace of aces. Cliff Allsopp recalledthis as one of only two cases when be saw fighters help the II th.

The 11 th's final losses occurred on November 4,1918, when Stahland Archer led five aircraff to bomb Montmedy—and encounteredthe Flying Circus. The D.H.4 of 1st Lts. Cyrus Gatton and George E.Burres fell behind and amid anti-aircraft fire—which their squad-ron mates thought caused their deaths. They were attacked by threeFokker D.VIIs of JG.I's Jasta 11, flown by Reserve 2nd Lts. FriedrichNoltenius, Julius Schulte-Frohlinde and Friedrich August Freiherrvon Kockeritz. Noltetiius described what happened:

... I saw bursts at the Maas [Meuse]. A bomber formation! I hurriedin its direction, saw a two-seater returning and cut off its retreatby diving in front of it. He shot desperately with the gun protrud-ing through the bottom of the fuselage, but without taking aim, ofcourse (Because of the speed, he was iinahle to aim properly atme). 1 scored a hit in his fuel tank. Meanwhile, Schulte had ap-proached from the other side and was now closer than I as be didnot have to evade the enemy's fire. The D.H. 12 \sic\ went dovrainflames. As soon as I saw it burning, I turned off in the direction ofthe main formation, where we met head-on over Carignan. Weav-ing heavily, I passed by the ten D.H.s and with a smart turn posi-tioned myself behind the rearmost one. In a longer battle I firstshot him smoking, and then shot his engine to pieces. This slowedhim down: then 1 got nearer and shot him down in flames [21stconfirmed victory]. Thereupon I immediately attacked the next



The time, 1002 hours. The date, August 16, 1944.'Riirty-five Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 91stBomb Group, flying out of"their home base at Bass-ingbourn, England, were approaching Eisenach onthe way to the Siebel aircraft factory at Halle, Ger-many. The ta^et was one hour and eight minutes

avray. The American fighters that escorted the group to this pointhad turned back two minutes earlier, but the fighter group assignedto take over as escort was late. Lacking fighter cover, the 91st'sFortresses were vulnerable targets in enemy airspace. Just how vul-nerable would be made clear within the next few minutes.

The 324th Bomb Squadron of the 91st Group was flying as highsquadron, to the right of and slightly above the lead 323rd Squad-ron. The 324th was led by No. 890, Fearless Fosdick, with lst Lt.Robert E. Crans as pilot and squadron lead, flying at the apex of thethree-plane V-shaped lead element. On the right wing, in the No. 2position, was 2rid Lt. Edward L. WTitty and his crew in No. 515, TheWild Hare. On the left wing, in the No. 3 position, was No. 000 witii2nd Lt. Reese W. Lindsay Jr. and his crew.

Tlie three-plane second element, flying above and to the r i ^ t ofthe lead element, was led by No. 126, with 2nd Lt. John "Jack" L.LesUe serving as the deputy squadron lead. On his right wing. FlightOfficer Louis C. Marpil and his crew were in No. 613. The No. 3 po-sition was filled by No. 085, Yankee Belle, piloted by lst Lt. John R.McCombs. The third element, flying below and to the left of the leadelement, was led by No. 012and2ndLt.VincentA. Fonke. There wasno plane in the No. 2 position. Second Lieutenant Royal E. Manvilleand No. 088, Redwing, had been assigned this slot. But whenManville became lost in the overcast and could not find the 91st for-mation, he spotted the 457th Group coming together and—follow-ing standing orders—joined up with it to fly on to the target atSchkeuditz. The No. 3 position in the third element was filled by No.673, Lassie Come Home, with 2nd Lt. Leonard E Figie and his crew.

The fourth element, flying directly behind and below the lead el-ement, was led by 1st Lt. Freeman C. Beasley in No. 128, Dear Becky.Second Lieutenant Lawrence N. Gaddis in No. 333, Wee Willie, hadstarted out in the No. 2 position, but he became ill and had to returnto base. A spare. No. 634, Texas Chubby—The f'villejolter, piloted by2nd Lt. Halsted Sherrill, moved into his slot in the formation. In theNo. 3 position, known as the "coffin comer" because it was the mostexposed in the squadron, was No. 996, Boston Bombshell, with 2ndLt. John E Dunlap and his crew.

For most of tbe mission the 324th Squadron had been runninginto beavy prop wasb from the 381st Group flying directly in frontof tbe 91st. The squadron loosened up and fell behind. As thebombers approached Eisenach, flak bursts began appearing nearFearless Fosdick. Lieutenant Crans glanced down at the map tapedto his leg to confirm the location. As he did so, tbe navigator, 2nd Lt.Carl R. Phifer, yelled over tbe intercom, "Lead, lead!" Crans lookedup and saw that the group lead aircraft wras making a turn to tbe left.Crans began bis own turn, with tbe rest of the high squadron fol-lowing, but the delay in response threw them farther behind. Tbe324tb was also on the outside of tbe tum and had a longer route tofiy, causing tbe squadron to fall even more out of position.

Forty Seconds of TerrorBefore the turn, a gaggle of German fighters, mostly heavily armedand armored Focke Wulf Fw-190A-8 Sturmbock ("storm-rams") ofthe IV [Sturm) Cruppe of Jagdgeschwader (fighter wing) 3, or IV(Smrm)/JG.3,alongwithMesserschmittMe-109GsofI/JG.302,haddrifted back down alongside tbe bomber stream. As tbey movedpast the formation, the German pilots saw tbere was no fighterescort covering the 91st and that the high squadron was laggingbehind. Shortly thereafter tbe 324th Squadron's tail gunners saw

Forty Seconds Over

During a disastrous mission to a German aircraft factory, the 91stBomb Group lost six B -17s in less than a minute.

: " BY LOWELL L GETZ : ,

what tbey took to be the overdue American fighter escort ap-proaching ftom out of tbe sun at 6 o'clock. It was actually theGerman fighters. Wbile still out of range of the bombers' machineguns, the fighters began lobbing 20mm and 30mm cannon shellswith timed fuses into the formation. Puffs of grayish-white smokefrom exploding shells suddenly appeared, and shells began hittingtbe bombers. The figbters barreled at full throtlJe right into the 324thSquadron in flights of two, three and five abreast. The ensuing gunduel would last only 40 seconds, but to tlae participants, it wouldseem like 40 lifetimes.

In Fearless Fosdick, tbe tail gunner. Staff Sgt. Patrick!. Walsh, firedat tbe oncoming fighters for such a long time that he burned out hisguns. The flight engineer, Staff Sgt. Russell W. Wilson, managed tofire off a few rounds from the top turret at fighters attacking tbebigber No. 2 element before they passed under bis plane. Next anFw-190 came in on The Wild Hare, riddling the tail. A piece of rudderfabric began fiapping over tbe vwindows of die tail gunner. SergeantJoseph M. Albury, who reached out and tore away tbe canvas so hecould see.

WhenanFw-]90camedirectlyinontbe tailofNo. 000, tbetailgunner. Sergeant Lewis C. Morgan, fired at the fighter, causing it toflare up and away, with its belly toward his turret. No. 000 was rakedby cannon fire all along tbe right wing from the tip to up next to thefuselage. The gas tank between the No. 3 and 4 engines caught fire,sending flames streaming 30 feet to the rear. No. 000 pulled upalmost vertically and exploded about four seconds later. Only tbetail section remained intact, floating dovmward in a flat spin.

Morgan tried to go out through the opening where the tail wascut off but became entangled in the shredded metal. He finally man-aged to pull free, kick the tail batch open and drop out, pulling hisripcord at 600 feet. Tbe cbute opened so late that Morgan hit theground bard, breaking his left heel and leg. An old man gatheringvegetables put Morgan in a cart and took him to a nearby town,where he placed tbe American in tbe care of some Catboiic nuns.Tbe next day, bowever, Morgan became a POW. The remaining eightcrew members had been killed when No. 000 exploded.

Number 126 took several cannon hits, setting its No. 4 engine onfire and starting a fire in the bomb bay The waist gunner. Staff Sgt.Douglas Btintin, was badly wounded in the cbest and face. Tbe tailgunner. Staff Sgt. Louis Kos, was also hit by cannon fire, which torea gaping wound in his chest and injured bis face. Lieutenant Lesliecalled over tbe Intercom for tbe radioman. Tech Sgt. James I. Mid-dleton, to get back in tbe waist and man a gun. By tbe time be un-hooked his oxygen system, plugged in a "walk-around" oxygenbottle, discormected the intercom system and got back to a waistgun, Middleton had time to fire off only a few ineffective rounds atthe Germans. *

Number 126 was going down. Kos tried to crawl from his tail po-sition back into tbe fijselage. Although badly wounded himself,Buntin went back to aid-Kos. Neither had on bis chute. At tbe sametime the fiight engineer. Tech Sgt. Joseph H. Godfrey, jumped downfrom tbe top turret and wenj:int6 ,the cockpit. Leslie yelled to tbeco-pilot, 2nd Lt. Jobn E. Savage, "It looks bad." Savage answered,"Yes." Lieutenant Leslie ordered tbe crew to get ready to jump. Hetben said he was going to crash-land, since the wounded men couldnot jump. Godfrey said tbat he would "ride it down,"

^ The navigator, 2nd Lt. Stanley Koss, had just dropped through tbes nose escape batch. Leslie called the bombardier. Flight Officer Karl W

The crew of Boeing B-17G Lassie Come Home, of ttie 324thSquadron, 91st Bomb Group, including pilot 2nd Lt Leonard F.Figie (kneeling at left). Figie and three others would end up POWs,while another three would be killed.

38 AVIATION HISTORV NOVEMBER 20D4 NOVEMBER 2004 AVIATION HISTORY 39

Donley, over the intercom and told him, "Come up and get Godfreyand push him out." Donley came up to the cockpit and took Godfreydown into the nose, shoved him through the escape hatch and bailedout after him, followed hy Savage. Leslie remained at the controls.

Almost as soon as Savage jumped, the plane exploded and brokein two, killing Leslie, Buntin and Kos. Middleton, who was still in thewaist of the aircraft, was knocked out by the explosion, but when heregained consciousness he was floating in the air_ with his chuteopen. He landed in a field, where several civilians held him until hewas taken prisoner. Koss was shot and killed by an elderly civilianafter the landing. Savage was not injured before he bailed out, buthe did not survive. It is not known how be died.

The flight engineer of No. 613, Sergeant loseph B. Nealon, sawfighters approaching the squadron from the rear and called over theintercom, "Look at the P-47s." The tail gunner, Sei^eant Clem J. Pine,yelled back, "Hell, those are Fws!" Almost immediately cannon firefrom the German fighters started raking the plane, knocking out theNo. 2 engine. The waist gunner, Sergeant Clayton 0. Tyson, was bitin the head and throat and killed by tbe first rounds slamming intotbe plane. The radio operator, Sergeant Gerald ]. Peters, was hit intbe ankle and knocked to the floor of the radio room. Pine, in thetail, was firing at the oncoming fighters wben a shell exploded in thetail compartment, shredding bis chute, wounding him in the leftthigh and throwing bim back onto the tail wheel cover.

At the sound of exploding shells, the navigator, 2nd Lt. Elliot H.Winston, bad started to get up to man his gun when the nose washit. Tbe Plexiglas above the bombardier's position blew out, and sev-

eral of the navigation maps were sucked out of tbe aircraft. Number613 started losing altitude rapidly. The oxygen system had heenptinctured and drained. Flight Officer Marpil knew he needed to getthe plane down to where the crew could hreathe. As the aircraftstarted dropping. Pine, wbo had seen other B-17s in the formationexploding in tbe air, crawled into the rear of tbe fuselage, where hesaw that Tyson bad been killed and Peters was lying wounded on thefloor of his compartment. When he sensed tbe plane was droppingrapidly and saw that tbe No. 2 engine was out. Pine assumed theywere going down. He snapped on the spare chest chute tbe crewkept by tbe rear escape batch, kicked open the door and bailed out.

Marpil finally leveled off No. 613 at 14,000 feet, feathering tbe wind-milling No. 2 engine. Tbe main gas tank to No. 4 engine had heen bit,and tbat engine also stopped. Nealon pumped gas into the No. 4 tankand got the engine going again, although it was running rough.Marpil then went back into the fuselage to check out the damageand to give aid to Peters. At about tbe same time. Staff Sgt. Truely S.Ponder tried to come up out of the ball turret, but he bad difficultybecause Tyson's body was lying on top of the batch. When he finallygot out, Ponder went forward to the radio compartment and gavePeters a morphine shot, then poLired sulfa powder into the radio op-erator's ankle wound. Marpil turned No. 613 for home.

Large puffs of whitish smoke from exploding 20mm and 30nimshells erupted all around Yankee Belle. Approximately 20 boles ap-peared in the aircraft, and the hydraulic system was shot out. Amaz-ingly, there was no major structural damage to the bomber, and noneof the crew was hit. Yankee Belle remained on course and at altitude.

40 •AVIATION HISTORY NOVEMBER 200-1

Earlier, as No. 012 had reached 10,000 feet headed for the coast,the crewmen went on oxygen and manned their positions. In hishaste to get into position in the ball turret, Sergeant Charles F. Brudoforgot his chute. The radio operator. Sergeant Wendeil Meenach,noticed it was missing. "Chariie, your chute," he yelled as he tappedhis chest. Brudo reached hack for the parachute and snapped it onas he took up his position;-

The first indication the cockpit crew had that they were underattack was the sudden appearance of grayish-white smoke allaround the front of their plane. At the same time, the tail gunner.Sergeant Willard M. Hoiden, calied over the intercom that fighters'were "coming in on the tail" and that he was "firing at them." Hoidenyelled out: "Shoot at him! Shoot at him!"—his last words.

Almost immediately, 20mm cannon shells struck the No. 2engine, knocking it out, as well as the right wing, between the No. 3and 4 engines and in, the inboard wing tank. The right wing, alongwith the No. 4 engine, liecame engtilfed in fire. Part of the elevatorwas shot off at the same time. Number 012 nosed over, Thanks tothe combined efforts of Fonke and the co-pilot, 2nd Lt. FredW. VanSant, the plane started leveling out after dropping about 5,000 feet.

Hoiden had been killed by the first rounds of cannon fire. Brudo,in the bail turret, was wounded in the lower right leg, just above theankle, in the crotch and in the ieft huttock. Another carmon shell hitthe turret, knocking Brudo unconscious. When he came to, he wasfloating free; his chute had aheady opened on its own. Meenach'sreminder about the parachute had saved Brudo's life.

Exploding cannon shells hit the waist gunner. Sergeant WilliamJ. Weaver, in the face, blinding him in both eyes and blowing awayhis intercom mike. When Meenach looked out from the radio com-partment and saw Weaver lying on the floor with his face bloody, hetold Fonke that Weaver was dead.

Fonke rang the bail-out bell and yelled over the intercom foreveryone to leave the ship. Top turret gunner Staff Sgt. Raymond VPrange, the navigator 2nd Lt. RobertW. Simcock Ir., bombardier 2ndLt. Herbert Carlson and Lieutenant Van Sant left through the nosehatch. Meenach went out the waist door. As soon as he felt the crewhad had time to clear the aircraft, Fonke went into the nose andbailed out. Almost immediately No. 012 exploded. "It sounded likethe whole world had blown up when she exploded," recalled Weaver,who was alive but knocked unconscious as No. 012 disintegrated.When he came to, be still could not see because of blood in his eyes,hut he sensed that he was parachuting down.

Just before the German fighters started their attack. LieutenantSherrill in Texas Chubby decided to try to get out of the prop washby moving from the fourth element into No. 2 position in the thirdelement, which was left open when Redwing got lost. He asked theco-pilot, 2nd Lt. Frank J. Gilligan, to take the controls, since the po-sition was on his side of the plane. As they moved into the new slot,tbe taii gunner, Sergeant Chester W. Mis, called up on the intercomand said, "Our fighter cover is here.. .no, they're not!"

Texas Chubby immediately took several hits from Germancannon fire. The instrument panel was shot to pieces, and the en-gines started running away Sberrill flipped on the autopilot. Noth-ing. SheCs exploded in the top turret, killing the gurmer, SergeantVemon E. Bauerline, who slumped down in the turret. The ball turrettook several direct 20mm cannon hits, killing Staff Sgt. Enrique T.Perez. Both legs of the waist gunner. Staff Sgt. Joseph R. Morrison,were blown off by exploding shells. He did not have his chute on,and the radio operator, Staff Sgt. Richard J. Munkwitz, went back to

At the 91 st Bomb Group's base at Bassingbourn, England, anoperations officer briefs crewmen for their next mission, a raidon Berlin on September 9,1943.

give Morrison aid, put an emergency chute on him and try to helphim bail out.

Texas Chubby pitched up and then dropped off on its right wing.As the aircraft went down, it just missed another B-17 that was drop-ping down with fire streaming from the engines. Sherrill said, "Iguess it's time to go, we can't do a damn thing about it," and thenrang the hail-out bell.

The navigator, 2nd Lt. William M. Porter, had been hit in the headby shrapnel from the first shells. His oxygen mask filled with blood,and when Sherrill rang the bail-out bell and told the crew to leavethe plane. Porter took off his face mask, buckled on his chest packchute and made his way to the nose. But because of his wounds andlack of oxygen, he became disoriented before reaching the exit. A^Gilligan moved down between the seats, he saw Porter fumbling atthe escape hatch door. Gilligan crawled forward to the door andpulled the emergency handle, then Porter tumbled out. The bom-bardier, 2nd Lt. Nicholas J. Weber, had his chute on and was turn-ing around to move to the escape hatch.

Gilligan went back to the cockpit and stooped down to retrieve hisown chute from between the seats. He looked up to see Sherrill stand-ing over him. Sherrill asked, "Are you still here?" Then everythingbecame chaos—noise, flashes, flying debris. The next thing Gilliganknew, it was quiet. He saw blue, green, blue, green, blue—then herealized he was alive and tumbling end-over-end, seeing sky, vegeta-tion, sky, vegetation, sky. Finding that he still had his chute in hishands, he snapped it on and pulled the ripcord. As he floated downover a small village, he saw Volkssturm (home guards) and HiderYouth running toward the spot where he would land in a farmer'sfield. They held him prisoner at the farm until the authorities arrived.

When the order to bail out came over the intercom, the tail gunner.Sergeant ChesterW. Mis, started to go hack into the fuselage to leavethrough the side hatch. Just then Texas Chubby exploded in a fieryball, throwing Mis out of the plane. Lieutenants Sherrill and Weberand Sergeant Morrison did not escape.

John F Wallaszek, tail gunner, was the first crewman in LassieCome Home to spot the German fighters coming at the formationfrom the rear. Almost immediately the tail position was hit bycannon shells, wounding Wallaszek over the right eye and throwinghim back into the fiiselage. As be tried to crawl back into his posi-tion, tbe next flight of fighters fired into the tail, wounding him intbe lefr leg. The B- 17s interior became a fiery inferno, and Wallaszek,though blinded by blood, made it to the escape hatch under the tailand bailed out. He was shot in the right arm by civilians whilecoming down, but he landed without further injury.

Ball turret gurmer Sergeant Frederick D. Baldwin, radio operatorSergeant Edmund J. Mikolaitis and co-pilot 2nd Lt. Dale W. Whitsonwere all killed when 20mm cannon shells hit Lassie. Baldwin waspartially blown from the turret. Whitson was thrown forward ontothe control column. Mikoiaitis lay on the floor near the radio com-partment, which was a blazing inferno. The fiames soon spread tothe left wing of Lassie Come Home.

The waist gunner. Staff Sgt. Walter Salo, was hit by explodingshrapnel from the cannon shells. Seeing the flames, Salo moved tothe waist escape hatch, snapped on his chest pack chute, pushedopen the door and tumbled out. In the nose, the bombardier. Ser-geant Harlon B. Wiliiams, saw a fighter flash by the plane, grabbedthe right nose machine gun and fired at it. The fighter expioded infront of Lassie Come Home. Williams' victim was possibiy 1st Lt.Ekkehard Tichy, commander of the 13 [Sturm] Staffel of IG.3, whohad run out of ammunition and decided to ram the B-17. Tichy wascredited with bringing down his quarry, for his 25th and last victory.Just as Lassie crewmen started shouting, "You got him," the intercomwent dead and cannon shells began exploding in the nose com-partment. Williams was hit several times in the head and lefr leg by


shell fragments. The navigator, 2nd Lt. Frederick Seihie, was also hitin the legs. He yelled, "They got me!" Almost immediately, beforeWilliams could get the first aid kit and move back to help him, morecannon shells exploded in the nose, killing Seihie. Williams, who sawthat the oxj'gen system was on fire, realized the plane was doomed.

Technical Sergeant Walter L. Carpenter dropped down from thetop turret and went into the cockpit. By then the pilot, 2nd Lt. Figie,knew the plane was irretrievably out of control He and SergeantCarpenter went down through the fiery inferno into tbe nose andfell out of tbe plane, followed hy Williams a few seconds later. Tbecrew had barely left Lassie Come Home when it blew up in anorange-and-blackcloud.Williams was knocked unconscious by theexplosion, but suffered no more injuries upon landing.

Lieutenant Beasley warned Dear Beck's crew that tbere werebandits in tbe area and the escort had not sbown up. A moment laterStaff Sgt. Walter H. Keirsey III, in the tail, spotted a large number ofFw-190s and Me-109s closing in on the squadron from the rear. Heyelled out, "Here they come, and they ain't ours!" Sergeant Keirseyand Staff Sgt. Alvin E Desisto, in the baU turret, began firing at twoattacking planes. Keirsey's target, an Fw-190, blew apart, wbile tbeMe-109 that Desisto fired on also went down, exploding when it hittbe ground.

Figbters continued to flasb past Dear Becky on botb sides. AnFw-190 flew alongside on the right, not more than 70 yards away.

The pilot was staring straight ahead, apparently intent on tbe B-17that was his target. Sergeant Jack M. Alford, manning the right waistgun, fired a long burst into the fighter, which exploded. Alford thenbegan firing on another Fw-190 that also plunged to the ground andexploded. The pilot, 2nd Lt. Karl-Heinz MuUer of 2/JC.302. waswounded but bailed out safely northwest of Eisenacb near Kassel.

But for Dear Becky, the damage was done. A right-wing tank badbeen bit and began spewing fuel out bebind tbe wing. Tbe exhauston tbe No. 2 engine was also bit, knocking out tbe supercharger andcausing the prop to run away, which slowed tbe plane so mucb thatit dropped about 600-800 yards behind the rest of the squadron. Re-alizing he could not stay in formation with a full payload. Beasleytold tbe bombardier, 2nd Lt. Bruce D. Pardue, to jettison the bombs,which be did. Dear BecAy struggled to stay with the formation.

The navigator of Boston Bombshell, 2nd Lt. Hubert B. Carpenter,was working on tbe mission log as tbe action began to unfold. Tbetogglier. Sergeant Leslie D. Algee, yelled at bim tbat he thought be sawfighters. At that instant, cannon fire raked Boston Bombshell fromone end to tbe otber. The left wing was set ablaze between tbe No. 1and 2 engines, and the Fortress immediately started spinning down-ward. Algee raised up out of bis seat to leave tbe aircraft. Carpentersnapped on bis chest pack chute, and held onto the brace above tbenose hatch to steady himself as be moved to tbe opening. Tbere hesaw Lieutenant Dunlap lying on the catwalk. Just then Dunlap came


to and told Carpenter to open the escape hatch. Carpenter kickedit open and jumped, followed by Dunlap. Almost immediately,Boston Bombshell blew up. Only Carpenter and Dunlap survived.

The Downward DiveAt the end of their 40-second attack runs on the American highsquadron, most of the German fighters rolled over and dived. Asthey roared down through the 323rd Squadron, the fighters madefrantic passes at a number of bombers in the first three elements.Only No. 234, Bomber Dear, the lead plane of the second element,flown by 1st Lt. L.C. Basinger, was hit, and the damage was minor.

The fourth element was less lucky. Their 20mm cannons blazing,two Me-109s and an Fw-190 dived down on No. 579, Betty Lou'sBuggy, in the No. 2 position, with 1st Lt. Walter Reese Mullins andhis crew aboard. Both the No. 3 and 4 engines were knocked out,and the No. 2 engine was also hit, and thereafter could only deliverabout half power. Tail gunner Staff Sgt. Mabry D. Barker, waistgunner Staff Sgt. Robert D. Loomis and ball tunet gunner Staff Sgt.Kenneth L. Blackburn all got off bursts at the fighters but did notscore hits. A 20mm shell hit the tail gun position, knocking Barkeroff his seat. Fragments went through his right leg, leaving a hole thesize of a silver dollar. He quickly pulled himself back onto his seatin case other enemy aircraft came at them. None did.

At the same time, splinters from a shell that hit the top turret gun

Background: A ball turret gunner's-eye view of Bomber Dearof the 323rd Squadron. Insets: Fearless Fosdick survived theAugust 16,1944, fight; Texas Chubby—The J'vUle Jo/terdid not.The Wild Hare an6 Bomber Dear A\SO came back from the missionbut were lost in November (Photos: Courtesy of Joe Harlick).

sight creased Tech Sgt. Carl A. Dickson's face. It was a superficialwound, but blood flovi ed down over his face. Meanv^ile the radio op-erator. Tech Sgt. James B. Knaub, hooked on a walk-around oxygenbottle, then went to the tail gun position and dragged Barker back intothe fuselage. He applied a bandage to Barker's wounded leg and wouldhave given him a shot of morphine, but there wasn't a morphinesyrette in any of the first aid Idts on board the aircraft. Betty Lou'sBuggy was now flying on only VA engines. Lieutenant Mullins hadthe bombardier. Flight Officer Orville G. Chaney, jettison the bombsas they continued on alone, under and north of the 91 st formation.

First Lieutenant Arvin 0. Basnight's bomber. No. 298, WhiteCargo, flying as lead plane of the fourth element, was hit by flak justbefore the fighters swept through the formation. Although theenemy knocked out two of his engines, Basnight managed to keepWhite Cargo in formation all the way to the target.

Because of evasive action taken as they hurtled through the leadsquadron, only a few of the German fighters were able to line up


Back at Bassingbourn, crewmen of Betty Lou's Buggy examine 20mmdamage after an April 19,1944, mission over Eschwege.

on bombers in the low squadron. An Fw-190 fired wildly at the leadbomber of the third element. No. 504, Times A-Wastin',mih\siL\..loseph R. Lyons and his crew. His tail gunner. Sergeant Burdette E.Conner, saw the ball turret from a bomber that had exploded in thehigh squadron go sailing earthward. He could even see the haplessgunner trapped within.

Number 851, Qualified Quail, flown by 1st Lt. Gregory E. Good'screw in the No. 3 position of the third element, had already been hithard by flak bursts and had lost its No. 2 engine. An Fw-190 came di-rectly at the tail gun position, its flaps down to slow its speed to thatof the Fortress, all the while drilling the bomber's wings and fuselage.The tail gunner. Sergeant Clarence W. Koeller Jr,, started firing at theenemy aircraft at 300 yards, exhorted by Lieutenant Good to "Staywith liim." Koeller could see his tracers bouncing ineffectively offthe Fw-190A-8's armor plate. A 20mm shell hit about two feet fromKoeller, knocking out his oxygen connection. He glanced down toreconnect the oxygen and looked up to see the fighter only 200 yardsaway Koeller fired off another burst as the Fw-190 went into a ver-tical dive. The sergeant yelled out, "I got him—he's going down." Ashe looked back for more German fighters, Koeller saw a crewmanfrom another bomber hurtle past the tail with his chute on fire.

The action was over. Less than 40 seconds had elapsed, but sixbombers, all from the 324th high squadron, were gone. In less than

a minute, 31 men had been doomed to die,and another 25 were on their way to be-coming prisoners of war. The Germansthought they had done even more damage.They credited six B-17s to IV(Smrm)/JG.3and another four to I/JG.302.

On to the TargetSince he was piloting Fearless Fosdick, in thevery front of the 324th high squadron andfacing forward. Lieutenant Crans had seennone of the action taking place behind him.However, his tail gunner. Sergeant Walsh,spoke incoherently over the intercom, tryingto describe what he saw. Crans yelled overthe radio to the squadron, "Close up, closeup!" But hy this time there was no squadronlefr to close up. There were only three 324thplanes left at altitude. Fearless Fosdick andThe Wild Hare of the lead element andYankee Belle of the second element. Lieu-tenant McCombs moved Yankee Belle overinto the No. 3 position on the left wing ofFearless Fosdick. Lieutenant Beasley in DearBecky could not maintain airspeed anddropped down below the three planes re-maining at altitude. Beasley continued on tothe target, however, since he was carryingthe strike camera in his plane.

Forty-five minutes after the Me-109 andFw-190 fighters abandoned their attack, the91st and an adjacent 305th Bomb Group for-mation were attacked by five of the newlydeployed Messerschmitt Me-163 rocket-powered Komets of 1 Stajfel, 1G.400. The bat-shaped fighters streaked up through thestrike force to about 60,000 feet, trailingwhite smoke. At that altitude the Komet en-gines cut out. The fighters banked over andswooped down on the bombers. One Komet,fiown by Sergeant Herbert Straznicky, at-

tacked a B-17G of the 305th Bomb Group, only to be shot down byits tail gunner. Staff Sgt. H.J. Kaysen. Straznicky, the first combatcasualty in a rocket fighter, bailed out safely but was wounded bysplinters in his left arm and thigh.

After it went down through the 91st formation, 2nd Lt. HarimutRyll's Me-163 leveled off behind Betty Lou's Buggy, which was flyingalone well below the rest of the planes. As he neared the bomber, Ryllhegan firing at his quarry's tail, but missed. The Komet then bankedto the right and glided along just out of the range of the bomber's.50-caliber machine guns. Sergeant Blackburn, in the ball turret,asked Lieutenant Mullins to dip Betty Lou's Buggy's lefr wing so thathe might be able to get off a burst at the Me-163 with his twin .50s.Just then Flight Officer Chaney, who had moved up from his bom-bardier's position to man the top turret afrer Sergeant Dickson hadheen wounded, yelled at Blackburn to hold his fire, as he watched aNorth American P-51D Mustang dive on the enemy fighter. TheGerman nosed over and dived straight down, with the P-51 in pur-suit. The Mustang pilot, Lt. Col. lohn B. Murphy of the 370th Squad-ron, 359th Fighter Group, hit the Me-163, and Ryll died when hisKomet crashed west of Brandis. Although Me- 163s had been in the airsince July, this was their first recorded encounter with Eighth Air Forcebombers. Their two casualties were added to the total of 25 fighters


shell

44 A^nATION HISTORY NOVEMBER 2004

Lawrence SperryGENIUS ON AUTOPILOT

THE MAVERICK INVENTOR WHO

CREATED THE AUTOPILOT HAD 23

PATENTS TO HIS NAME RELATED TO

AIRCRAFT SAFETY WHEN HE RAN OUT OF

LUCK OVER THE ENGLISH CHANNEL.

By William Scheck

THE TWO GRANDSTANDS BETWEEN PONTBezons and Pont Argenteuil were packed withspectators, on hand to see the Concours de la Se-curite en Aeroplane (Airplane Safety Competition)being held on the banks of the Seine River. On thatglorious sunny June 18, 1914, there were 57 spe-

cially equipped planes competing, with Lawrence Sperry listed laston the program. Entries featured such improvements in aircraft tech-nology as magnetos, self-starters, carburetors and other innovations.Sperry's entry was the sole participant equipped with a gyroscopicstabilizer apparatus, designed to improve stability and control.

Sperry's device was mounted on a single-engine Curtiss C-2 bi-plane with a hydroplane fuselage. Flying with Sperry was his newlyhired French mechanic and assistant, Emil Cachin. Considering thatSperry spoke almost no French and Cachin was equally ignorant of

Left: Onlookers surround the Curtiss C-2 in which 21-year-oldLawrence Sperry demonstrated his Sperry gyroscopic stabilizer towin the Concours de la Securite en Aeroplane on June 18,1914.Above: Despite language difficulties, Sperry (left) and his French

mechanic, Emii Cachin, put on an awe-inspiring show.


English, they seemed an unlikely team—but they had hit it off witheach other from the start.

Sperry and Cachin had managed to become sufficiently conver-sant with each other's language to bandy about phrases such as sta-biUsateurgyroscopique and generator electrique with true GalWc flak.Now their opportunity to demonstrate the feasibility of the Sperrygyroscopic stabilizer was at hand.

Lawrence's father, Elmer A. Sperry, a renowned American inven-tor, accompanied by his wife, Zula, was on hand to see the results,along with the members of the Ligue NationaleAerienne de France.

In a family portrait (left), Lawrence stands behindhis father, Elmer A. Sperry. To tbe right of Lawrenceis younger brother Elmer Jr., who helped him builda glider in the family home in 1910 and dismantletwo bay windows (behind Lawrence in the photo

below left) to take the fuselage outside.

service. The gyrocompass was immune from deviationand variation problems, which hitherto had been diffi-cult to overcome, particularly in large steel warships.The massive compensating devices required by con-ventional magnetic compasses were eliminated bySperry's breakthrough. Since then his son, Lawrence,had developed a lightweight adaptation of the gyro-scope that could be coupled to control surfaces to main-tain the flight axes of aircraft.

The firemen's band of the villages of Bezons and Ar-genteuil, spotting the aircraft of "I'Americain" ap-proaching, bravely struck up "The Star SpangledBanner." The Curtiss 0-2 flew down the river, and di-rectly in front of tbe judge's stand Sperry engaged hisstabilizer device, disentangled himself from the shoul-der yoke that controlled the C-2's ailerons and passedin review with both his arms held high. The aircraft con-tinued on a straight and steady course, vdth the pilotobviously not handling the controls. The crowd was onits feet, cheering, and shouting: "Remarquable!" "Extra-ordinaire!" and "Formidable!" Sperry had stunned tbeskeptics witb his "no hands" flying.

But Sperry wanted to show them what else his devicewas capable of. During the second pass, Cachin climbedout on the starboard wing and moved about 7 feet awayfrom the ftiselage. Sperry's hands were still off the controls.As Cachin moved out on the wing, the aircraft momen-tarily banked due to the shift of weight, but the gyro-scope-equipped stabilizer immediately took over andcorrected the attitudinal change, after which the Curtisscondnued smoothly down the river This time tbe crowd

was unrestrained in its appreciation and the firemen's band deliv-ered its supreme compliment—a vigorous rendition of 'La Mar-seillaise."

Sperry elected to make one more pass—his tour de force. As theypassed the reviewing stand, there was Cacbin on one vidng andSperry on the other, with the pilot's seat empty. This was a demon-stration beyond the already exuberant audience's expectations.There was the aircraft, flying serenely along with both its pilot andmechanic out on the wings, airily waving to the spectators. Tbejudge, Rene Quinton, was almost speechless. His comment mirrored

SPERRY ENGAGED HIS STABILIZER DEVICE, DISENTANGLED HIMSELF FROM THE

SHOULDER YOKE AND PASSED IN REVIEW WITH BOTH HIS ARMS HELD HIGH.

With the rest of tbe hushed crowd, they waited to see if what wasgenerally thought to be an impractical gadget might actually workin an airplane.

The elder Sperry had earned a worldwide reputation for his de-velopment of the gyrocompass, which had been installed on morethan 30 American warships. A massive device that was practical onlyfor marine use at that time, his invention was still gaining in popu-larity and becoming standard equipment on vessels then entering

the feelings of the crowd: "Mais, c'est inoui!" ("But that's unheard of!").The military observers on hand were simply stunned by Sperry's

performance. And when Commandant Joseph Barres of the Frencharmy air corps prevailed upon Lawrence Sperry for a ride, he notonly saw a demonstration of the aircraft's stability during straightand level flight but also witnessed Sperry's device performing anunassisted takeoff and landing.

Awarded first prize in the competition, Sperry received 50,000

4tt AVIATION HISTORV NOVEMBER 2004

francs ($10,000) and became famous overnight. The handsomeyoung American's face adorned the front pages of newspapers inParis, London and Berlin. The New York Times was more muted inits reception, however. A report covering the competition appearedon page 6. In the Times of June 22, Sperry's invention was mentionedon the editorial page in these deprecatory terms: "Of stability com-monly understood, no heavier than air flight vehicles will ever haveeven as much as that dreadfully fragile monster, the dirigible." Somuch for the technical expertise of TheNewYork Times staff in thesummer of 1914.

Lawrence B. Sperry was born in Chicago onDecember 22,1892, Elmer and Zula's third son.That same year the Sperry name was well rep-resented at the Chicago Columbian Exposition.At the time, Elmer was the chief executive offi-cer of tbe Elmer A. Sperry Company, v«th morethan 70 patents either granted or pending.Among his developments were the Sperry Elec-tric Street Car as well as the first arc lights (de-veloped when he was only 19), which graced

Right: Elmer Jr.—shown at right witb Lieu-tenant Marion Higgins bolding gyroscopes

used in U.S, Army Air Corps field exercises—dropped out of Cornell University at

Lawrence's urging. Below: Controlled bySperry gyroscopes, a pilotless Curtiss B-2 flies

over Sacramento, Calif., in May 1930.

both the Chicago Board of Trade and Tribune buildings. As an in-ventor, Elmer Sperry was generally regarded as being almost on alevel with Thomas Edison.

The Sperry clan relocated to Brooklyn, N.Y., and bought a housein the solid middle-class neighborhood of Elatbush. Lawrence wasan energetic youth, and by age 10 he had acquired a bicycle and anewspaper route. The events at Kitty Hawk, N.C., that made thefront pages in December 1903 left a strong impression on him. Theingenuity of the Wright brothers spurred young Lawrence to opena bicycle, roller skate and doorbell repair shop in the basement of

M,


the family house. It was an instant success, and in short order heexpanded his operations to include motorcycle repair. Erom anearly age, he displayed a natural yen for mechanical devices, de-spite a lack of formaJ training.

The Sperrys usually traveled to Bellport, Long Island, each yearfor a summer of seaside tranquility. This absence by the rest of thefamily was the opportunity for Lawrence and his brotber, Elmer Jr.,to make tbeir big move in 1909. Lav rence had studied a Voisin bi-plane that he bad seen at an airshow at Mineola, on Long Island,and had made meticulous notes on its dimensions and construc-tion. Now, with the town house empty except for servants, theSperry brothers started building a glider in the basement.

First the boys built the steam box they needed to bend wood tothe required shapes. They also set up a jig on the floor, where thepliant wood could be clamped until dry, The furnace in the base-ment furnished steam for the production of the aircraft components.

The boys' glider plans went out the window when an interestedcustomer, a Mr. Wilcox, asked Lawrence what he planned to use asan engine. An engine? That sounded intriguing. A 5-cylinder Anzaniradial engine was available at a cost of $800. The Anzani could claimdemonstrated reliability. It had been the power plant of the aircraftin which Louis Bleriot in 1909 became the first man to fiy the Eng-lish Channel. The Sperry brothers had only $300 in their till, but

A view of the Sperry autopilotinstalled on an early Curtiss

biplane at Hammondsport, N.Y.,wbere Lawrence received his

pilot's license in 1913.

Sperry Sr., upon discovering thealterations, made a reasonabledecision—tbat the first earningsfrom young Lawrence's newflying career would be allocatedto pay for repairs to the house.

With the engine not yet onhand, Lav rence thought it mightbe prudent to begin flying hisplane as a glider so that he couldget some practice. After talkinghis way into using the nearbySheepshead Bay Race Track,which had fallen on hard times,Lawrence towed the aircraft tothe new proving ground with aPanhard automobile he had ac-quired. After assembly, die gliderwas hitched to the Panhard, and

with Elmer Jr. at the wheel, the maiden fiight began. The plane hadreached a height of 150 feet when the tow rope broke. Tbe glider,with Lawrence at the controls, proved fairly tractable in the air, al-though he did have a hard landing and received a few scrapes andbruises. The glider needed only minimal repairs. After that inidalhop, Lawrence was consumed by the flying bug.

The Sperry brothers' shiny new engine arrived the following weekand was installed without delay. As a protective measure, Lawrencehad taken steps to prevent a noseover by installing six bicycle wheelsas an enhanced landing gear. Eueled up, the engine started, and then,sensing the moment of truth was at hand, Lawrence opened thethrottle. With his recent experience in the glider coupled with ap-parendy latent talent for fiying, Uwrence reached the respectable al-titude of 500 feet. Even more important, he made a decent landing.

Realizing that a mostly on-the-joh education in flying was insuf-ficient, Lawrence decided to formalize his conquest of the air. Aftera few more years of academic study, he enrolled in the aviationschool run by Glenn Curtiss at Hammondsport, N.Y. Sperry learnedquickly On October 15,1913, he received Eederal Aeronautics PilotLicense No. 11 from the Aero Club of America.

At this time Curtiss was working under the auspices of tbe U.S.Navy to develop a hydroplane. In the same shop, Sperry, theyoungest licensed pilot in the United States, was soon developing

SPERRY HIT UPON THE IDEA THAT IE THE FLIGHT AXES COULD BE HARNESSED TO A

GYROSCOPE, AN AUTOMATIC CONTROL SYSTEM MIGHT BE DEVELOPED.

Wilcox was willing to put up the balance so their plane could havean engine. Repayment was to come from the proceeds of a soon-to-come barnstorming career by 16-year-old Lawrence—who had notyet even made it into the air.

If nothing else, Lawrence was daring. When the plane's wings turnedout to be too large to fit through the doors of his parents' house, he pro-ceeded to remove two large, handsome bay windows from the bouseso they could carry the semi-assembled aircraft out into the yard.

a new interest, a gyroscopic stabilizer for aircraft. Sperry's goal wasto develop an apparatus that would enahle an airplane to main-tain its course and attitude under ail circumstances.

Sperry had been intrigued by the tendency of a motorcycle or bi-cycle to remain upright provided it was moving. The Wright brothers,with their experience in bicycles, had also dabbled in the gyroscopicphenomenon but had not explored it very deeply. The principlesof the gyroscopic effect were fairly well understood at that time, but


f^j^

as yet there had been no attempt to utilize the gyroscope's capabili-ties in an aircraft.

Sperry hit upon the idea that if the three flight axes of an aircraft-yaw, pitch and roll—could be barnessed to the stability of a gyroscope,an automatic control system might be developed. Yaw representedlateral deviation from the course heading, pitch was the up anddown divergence from level flight, and roll referred to lengthwise ro-tation around the axis of flight. The aircraft might wander throughthe flight axes uithout pilot input on the controls, hut Sperr>' rea-soned that a spinning gyroscope could maintain an airplane's origi-nal orientation. The youthful inventor put it all together by linkingthe control surfaces with three gyroscopes, allowing flight correc-tions to be introduced based on the angle of deviation between theflight direction and the original gyroscopic settings.

The guidance device would perform mechanically what the pilotperformed instinctively. Sperry's control gyroscopes were designedto maintain a zero setting for all control surfaces unlesscorrective action was required. Tbe transmission of cor-rective commands to the controls required a mechani-cal linkage to the control surfaces. The gyroscopesneeded electrical power to maintain rotational rotorspeed as the actuating medium. Sperry obtained powerfor the gyroscope motors by mounting a wind-drivengenerator on the upper wing, in the slipstream. He hadan additional problem, however. His stabilizer was me-chanically linked to the aircraft control mechanism, butthe aircraft industry was ftagmented, and different manu-facturers had different methods of operating controlsurfaces. Sperr>''s stabilizer required four gyroscopes rotat-ing at 7,000 rpm. As one of the gyroscopes moved in op-position to the movement of the aircraft, linkage to valveswould actuate pistons operated hy compressed air andconnected by levers to the control surfaces. In addition,an anemometer that could sense inadequate airspeedand incipient stall was also linked to the device and wouldinstitute corrective action. The entire device, weighing in at 40pounds, was compressed into 18 inches by 18 inches by 12 incbes—a small package for such a sophisticated and complex apparatus.

Sperry had come up with a brilliant solution to the problem of apractical autopilot. But as always, nature sides vdth the hidden flaw.Since aircraft employed unique control systems, pilots had to learna completely different cockpit layout for each different type. For ex-ample, in Curtiss planes the ailerons were attached to a yoke thatfit over the shoulders of the pilot and were actuated by his movinghis upper body to the left or right. Another system in many aircraftof that day had tbe ailerons linked to the armrests of the pilot's seat.In both the Curtiss and armrest systems, it was difficuft to achievethe mechanical force necessary for rapid maneuvers. Some planesused rudder pedals or a rudder bar; otbers used an automobilesteering wheel to actuate the rudder. Some aircraft bad multiplecontrol sticks, and a few employed even more bizarre methods. Itwas clearly impractical for Sperry to design a stabilizer for theunique control actuation methods employed in different aircraft.

The breakthrough for Sperry came through by dint of commonsense. Tbe diversity of control apparatus was finally stabilizedthanks to tbe universal but reluctant adoption of the Deperdussinsystem, wbich has remained in use to this day. The Societe de Pro-duction Armand Deperdussin was a financially shaky French air-craft producer operating under the acronym of SPAD. later toachieve fame under a different designation—Societe Pour I'Aviationet ses Derives. Deperdussin had developed the modern method ofusing a central control stick to manipulate the elevators andailerons, with pedals or a rudder bar controlling the vertical rudder.Ailerons linked to a wheel have remained in use for large, multi-

engine aircraft, though few fighters other than the Lockheed P-38Lightning retained that system by World War II. The simplicity ofDeperdussin's control layout made it immediately popular—andideally suited for use with Sperry's device.

The U.S. Navy, which undervwote Sperry's research, had desig-nated Lieutenant Patrick Bellinger to assist him and act as a watch-dog during testing. Trials of the gyroscopic stabilizer soon shifted toSan Diego, Calif., to avoid the inclement weather near Lake Keukaat Hammondsport, where the Curtiss facility' was located. Althoughthe California climate was more benign, Bellinger's confidence inSperry's device had not increased. In flight tests with Sperry,Bellinger had a tendency to grab the controls if the gyroscopic op-eration seemed slow or reluctant.

During one test, Bellinger conquered his tendency to go for thecontrols, hut this time he waited too long, and the Curtiss C-2 theywere using as a test-bed flew full tilt into the waters of Spanish Bight.

Lawrence, who gained notoriety for daring stunts, receives a ticket from aNew York policeman after landing on a highway in his Sperry Messenger.

Inexplicably, this mishap converted Bellinger into a Sperry adher-ent, Sperry managed to rescue the stabilizer, and both men sufteredonly a dunking.

In subsequent trials, Sperry finally solved most of the problems.Rudder position had to be offset to overcome engine torque. Aileronsettings had to compensate for the location of tbe center of gravityin each aircraft. As the work progressed, Sperry finally reachedthe ultimate test. With Bellinger sitting nervously in the cockpit,Sperry clambered out onto the wing. The device worked as designedand corrected the banking momentarily caused by the transfer ofSperry's weight to the vdng, confirming Bellinger's newfound con-fidence.

The Aero Club of France and tbe French War Department an-nounced an international airplane safety competition, the Concoursde la Securite en Aeroplane, scheduled for |une 1914. Curtiss knewa good public relations gambit when be saw it and oftered to sendone of his C-2s, with Sperr>' to provide his stabilizer and flying ex-pertise. The competition was a smashing victory for Sperry.

Witb the outbreak of World War I weeks later, Sperry's lifechanged. He offered to serve in a French frontline squadron as anexperienced pilot, but to his dismay officials turned him down be-cause he lacked a college degree. Undaunted, he returned to theUnited States to continue his research.

So far, Sperry had flown hydroplanes almost exclusively, but hebegan to think about creating a dual-purpose aircraft. He reasonedthat a flying boat could carry a retractable landing gear so that itcould also operate from a land base. The result; The Aerial AgeWeekly issue of March 29, 1915, featured an article with Sperrydemonstrating what was the first wheeled retractable landing gear


After another high-profile touchdown, Lawrence (left) poses with his Sperry Messenger near the Lincoln Memorial inWashington, D.C., in March 1922. A year and a half later he went down in the English Channel in that same aircraft.

in an amphibian.The Sperry Gyroscope Company, of Brooklyn—with Elmer Sr. and

Lawrence working in tandem—soon developed an unpiloted air-craft that could fly to a target guided by the Sperry gyroscopic device.But that turned out to be an idea ahead of its time. (The conceptwould resurface duringWorldWar II.)

Lawrence traveled to Britain and returned in 1916 with a briefcasecrammed full of orders for what is now famous as the automatic pilot.At age 24, he had become a well-known inventor. In 1916 he was alsocommissioned a lieutenant junior grade by the U.S. Navy and as-signed as a flight instructor.

Lawrence Sperry never rested on his laurels. Between 1915 and1923, he had 23 patents either pending or granted. Among his in-ventions was instrumentation that permitted aircraft to be pilotedwhen visibility was zero. His bank-and-turn indicator and artificialhorizon have remained the basic instmments for every aircraft fromthe Boeing 747 to the Piper Cub. He also came up with a variety ofother instrumentation, including an airspeed indicator, a drift in-dicator and a significant improvement over the (British) Creaghton-Osborne liquid-filled magnetic compass.

After the United States enteredWorldWar I on April 6,1917, Spenycontinued research on an aerial torpedo that was actually a guidedbomb. Working in concert with automotive inventor Charles Ket-tering, he produced a prototype of a pilotless aircraft rigged to flya preset course to a designated target. Another member of that re-search team was 1st Lt. James Doolittle of the U.S. Army, whose namewould become a household word in the three decades to come. Theproject, called the "Bug," was not entirely successful, largely due tothe unreliability of the engines used.

The Sperry-Kettering research, however, provided the guidance

principles utilized in Germany's later development of a flying bomb,the Vergeltungswaffe-1 (V-1 vengeance weapon), in 1944. The Ger-mans solved the problem of unreliable power plants by using asimple and reliable pulse-jet engine, which required an absoluteminimum of moving parts.

While testing the Bug in March 1918, Sperry—who was serving aspilot—crashed, suffering a broken pelvis that immobilized him forthree months. During his recovery he spent time on calculationsthat would result in a new and improved parachute. By the time hewas released from the hospital, he knew he had invented a seem-ingly foolproof seat, or backpack, parachute. His design would elimi-nate the problem of a parachute becoming entangled in aircraftempennage. To test his device, he went to the roof of the GardenCity Hotel, on Long Island, and let his parachute fill and drag himfrom the roof. It performed as designed, and he landed safely. TheSperry parachute soon entered production.

At WWI's end the entire nation turned to civilian diversions, andSperry shifted gears as well. As the result of a conversation with Brig.Gen. Billy Mitchell, assistant chief of the U.S. Air Service, Sperry de-signed and built an inexpensive sport plane, the Sperry Messenger,which could reach 95 miles per hour. It had a 20-foot wingspan andwas powered by a 3-cylinder radial engine that delivered 30 milesto the gallon.

Mitchell was so impressed by the design that the Army ordered adozen for general service. The Messenger was also well received bycivilian aviators and appeared at airports around the country.

Sperry used a Messenger to commute from his Brooklyn hometo the factory on Long Island. He would routinely land and take offfrom tfie parade grounds on Parkside Avenue, adjacent to Prospect



Reviews

Focusing on the development of the A-10 Warthog, anew book gives an inside view of Pentagon politics.

BY WALTER J. BOYNE

THE WARTHOG AND THE Close Air Support Debate(Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2003, $34.95) should berequired reading for every student of military history forthree reasons. The first two reasons are alluded to in thetitle, for author Douglas E. Campbell, a fan of the fabu-lous Faircbild A-10, provides a balanced portrait of the ad-vantages (many) and disadvantages (relatively few) of theWartbog as he outlines tbe debate over close air supportthat has raged since World War 11. The tbird reason is per-haps the most important, for The Warthog and the CloseAir Support Debate also gives an extremely accurate in-sider's view of the way tbe Pentagon operates, with all itsfaults (many) and all its virtues (relatively few). Campbell'sanalysis of the way the Pentagon's advocacy system worksillustrates the many constituencies that operate in thefive-sided building, each with its own agenda, operatingmethods and interests. The author seems to describe thisalmost inadvertently as he details the background of theclose air support debate and the emergence of the A-10as an initially unwanted child of the U.S. Air Force.

Campbell writes very well, reflecting his extensive back-ground as a Vought A-7E and A-10 pilot and his doctor-ate in history from Texas Tech. It's a good thing that hedoes, for the story he tells is immensely complicated andfar more involved than the title indicates. This is a storythat could easily get hogged dovm in the inevitable oh-scurity of acronyms and titles of office, as well as the nu-merous personalities involved.

A strong proponent of the A-10, Campbell keeps hisprejudice for the airplane in check as he dispassionatelydiscusses its pros and cons against the background of thegreat Army/Air Force debate over close air support. At theheart of this is the hasic dilemma of the Air Force, lt wantsahove all things to assist the U.S. Army, which would liketo have the organic air support enjoyed by the U.S. MarineCorps, where Marine pilots support Marine ground units.And while the Air Force helieves that It can do the job ofclose air support best hy interdiction, i.e., the suppressionof enemy forces and supplies at distances far beyond thefront lines. Air Force officials know that Army units wantto see their close air support "down in the weeds," killingthe enemy in the immediate front lines.

The Air Force also knows that if it does not provide suchclose air support, the Army will seek to provide it and,horror of horrors, do it with fixed-wing aircraft as well asits own rotary-wing force. Under these circumstances, theAir Force is forced into the position of allocating a portionofits hudget to a mission tfiat it believes in—but believesin less than some ofits others, including strategic bombard-

ment and interdiction.The A-10 debate was

also affected by a manwho did more harm to theUnited States and itsarmed services than anyhostile foreign govern-ment: former Secretary ofDefense Robert S. MacNa-mara. A brilliant self-pro-moter who could out-quantify anyone in theroom, MacNamara had agenius for insisting on thewrong aircraft at the wrong

time for the wrong reasons. (His genius for getting theUnited States into a ground war in Southeast Asia won'tbe covered here.) MacNamara's forte was not in listeningto the generals and the admirals who had spent their livesfighting and who knew which equipment was best fortheir services. Instead he relied on his mathematical com-putations of which airplane would cost the least, whetherit was effective or not.

Among MacNamara's brilliant choices was his insis-tence on his TFX program, which was supposedly goingto outfit the Air Force and the Navy with a commonswing-wing, air-superiority fighter, reconnaissance andclose-air-support airplane. Another was his forcing theprocurement of 225 General Dynamics FB-lllAs(stretched and re-engined F-11 Is) as strategic bombersinstead of the demonstrahly more efficient RockwellB-1 As. And in this book, we find the willful secretary de-manding a dedicated close-air-support aircraft thatwould replace both the Air Force's Republic F-105 and theNavy's Douglas A-4.

MacNamara accepted the McDonnell F-4 Phantom IIas an interim replacement but pressed for the VoughtA-7 as the premier close-air-support airplane, despitestrong Air Force opposition. The opposition was based onthe fact that the A-7 had no air-to-air capability. Air ForceGeneral Gabriel R Disoway, a man viith considerably moreexperience in close air support than MacNamara pos-sessed, once likened the A-7 to the German lunkers Iu-87,which proved a formidable opponent to Allied aircraft solong as the Luftwaffe had air superiority.

The author handles the emergence of the A-10, its op-erational use and its possible future in an engaging, in-formative style. Most people have an instinctive liking forthe A-10, and Gamphell's presentation makes it evident


B LAC KBI R DBEYOHD THE SECRET MISSIONS

Toll-free I [email protected]

Osprey Direct, c/o MBI PublishingPO Box 1,729 Prospect Ave.Osceola.WI 54020FAX: 1-715-294-4448

why they do. It is the kid from the other sideof the tracks who tackles the establishmentand makes good—always a heartwarmingstory.

ECHOES OF EAGLES: A Son's Searchfor His Father and the Legacy ofAmerica's First Fighter Pilots, byCharles Woolley with Bill Crawford,Dutton, New York, 2003, S24.95.in the course of researching facts to back upthe stories his father told him as a boy,former U.S. Air Force inteiligence officerCharles Woolley, aided by author Bill Craw-ford, has crafted a "life and times" accountofWorld War 1 fighter pilot Charies H. Wool-ley that revives a storied era in military avia-tion. In order to recount the details ofCharles H. Woolley's career, Echoes of Eaglescovers the history of the first U.S. Army AirService fighter units to see combat in thespring of 1918—the 95th Aero Squadron, inwhich Woolley initially served; the neigh-horing 94th Fighter Squadron; the 1st Pur-suit Group of which they were part; and the49th Fighter Squadron, which Woolleyended up commanding by the end of theGreat War.

In the process of telling his own father'sstory, the younger Charles Woolley writes ofthe other pilots his father knew, includingaces Hamilton Coolidge, lames Knowles,Edwin Curtis and Sumner Sewell, as well asother prominent squadron mates, such asQuentin Roosevelt, son of former PresidentTheodore Roosevelt, who was killed inaction on July 14,1918. In addition to learn-ing about his father's experiences, Woolleyalso had the opportunity to hear firsthandthe experiences of his father's survivingsquadron mates, among them Knowles,Curtis, William H. Vail and John Mitchell. Hegained additional details from the widow ofWaldo Heinrichs and the son of Carl Menck-hoff, the 39-victory German ace whosecareer came to a somewhat embarrassingend on July 25,1918, when he was shot downand taken prisoner by a relative neophyte,Walter Avery of the 95th.

For readers who are largely unfamiliarwith World War I aviation. Echoes of Eaglesprovides a look at life and death among theNieuport 28 and Spad Xlll pilots who chal-lenged the German air service over theWestern Front. To longtime buffs who are al-ready familiar with the 1st Pursuit Group,Woolley's book can offer a lot of new in-sights and perspectives on the majiy actionsand airmen who contributed to its fame.Echoes of Eagles seems likely to re\'ive inter-est in an important pioneer period of aerialwarfare, when the progenitors of the U.S. AirForce were first finding their way.

Jon Guttman

QHP For additional reviews, go to www.historybookworld.com.

AVIATION HISTORY NOVEMBER 2004

LettersContinued from page 8

for slightly larger engines (I analyzed theengine mounts, cowling, etc.) and minorcockpit changes. Upon America's entry toWWII, production of the A-20 was trans-ferred to the Santa Monica plant of Douglas.The very first A-20 was supposed to have aspinner-fan; it didn't work out, and the firstdeliveries were designated A-2OAs.

1 certainly enjoy Aviation History, andhope other readers will enjoy my reminis-cences. Please keep up the good work.

Edward C. DenzinEagle River, Wis.

GULFHAWK 4THWilliam Vassallo's article "A Memorable EarlyBird" about Major Al Williams, in the Julyissue, was excellent. I enjoyed reading aboutthis extremely talented man.

I would like, however, to correct one ref-erence to the Grumman G-58A Culfhawk4th. This civilian version of the Navy F8FBearcat was delivered to Gulf Oil on luly 23,1947, and after thorough testing by MajorWilliams was "christened" by Mrs. Williamsin Washington. D.C., on October 11,1948.

Gulfliawk 4th had much of its militaryequipment removed, reducing its weight by1,300 pounds. It was powered by a Pratt &Whitney R-2800 "C" engine with water/alcohol injection that produced 2,800 hp. At19,000 feet Culftiawk 4th could do more than500 mph. The aircraft was also equipped withjet-assisted takeoff bottles, which gave thealready fast-climbing Bearcat an incredibleclimb rate. Major Williams fiew Culfhawk4th all over the countr>' and delighted air-show crowds with what many credit as theultimate piston-powered aircraft.

Gulfliawk 4th was short-lived, however.While returning from the Miami Air Ma-neuvers on January 18, 1949, Williams dis-covered he had landing gear trouble andheaded forSimmons-KnottAirport, in NewBem, N.C. The left landing gear collapsed onrollout, and the auxiliary fuel tank worethrough in a shower of sparks, igniting a trailof leaking gasoline that soon consumed theaircraft in fire. Williams escaped withoutinjury, but Gulfliawk 4th was destroyed.There is evidence that Gulf Oil planned toreplace the aircraft, but for whatever reason.it never happened.

Davis GandeesLutz, Fla.

Send letters to Aviation History Editor. Pri-media History Group, 741 Miller Drive. SuiteD-2, Leesburg,VA20}75, or e-mail to [email protected]. Please includeyour name, address and daytime telephonenumber. Letters may be edited.

Stephen H. King's Windkiller - an historical novel"...vivid description.s oCthe early aviation meets, of Lathamand his Anloinette, and other aviators and the planes theyflew. 1 like this book. Read it., and watch them flyl"--Leonard Opdycke, Author and Publisher, WWI Aero

This is a novel dealing with the final three years of the lifeof Hubert Latham, French pioneer aviation great. It ismeticulously researched and the author chose to put it in novelformat to better showcase Latham's slide from triumph to tragedyas his personality deteriorated. It makes for a wonderful andexciting read.

Windkitler is a 382-page paperback book, with eight pages ofphotographs. Published in 2004 by Word Association Publishers, $16.95.

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Enduring HeritageContinued from page 14

ing for it. Those who found the crate brokeoff little pieces. The thing was kept in an out-of-the-way spot, but people still found it.You wouldn't think that what was basicallya large wooden box would attract so muchattention."

How did Holt end up the proud owner ofthe 12-by-26-foot crate, which weighs 2 tons

Local residents and tourists mostly forgotabout it. Then, in 1958 the release of a movieabout Lindbergh's flight—T/ze Spirit of St.Louis, starring Jimmy Stewart—revived in-terest in Lindbergh's crate, and the souvenirhunters became active again. But it wasn'tuntil the spring of 1960, when two youngmen, one with an ax and the other with ahacksaw, were chased off the property, thatthe decision was made to move the crate toa new. secret location. By then. Holt hadbecome the owner.

"We used a Land Rover and a hay trailer

The wife of Vice Adm. Guy H. Burrage, joined by a local contractor, was photographed onthe front step of the guest cottage created from one of the crates in which Spirit of St.Louis was shipped home from Europe after its historic flight.

and stands 9 feet high? "I inherited it frommy grandfather," he explained. "He was ViceAdm. Guy H. Burrage, who was on boardMemphis when Lindbergb made bis returntrip to the United States after his flight. Thegiant crate was also on board with Spirit ofSt. Louis inside of it. My grandfather askedUndbergh if he could have the crate, and theflier agreed."

After the plane was taken out of the crate.Holt's grandfather shipped the box on a flat-car to Contoocook, where he had a 200'acrefarm. For a while, he left the crate standingon his property. Word soon got around whatthe box bad held, however, and souvenirhunters began showing up. "My grandfatherdecided something bad to be done to savetbe thing," Holt recalled, "so he turned thecrate inside out, and made a small summerhome out of it on land back of the mainhouse." The crate is constructed of Englishpine, and even though there was no elec-tricity or indoor plumbing, it provided ad-ditional sleeping space wben tbere wereguests visiting the farm.

The crate remained intact for a while.

to move the crate," recalled Derek Owen, alocal farmer who served as its caretaker forseveral years. "It cost $2,000 and took anentire summer to do the job. We built a foun-dation and put in electricity. No runningwater, thougb. There's a stream close by."

Concealed amid the trees in the woods,the structure somehow still managed to at-tract souvenir hunters. "We decided to rentthe crate as a summer home," said Owen."We figured with somebody living there, thesouvenir collectors would stay away. Wetried, but we couldn't rent the place. That'swben we started inviting people to livethere. I suppose you could say the cratebecame a guest house."

Finally the structure was sold again andmoved to its present home in Canaan,where Larry Ross initially restored it to thecondition that Burrage bad left it in. Its newowner then took steps to turn this unusualartifact into an aviation tourist attraction.

Lindbergh's crate has finally found ahome—far from tbe Smithsonian, but sur-rounded by a community that appreciatesits quirky charm and unlikely heritage, "t

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SlaughterContinued from page 36

one. Under my shots he developed apetrol vapor trail, but then I caught abullet in the radiator and had to break offbecause I cottld not see a thing in thesteam cloud. I landed on the field ofJagdgeschimderil.

Noltenius' victim crashed near Stenay,killing Dana Coates and Loren Thrall. Nolte-nius, seen leaving the fight with steatn is-suing from his riddled radiator, was claimedby tlie 11 th's gunners as "shot down in flames,"along with three other Fokkers. That wassmall consolation for the loss of Cy Gatton.Gatton had previously served with FrenchEscadriUe Br.7, with which unit he hadearned the Croix de Guerre with star.

Adverse weather on November 5 causedail but the 20th to abort a mission toMouzon and Raucourt. The squadron hit itstarget, but was attacked by the Circus andlost three planes to 2nd Lts. HermannBahlmannof/flxm 4, Richard Wenzel of ya^to6 and Wolfram von Richthofen (the RedBarons cousin) ofjasta 11, resulting in threeAmericans killed and three taken prisoner.

More bad weather curtailed further mis-sions before the Armistice, and so ended theordeal of the lst Day Bombardment Group.i-or its part, the ll th Aero Squadron wascredited with 13 enemy aircraft in the courseof 24 missions, and had lost 11 men killedand seven taken prisoner.

Gharles Heater worked for a railroad supplycompany after the war. He retired in 1960and died on January 23,1989, at age 94. Clif-ford Allsopp went into the jewelry business,retiring as president of the Allsopp-StellarCompany of Newark. He died in Ailegany,N.Y.. on September 21,1993. aged 97.

The lst Day Bombardment Group hadlittle real damage to show for its heavy sac-rifice in men and machines. Arguably itsgreatest contribution to the American wareffort was to draw crack German fighterunits like JG.l and JG.ll away from the front-line reconnaissance planes. The bombercrews' experience did demonstrate, how-ever, how quickly they could learn andadapt, and there was one thing about whichthe survivors could justly boast: Regardlessof its losses, not one flight that reached itsdesignated target turned back in the face ofenemy opposition, "t"

Jon Guttman is senior editor of Aviation Uis-tory and author of the recent AlbatrosDatafileNo. iO7, American DH4. Further reading:TheFirst Day Bombardment Group, by ThomasG'.M///er/j:;flHrfThe First Team: Thornton D.Hooper and America's First BombingSquadrons, by Gerald C. Thomas Jr

Forty SecondsContinued from page 44

destroyed, 14 pilots killed and five woundedthat the Luftwaffe recorded that day

The remaining 91st Group hombers con-tinued on to the target, dropping theirbombs at 1110 hours from 25,000 feet. FlightOfficer Marpil, in No. 613, left the 324thSquadron formation to return home aloneafter the German fighters departed.

Because his maps were gone. LieutenantWinston, the navigator, was unable to seta precise course back to Bassingbourn. AsNo. 613 approached the coast, the route Win-ston had selected unfortunately took themright over the port city of Bremen al 14,800feet—almost atop the anti-aircraft giins. Theplane was hit in a number of places, knock-ing out several instruments and woundingPonder in the face and bands. Despite all itsdamage. No. 613 remained in the air over theNorth Sea, crossing above land near Bore-ham. There, Marpil saw an emergency land-ing strip and headed for it—with no electricalsystem or hydraulics. As the Fortress ap-proached the airfield, its remaining threeengines all cut out. But Marpil managed tomake a perfect dead-stick landing on thegrass, narrowly missing a hangar as the air-craft rolled to a stop. Number 613, however,was by then ready for the salvage yard.

Although many of the bombers sustainedmajor battle damage during the raid, the re-maining 29 91st Group aircraft, includingRedwing, returned to Bassingbourn. Elevenof those planes were shot down later, andthree others were destroyed when theycrash-landed in England. Of the 13 planessent up by the 324th Squadron on August 16,only Redwing survived the war. Of the 274crewmen who made it back safely 19 werekilled in action and 13 became POWs. FromAugust 16 through the end of the war, aji ad-ditional 140 crewman of the 91st Groupwere killed, and 148 became prisoners.

The surviving crewmen who participatedin the Eisenach mission forever carried withthem those 40 seconds of terror and the hor-rific specter of six deadly orange-and-hlackclouds over Eisenach. Forty seconds, 40weeks or 40 years—war exacts its toll, "t"

Lowell L Getz is a frequent contributor to Pri-media History Group publications. For ad-ditional reading, try: Bomber Pilot, by WiiliamWheeler; Serenade to the Big Bird, by BurtStiles; and A Real Good War, by Sam Halfert.

To read about a raid on Magdeburg,go to TheHistoryNet at vww.the

historynet.com/ahi and see "B-24 Raid onMagdeburg," by Gar\' Rosentrater, as told byGlen M. Hotz, whicti will appear beginningthe week of September 27, 2004.

6U AVIATION H I S T O R Y NOVliMBtH 2004

SperryContinued from page 52

Park, and leave his aircraft at a convenientpolice station at the western end of the im-promptu landing field. His home on Marl-borough Road and the site of his initial air-craft production plant were within easywalking distance.

An experienced pilot with more than4,000 hours of flight time, fully trained to flyby instruments alone, Sperry had no hesita-tion in taking off in any weather conditions.His personal aircraft was always fullyequipped with instrumentation of his design.On December 23, 1923, he took off fromBritain for a quick flight to France, unde-terred by the fact that the Channel was fog-hound. Somewhere en route, however, hisluck ran out. Whether due to mechanicalfailure or inability to navigate over theChannel, he never reached his destination.The Messenger he had personally designedwas found in the water. Sperry's body wasrecovered on lanuary 11,1924.

The Sperry aircraft manufacturing effortdid not survive the loss of Lawrence Sperry.Without his vision and ingenuity, the com-pany could not cope with the increasingcompetition of inexpensive surplus WorldWar I aircraft then heing sold in enormousnumbers hy the government. But the nameSperry lives on today—a revered imprimaturamong many aircraft factories that remainspart of the nomenclature of aircraft instru-ments to this day. The autopilot and stabi-lization system was also adapted for marineuse. All major passenger ships plying oceanstoday employ a Sperry-type stabilizer actu-ating a winglike device to dampen rolling. Aform of the Sperry autopilot linked to aSperry gyrocompass is in common use todayon every ship of any size. The illustriousfamily name is also maintained today on thenameplates of diverse navigational equip-ment produced by the Sperry Marine Cor-poration, a division of Litton Industries In-corporated, as well as the Newport NewsShiphuilding Corporation of Virginia.

Given Lawrence Sperry's extraordinaryproductivity and fertile imagination, it seemsespecially tragic that he died so young. Whenhe went down in the Channel at age 31, hehad 23 patents related to aircraft safety in hisname. Surely had he lived longer, he wouldhave come up with even more brilliant ideasand inventions to make flying easier, saferand more readily available to the public, "t

Retired Lieutenant Coionel William Scheck,who died in 2003, served in the U.S. Army, theAir National Guard and the U.S. MaritimeService. For additional reading, try Gyro!The Life and Times of Lawrence Sperry, byWilliam W. Davenport.

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Art of Flight

Colorful airplane trading cards provided the publicwith a wealth of information.

BY D.W. RAJECKl

IN THE EARLY 1940s, A SLIM BOOKLET called theAlbum of Modern American Airplanes was published. 1don't know bow many otber copies of the Album still exist,but f have one sturdy survivor on my desk. Although itmeasures about 5 by 7 inches and bas only 17 pages ofcontent, this little cardboard archive is impressive be-cause it amounts to a capsule documentary of an impor-tant stage of American aviation.

The Album holds a collection of old-fashioned, give-away airplane trading cards that were once offered inpackages of cigarettes. The book and its contents werecreated as promotional devices, meant to take advantageof the public's avid appetite for information about avia-tion. But given its detailed and colorful illustrations, thelittle volume quickly became a valuable source of data—and to this day tbe Album remains a useful collectible.

Early reports and illustrations of real-world aeronauticaccomplishments were available to enthusiasts not toolong after the advent of powered flight. A periodicaldubbed The Aeroplane first appeared in 1911, The out-break ofWorld War 1 in 1914 led to impressive advances inthe air and mounting public interest on the ground. Theseparallel developments were reflected, for example, in theprofusely illustrated 1919 volume of the annual jane's AlltheWorld'sAircraft.The magazine Popular Aviation cameout in 1927 (renamed Flyingin 1943).

Aviation pulp magazines, which purveyed fictional ac-counts of air adventures, were spawned in the 1920s,These energetic additions to the growing popular avia-tion literature were plentifitl and colorful. lohn P. Gunni-son's book Belarski: Pulp Art Masters allows modern-dayaviation buffs to savor some of the most glamorous coversfrom those publications. The earliest of the aviation pulps

A sampling of pages from the 1940s-era Album ofModern American Airplanes s\}o\NS a broad range oftrading cards originally offered in cigarette packs.

was Air Stories (appearing in 1927), whose cover an-nounced it was "The First Air Story Magazine!" Soon aftercame War Birds (in 1928), which proclaimed itself "TbeOldest Air War Magazine," Not to be outdone. AirplaneStories (in 1930) touted its role as "The Biggest Sky Maga-zine." Gunnison contends, supported by examples sbownin his book, that many publishers of pulps took greatpride in tbeir accurate illustrations—yet anotber reasonfor serious aviation aficionados to take note.

Postal cards offered another bandy way to gather avia-tion lore. During World War I, companies in Gennany pro-duced postcards that depicted noteworthy pilots. Manyof tliese personality cards are illustrated in Cbarles Wool-ley's book World War I German Aviators: The Sanke Cards.The ace Manfred von Richthofen seems to have been thesuperstar among tbe celebrity flier circle of the day. Ac-cording to Woolley's estimate, 11 cards depicted the "RedBaron," three of them issued after his death.

ThroughoutWorld War 11, the picture-postcard industrycontinued to thrive in many countries, providing photosand paintings of—among a variety of other objects—air-planes in acdon. Many of these scenes can be viewed in tbebook /'// Be Seeing You, compiled by Tonie and Valmai Holt.

Tbat brings me back to the art form of the giveawayaviation trading card, which has affinities to the postcard-as-reference-material medium. Other aviation trading-cardsets exist, but bere the focus is on the 1940 Wings Airplanes"A" series, a tidy deck of 50 different pasteboards. Greditthe Brown & Williamson Tobacco Gorporation for this par-ticular pack, with a nod to Popular Aviation magazine forpublishing assistance. Tbe A series cards were availableto the public as premiums in packages ofWings cigarettes.

Wings cards were attractive and fact-filled little docu-ments. Each 1 !i-inch-by-2 i^-inch masterpiece presenteda full-color picture of a U.S. aircraft on the front and acommentary with performance figures on tbe back. Forexample, the blurb for the Gatalina flying boat read:

Consolidated PBY. U,S. Navy Patrol Bomber, Two Pratt &Whitney Twin Wasp engines, each 1050 h,p. Cruising speed179 m,p,h. Top speed 199 m.p.h. Amphibian type has fullyretractable tricycle beaching gear. Has proven particularlysuccessful in long range patrol practice flights to Alaska,Hawaiian Islands and Canal Zone.


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The makers of Wings also produced theAlbum of Modem American Airplanes, whichcollectors could glue their cards in. TheAlbum presented open frames, numberedfrom 1 to 50, as sites for attaching specificcards. And despite any gluing, informationfrom the backs of the minidocuments wasnot lost. The manufacturers thoughtfullyreprinted that technical material next to theframes of respective cards (as shown onpage 62). The Wings A series documentedthree general divisions: military aviation(cards 1 -25), private aviation (cards 26-37)and commercial aviation (cards 38-50).

Of commercial types, as many as three dif-ferent cards depicted the highly successfulDouglas DC-3—one each with the markingsof American Airlines, Trans World Airlinesand United Airlines. A card also showed theobscure Douglas DC-5. The Piper Cub Coupewas included in the private aviation group-ing, as were the Cessna Airmaster and thestagger-wing Beechcraft D17.

Advanced military aircraft of the time in-cluded the Brewster F2A-1 Buffalo, CurtissP-40 Warhawk and Grumman F4F Wildcat.Also featured were interesting but rarer de-signs such as the BellYFM-1 Airacuda andStearman X-100, both listed as "attackbombers." To my mind, the most modern-looking military plane in the Album wasshown on the very first card in the A collec-tion: the Bell P-39 Airacobra. Somethingabout the Airacobra fired the public's imagi-nation. Maybe it was because the fighter'sengine was mounted behind the pilot, ormaybe it was the P-39's tricycle landing gear.

The remaining military landplanes in theAlbum were conventional tail-draggers—having a tricycle landing gear did not guar-antee inclusion in this series. Nose-wheelnewsworthies that did not make the "A" listweretheDouglasA-20 Havoc, ConsolidatedB-24 Liberator, North American B-25Mitcbell, Martin B-26 Marauder and Lock-heed P-38 Lightning. Those five designs did,however, appear in the subsequent B or Cseries of cards, which also featured severalRoyal Air Force planes, including the HawkerHurricane and the Short Sunderland, Thefull contents of the 150 cards in the A, B andC series are listed in American TobaccoCards, compiled by Robert Forbes and Ter-ence Mitchell.

Advances in aerodynamic research andconstruction made 1940 a pivotal year. It isnot surprising that planes from the 1930swere depicted in the A series album, withseveral cards devoted to biplanes such asthe Vought-Sikorsky SBU-1 scout bomberand Grumman F3F-2 fighter.

To obtain all 50 A series cards, a collectorwas expected to buy as many as 50 packs ofcigarettes. Today this might strike some as aheavy price to pay for an interest in aviation.Be that as it may. Wings cigarettes left us aninteresting slice of aviation history, "t"

64 AVIATION HISTORY NOVl-MBER 2004

Airv\/are

IL-2 Sturmovik expansion packs bring newexcitement to a 3-year-old sim.

BY BERNARD DY

THIS ISSUE'S "AIRWARE" CONTINUES the last installment's look at third-party products that add life to ex-isting simuiations. These two expansion packs to thehigh-fidelity lL-2 Sturmovik game fill the roster with moreaircraft and missions.

Operation BarbarossaOperation Barbarossa ($20, requires installed copy oiIL-2Sturmovik or Forgotten Battles, www.matrixgames.com)maintains the original IL-2 Sturmovik's focus on WorldWar II's Eastern Front. It is primarily a mission pack withnew scenarios, but it also adds color in the form of planeinsignia. Operation Barbarossa, as one can tell from thetitle, is inspired hy the German invasion of Russia.

The expansion pack offers the piayer a few differentpaths. The first German campaign follows the simulatedcareer of a Messerschmitt Bf-109 pilot. The second startsthe player flying the Bf-109 but later switches the playerto the formidable Focke Wulf Fw-190. Both campaigns arelengthy, with more than 200 missions each and an addi-tional battery of 28 stand-alone single missions. Opera-tion Barbarossa's contribution to the Allied side is lesssubstantive, with 34 single missions fiyable as a pilot inthe Soviet air forces.

Getting through each scripted campaign is a tremen-dous feat, as the computer adversaries are capable and

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challenging opponents. It's a long trip that starts and endsat Berlin, with stops at Moscow, Crimea, Stalingrad andKursk. Historical information includes a brief story fromGerman pilot Ernst Scheufele in the manual, and most ofthe missions have briefing notes that relate the missionto key events in the war. If the campaign proves too gru-eling, the expansion pack's games are also available assingle missions, playable at any time and in any order.Tbere's a good variety of mission types, including recon-naissance, strike, escort and interdiction. The pack alsocomes with several new paint schemes and insignia thatyour alter ego's mount can don when fiying online inmultiplayer mode.

The need to purchase Operation Barharossa isn't ascompelling as it could be, since enterprising users can usethe mission-building tools available in the basic IL~2 Stur-movik package to effectively create the same sorties. Thelack of new aircraft or features doesn't help. If you're abusy virtual pilot, however, and lack the time to engageSturmovik's mission builder, then Operation Barbarossais a quick way to tour the historical German endeavor.

Aces Expansion PackA formal add-on from II.-2 Sturmovik's developer, the AcesExpansion Pack ($30, requires installed copy of ForgottenBflft/e5,Windows98/Me/2000/XRPentiumIII 800,128MB

A Polikarpov l-16's bombs strike an anti-aircraftemplacement in Operation Baitarossa.

A cockpit view of the Supermarine Spitfire Mk. Vb,courtesy of the Aces Expansion Pack for IL-2 Sturmovik.

66 AVIATION HISTORY Nf)VEMBF.R 2004

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RAM, 3D video card with 32 MB RAM,www.ubi.com) is clearly a recommendabiepurchase. New missions, new aircraft andnew environments headline the additionsto the game, driving even more depth intoits representation ofthe Eastern Front andintroducing some aircraft and environ-ments ofthe Pacific theater.

As is often the case with expansion packs,some esoteric aircraft get a chance to shine.The Germans were known for oddities intheir experimental aircraft program, andmaking an appearance here are late-warmodels also recently seen in the FirePowerpack for Microsoft's Combat Flight Simula-tor (see last issue's Airware) such as theHorton Ho-229 and the Focke WulfTa-152.The Americans had some funky fliers too,and although players still don't have an op-portunity to pilot the heavy Americanbomhers, the Lockheed YP-80 Shooting Starjet is available, as are several variants oftheNorth American P-51 Mustang. The Japa-nese get the classic Mitsubishi A6M Zeroand the Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate. The FiatG.50 is another flyable steed.

There are new dynamic campaigns tokeep players busy in addition to new singlemissions and online scenarios. The graph-ics receive minor improvements with new3D objects and continue to look excellent,and the artificial intelligence, while not freeof gaffes, largely makes for a fine computeropponent. Aces doesn't change the fact thatIL-2 Sturmovik requires a powerful machineto get the best out of it. So oniy those withfaster machines and video cards will be ableto enjoy the highest resolutions and fullvisual details, still impressive as this simu-lation reaches three years of age. Anothermark ofthe game's quality is that there is stilla solid community of flight sim fanaticsavailable online for tutoring and to joinwhen playing the new cooperative missionsin the/lce5pack.

lL-2 Sturmovik made a name for itselfwith its historic realism and willingness tohighlight rare aircraft, and rare campaignsare also a part of its laudable repertoire. TheFinnish battles against the Soviets are a wel-come part of the Aces Expansion Pack, yetit's understandable that Aces features moreof the common aircraft like the Super-marine Spitfire, the P-51 and Lockheed P-38Lightning, and battlefields like the Ardennesand Normandy. The lure of famous aircraftcan only help the future of the franchise,which is looldng very good.

The next major simulation projects fromthe developer target the Battle of Britain andthe Pacific theater. Those are exciting gamesto look forward to, but for now. Aces is an ex-cellent enhancement to an existing installa-tion of Forgotten Battles. And for those whohaven't yet tried Forgotten Battles, the For-gotten Battles Gold Edition ($40) bundlesForgotten Battles with the Aces pack, "t"

6a AVIATION HISTORY NOVEMBER 2004

Events

The EAA's AirVenture Museum hosts a series ofweekend Fantasy Flight Camps at Oshkosh.

AVIATiON ENTHUSIASTS ARE iNViTED to take pari inseveral upcoming Lxpcriiiu'iital Aircrafl Associalion hm-lasy Fiighi (ânipsat \IJ\A headquaiters ifi Oshkosh, Wis.I'acli camp takes place over a weekend, bejînning on ai-riday evening. The camps are led hy experts, and partici •pants Lire allowed privileged access ti) HAA facililies andspecialisis-Lach of the weekends culiiiinatos in a uniqueIlil ht experience. Irom October 15 to 17 (he Ford Iri-Molor is the subjeet. represeniecl bv I'AA's 1929 example,and'Vampers" will gain a new understanding and appre-ciation of Ihat eiassie aircrall, often referred to as the "Tin(ioose." A two-hour flight during whie}i partieipants canlog 0.2 hours at the C()ntn)ls ends thai weekencl.

During the December 3-5 camp, ihe Boeing H-17 Hyingi-orlress will be the topic. Partieipants will be immersedin (he hi.sti)ry ol'iiie honihci and ean taik willi B-17 \el-eians, i hey will also bave the opportunity to take a 43-minuteflighi mAluniiiuini Overcast. ()nenfthefe\vH-]7sstilltlying today,

AirV'enture's Hrst l-antasy Camp, on Spirit ofSt- l.oiii.'^,was scheduled lo take place f )et(tber I -3. |-LA,'Vs is ihe onlytwo-seat, dual-e{)nlrol Spirit of St. Louis I'eplica in Iheworld and the only version that flies under tiiarles Lind-bergh's original registration number. \-X-21l. hor infor-mation, rates and booking assibianee on fiUureweekeiHls,rail l-8(H)-23()-48(}0or\isitwww.airventurt'niuseum.org/fligbtops/laritasycainp lor turtlier details.

Oct. 15-t7; Miramar Airshow, Marine C>)rps Air StationMiraniar, San Diego, Calif,, will include performances bythe U.S. \ a \ y Blue Angels, There will be three full [lublicday sbdws and a twilight show on the 16th, (io to www.nilriimarairshnw.coin for details,

Oct. l5-17:C;reat Mississippi Balloon Haee, \atehez. Miss.Aeiivities include iwo balloon fligbts each day, live musi-cal enieriainineni, carnival rides and a ciiildren's activityarea. See ww\v,natehezms,cuni/ba!lo()nrace tor more.

Oct. 16-17: Wings Over Houston, iillington Meld, Hous-ton, Texas, features Ihe U,S. Air Ibrce TbunderbJrds andcivilian aerobatic denionslrations. Military demos in-clude a B-2 siealtb bomber fly-by and an AM-B'l Apacheauack helicopter demo. C all 7l3-266-'M9:^ or go towwvv.wingsovei'houston.com for Information.

Oct. 16-17: Piimpano Beach Air l-air, at the PompanoBeach, Ha,, Air Park lionors veterans Srom WWIL Korea,Vietnam, and Desert Storm and the warbirds ibev flew.

Proceeds will benefit Ihe Air Ibrce Association and theBroward Chikiren's (iMiier. For information call 954-782-7287 or visit wwvv,airfair,arg,

Oct.2l-23:A()PA(Aircraft Owners and Pilots A.ssociation)I'xpo 2()t)4, Long Beach, Calif,, (x)n\ention Center, Theevent will feature an exbiiiit ball, seminars and aircraft ondis|)lay, ( ail i-888-4r>2-397()or\isit www,aopa.org/expo/2004 for more.

Oct. 23-24: N'awlins Airshow. Naval Air Station, New Or-leans, with the Blue Angels. Call 504-678-3710 or go lovvvvvv.mwrnewoi leans,com for information.

Oct. 23-24: AmigoAirsho, i-| Paso, Texas, with thederbirds. Go to www,amigoairsho.org for details.

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Ocl. 30-3i: Sertoma (;ajun Air k'stival, Lafayette RegionalAirporl, La,, will include performances by tbeThtmder-birds. Visit www.seriomaair.coin for details or call 337-B37-9H34.

Nov. 6-7: Celebrate iTeedinii Air and tiroiind Sbovv, WWIIWoodward Army Airfield, Camden, S.C . Visit vvww,cole-l)ratefreed()nitoiindation,org lor information or call 803-78H-6837.

Nov. 7: Wings Over Wayne, Seymour Jobnson Air LorceBase, Gtildhboro, X.C. with ibeTbunderbirds, Call 9i9-722-2101 or go \o uww.seymourjobnson,af,mil/airsh{)wfor information,

Nov. \3-14: Aviation Nation Airsbow, Xellis Air Force Base,liisVegas, Nev., will be a saltJte to D-Day veterans and fea-tures the Tluiiiderbirds, ( all the airsbow director's officeat 702-813-4293 or go to www.neHisairshow.com for sched-ule and inforniaiion.

Nov. 13-14: Visiting Nurses Association Airsbow, Stuart,Ha., Withani Field, Demonstrations will include skydivers,warbirds and aerobatics. Vintage cars will also be on dis-play both days, (âl! 800-260-3280 or visit www,stuartairshow.eoni for furtber details,

Mary Beck Desmond

A\ia!ion History (ceteonies submissions. Please send to:Events Edilor, A\mio\]\\\Û}]y Magtaine. 741 Miller Drive,Suite 0-2. leesburg. VA 20175 or via e-mail to Avialion! listnrvi" tht'historvnet.conj.

7tt AVIATION HISTORV \ n \ i

People & PlanesContinued from page 20

only eight such aircraft built by the ship-building and arms manufacturer. The Vick-ers featured a metal-fortified fuselage,making it more substantial than contempo-rary planes. The Adelaide Register newspa-per described it as being "like a large bird ofnickel steel. It had a body 34 feet long fromnose to tail, was capable of remaining in theair for 5 hours and could cover 300 miles inthat time." The power plant, built by Frenchaviation pioneer Robert Esnault-Pelterie,was likely one of his 60-hp, 14-cylinder, four-row engines. The bill of sale, dated August17,1911, was itemized for the monoplane, a"special ice undercarriage" and shippingfrom England to Australia. Mawson hiredFrank "Bick" Bickerton as mechanic and aLieutenant Watkins as pilot, and sent themon to Adelaide with the plane.

Before sailing to Antarctica, Mawsonplanned to boost the AAF's sickly financeswith public flying demonstrations in Aus-tralia, where civil aviation was still a novelty.With Bickerton, Watkins assembled theVickers and scheduled the first demonstra-tion for October 5, 1911.

A test flight was planned before the mainevent. Watkins took off with expeditionmember Frank Wild, but the test ended indisaster when the plane crashed and rolled,damaging both wings and slightly injuringthe two men.

Mawson's dreams of flying above themerciless Antarctic surface were shattered.There was neither time nor money for com-plete repairs. Instead he detached the dam-aged wings, stripped the sheathing frommost of the fuselage to conserve weight,fitted the undercarriage with outsize skisand rebaptized the plane an "air tractorsledge," a reference to the cargo sleds usedby polar explorers. He said that "the advan-tages expected from this type of machinewere speed, steering control, and compara-tive safety from crevasses owing to the greatlength of the runners."

By late January 1912, the AAE had estab-lished itself in Antarctica, with its main baseat Cape Denison, south of Tasmania. Thewingless Vickers was installed in a 10-foot-by-35-foot hangar abutting the living hut.Bickerton spent the polar winter there, re-attaching the undercarriage and engine,which had been removed for the voyage,and configuring the machine so it couldhaul supplies over land during the summerexploration season (October 1912 to Febru-ary 1913). Mawson would later write of Bick-erton's efforts:" |The air tractor sledge] spentalmost the whole year 11912] helpless anddriftbound in the hangar. During thosemonths, Bickerton had expended a great

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amount of energy upon it, introducing bril-liant ideas of his own.. .to adapt it to local re-quirements."

On November 15,1912, the first trial of theair tractor sledge was made, with Bickertonsitting high in the pilot's seat. The fuselagewas perched about 5 feet above the groundso that the propeller was well above any pro-jecting ice. The undercarriage consisted ofstruts connected to long, snowboardJike skisto help it pass safely over crevasses. A teamof men had to move it into position. Expedi-tion member Charles Laseron recorded, "ona trial trip [it| roared its way up the first steepslope in great style."

Bickerton later fashioned brakes and asteering mechanism from the original land-ing gear and hand drills used by the geolo-gists. The machine subsequently carriedcargo five miles up the ice slope behindCape Denison to a depot used as a gatewayto the Antarctic interior. Laseron wrote:"Bick's aeroplane sledge was...doing yeo-man service at this period... .Its advent light-ened the labor of all, for on every availableoccasion it took a load to Aladdin's Cave [thedepot], not only of petrol for its own use, butof stores for all the other sledging parties."Mawson wrote happily of its performance:"In the execution of this work a speed oftwent)' miles per hour was attained up iceslopes of one in fifteen in the face of a windof fifteen miles per hour Bickerton hasreason to feel highly elated with its success."

The air tractor sledge's next responsibilitywas to haul supplies f'or a team led by Bick-erton to explore the coastal highlands im-mediately west of Cape Denison. The teamleft Cape Denison on December 3, with theVickers towing a caravan of four sledges.What happened next is recounted inMawson's memoir. Home of the Blizzard.About 10 miles out, he recorded:

... the engine developed an internal disorderwhich Bickerton was at a loss to diagnose orremedy. This necessitated pitching camp forthe night...at 4 p.m. next day, after driftingsnow had subsided, the engine was startedonce more. Its behavior, however, indicatedthat something was the matter with one ormore of the cylinders. Bickerton was on thepoint of deciding to take the engine topieces, when his thoughts were brought to asudden close by the engine, without warn-ing, pulling up with such a jerk that the pro-peller was smashed. A moment's examina-tion showed that even more irremediabledamage had occurred inside the engine, sothere was nothing left but to abandon theair-tractor and continue the journey man-hauling iheir sledge.

Months later. Bickerson hauled the air trac-tor sledge hack to C ape Denison and foundthat the pistons had seized and were ir-reparable. The culprit was the engine oil—

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in those low temperatures it congealed, be-coming too thick for the pistons' tolerance.Bickerton had tried to preempt this disasterby painting the engine and the oil tank blackto absorb the sun's heat, to no avail. The aban-doned vehicle became a sort of landmark.The sledgers passed it as they came back toCape Denison, bringing stories of their dis-coveries and their battles with the elements.

In early 1913, Captain Davis and Aurorareturned to bring the ME hack to civiliza-tion. But Mawson's three-man party, wbichhad traveled by dog team to map the area farwest of Cape Denison, was still in the field.Davis waited for Mawson as long as possi-ble, until Aurora was in danger of being icedin, then sailed back to Australia in March.Aurora would return the next year. Fivemen, including Bickerton, remained at CapeDenison to try and discover what hadbecome of their expedition leader and hiscompanions, EX. Mertz and B.E.S, Ninnis.

Mawson was the only one of the tliree whoeventually returned to Cape Denison, Aftersix weeks on the trail, on December 14,1912,Ninnis and his dog sled disappeared into acrevasse, never to be seen again. Mawsonand Mertz were left witli one dog team, foodfor a week and a makeshift tent. They im-mediately turned back toward Cape Denison,

Mawson and Mertz resorted to eatingtheir sled dogs as they died, finding the liverto be the most palatable. However, as proved60 years later, Husky liver contains toxicamounts of vitamin A. Both men becamedangerously ill with diarrhea, hair loss, peel-ing skin, disorientation and crippling headand hody pain. Mertz succumbed to thepoisoning on January 7,1913.

Staggering, sometimes crawling, Mawsoncontinued alone. His technical skills provedto be his salvation, as he modified bis gearto compensate for his weakening state. Hemiraculously found a food cache on lanu-ary 29, allowing him to make it to Aladdin'sCave. There he was trapped by a week-longblizzard, surviving on supplies previouslyhauled by the air tractor sledge. On Febru-ary 8 he made his way down the ice slopesto Cape Denison, using ice-sboes fashionedfrom the remnants of a wooden hox. Bick-erton was the first to reach the forlorn figure.He knocked the ice from around the man'shood and saw Mawson's emaciated face,patcby skin and sunken eyes. "My Cod,"Bickerton blurted, "which one are you?"

Undaunted, Mawson returned to Antarc-tica in 1929 in the expedition ship Discovery.During that trip, he was finally able to viewAntarctica from the air when he flew as apassenger in a de Havilland Moth float-plane. He wrote about his first flight on lanu-ary 5, 1930: "As we rose, a wider and widerview of the land unfolded. A black ruggedMountain appeared to the east of the risingplateau slopes." Mawson bad finally risenabove the white hostility of Antarctica, "t-

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Legacy of Flight

BY NAN SIEGEL

NOVEMBER 25,1940, BALTIMORE, MD.-TheB-26Marauder,Glenn L. Martin Company's response to a U.S. Army Air Corpsrequest for a high speed medium bomber, made its maidenflight piloted by chief engineer William K. Ebel.

The new bomber featured an unusual cantilever shoulder wingdesign, and early on in its career B-26 crews suffered what was

Decked out in invasion stripes, U.S. Army Air ForcesMartin B-26 medium bombers prepare to take offin June 1944, headed for airfields and transportationtargets in Europe.

deemed a high number of training accidents—thanks toinstability at low speeds during landings and takeoffs be-cause of the plane's short wings ajid high wing loading. Asa result, the Marauder garnered a handful of unpleasantnicknames, including "Widow-maker," "The FlyingCoffin," "B-Dash-Crash" and "The Flying Prostitute" (novisible means of support).

Modifications were soon implemented (including a 6-foot wingspan increase and a taller tail) to eliminate thatproblem, and during World War II the B-26 would in factrecord the lowest attrition rate of any American aircraftserving in the Ninth Air Force.

With an original maximum bombload of 5,800 pounds,a top speed of 315 mph, rangeof 1,000 miles, and a serv-

ice ceiling of 19.800 feet, the B-26 was widely employed for closetactical grotmd support in the Pacific as well as the Mediterranean.A total of5,157 were huilt in a total of 20 variants, and the RoyalAir Force acquired 522 through Lend-Lease. There is reportedlyonly one B-26 that is still in fiyable condition today, in the col-lection of tbe Fantasy of Flight Museum at Polk City, Fla. "1"

74 Years Ago This MonthDECEMBER 8, 1930, BOLLING FIELD, WASHINGTON,D.C.—The Franklin PS-2 glider Texaco Eaglet soared aloft onelast time before formally being handed over to the Smithson-ian Institution. At its controls that day was Frank M. Hawks,who earlier that year had piloted tbe unpowered aircraft acrosstbe United States. During its last flightas well as in the course of their eight-day, 2,860-mile journey from San Diegoto New York, the glider was towed byJ.D. "Duke" Jernigin Jr. in Texaco No. 7,aWaco 10 biplane.

The idea of making a transatlanticglider flight had originated with Hawks,renowned as a World War I pilot, aformer barnstormer and speed kingturned corporate spokesman. He badmanaged to talk Texaco executives intoauthorizing the purchase of tbe PS-2and sponsoring the stunt after he sawan earlier model Franklin glider, terselydubbed 9491, wowing crowds at theDetroit Glider Carnival in 1929. Con-sidered today from a strictly profit-minded perspective, it seems remarkable that an oil companywould be willing to invest in an unpowered aircraft to promoteits products; but in 1930 Texaco viewed gliding as a compellingmeans of attracting more of the public to aviation as a sport.They also believed that glider pilots would likely become fliers

Best known for his record-setting flightsin powered aircraft, Frank Hawks made atranscontinental glider flight in 1930.

of powered aircraft, legitimate customers forTexacos fuel andoil. In the course of the transcontinental flight, which beganMarch 30 at Lindbergh Field and ended on April 6 in New YorkCity's Van Cortlandt Park, Hawks and Jernigin landed at air-fields several times each day, and Hawks put on an aerial

demonstration at most every stop.The PS-2—with a wingspan of 45

feet, 20 feet 11 inches long and weigh-ing 300 pounds—had been designedby University of Michigan mechanicalengineering professor R.E. Franklinand his brother Wallace. Texaco Eagle fsnever-exceed speed was set at 125 mph,with a stall speed calculated at 15 mph.Thanks in part to tbe publicity gener-ated by tbe transcontinental flight, aswell as their own work to promote tbetowing of gliders by automobile, thePS-2 became America's most populartraining glider in the mid-'30s. As ofthis writing, Texaco Eaglet is at tbe PaulE. Garber Preservation, Restoration &Storage Facility in Maryland.

Hawks went on to set a string of distance records in a Travel-air and a Nortbrop Gamma. He also found time to publish anautobiography. Speed, in 1931—seven years before he died onAugust 23, 1938, while piloting a Gwinn Aircar near EastAurora, N.Y.

74 AVIATION HISTORY NOVEMBtR 2004