An Atlantic Odyssey

[dgriffin]

As you might know, I like to play around with MS Paint and other programs to create graphics for stories appearing on the More Stories! website, mine and others. Before I go searching for art or photographs on flickr and photobucket, I once again read the story for visual ideas.

So I just re-read "An Atlantic Odyssey" by 82 year old Phil Smith, a friend of J. Hill Hamon, whose Whippoorwill E-Comment Journal is indexed on More Stories. J. Hill, the Kentucky gentleman and fellow AAPA member, often uses his journal pages to publish other authors.

"Odyssey" is the true story of a young WW2 airman who helped to ferry B17 bombers from Lincoln, Nebraska to Scotland. Imagine yourself on the second leg of the trip, a 1500 mile flight from Goose Bay, Labrador to Keflavik, Iceland, over the icy North Atlantic in an unheated airplane, where the temperatures could go as low as minus 65 degrees, both inside and out!

The story appears in three parts and can be seen by first going here:

www.windsweptpress.com/morstor.htm

Scroll down to the Journals and click on Whippoorwill E-Comment, and on the next page scroll down to "An Atlantic Odyssey, Part 1."

[frankcor]

I love the graphic, Dave. Unfortunately, that's a B-25, not B-17.

That one looks like a -H model with the top turret moved forward like that. The H could bring a total of 10 .50-cal machine guns to a forward firing position; 4 mounted in the nose, 4 more mounted in side cheeks plus 2 in the top turret. It made for a heavy-hitting strafing configuration but carried only ammunition, no bombs..

My father-in-law co-piloted a B25-H in the Pacific out of Australia and New Guinea in WWII. Four B-25s (2 strafers, 2 bombers) would fly a mission, targeting Japanese warships and shipping. When a target was spotted, they would come in on the deck at full speed flying 4 abreast. The job of the 2 H-models was to fill the air with enough lead to suppress anti-aircraft fire coming back at them. The 2 bombers would then release skip bombs and then everyone would break off the attack. If successful, the bombs would skip along the surface, hitting the side of the ship and then begin to sink. At around 10 feet below the surface they would explode causing hull plates to buckle, flooding compartments.

They also flew missions against Japanese airfields in much the same way. Instead of skip bombs, they would come in at tree-top level and drop parachute frag bombs. Again, the role of the H was to suppress return fire.

The bolts of the 8-fixed .50-cal machine guns were all connected by linkages to levers in the cockpit. The co-pilot's job during a strafing run was to pull the levers to clear jams in the guns. My FIL said there was no way to tell when a gun was jammed so he just continually pulled the levers over and over again as fast as he could until they broke off the attack.

Did I mention he's a hero to me?

Again, I love the graphic. I look forward to seeing one with a B-17.

[dgriffin]

thanks, frank. I wondered about that when I constructed it . I did have other artwork that I knew to be B25's and I had the piece I used, which does look similar (to me.) I used it because I liked the artwork, only knowing it was a "B-something," though certainly not a B-52.

I'm afraid I'd make a lousy aircraft specialist! And you may remember, I was a Civil Defense Plane Spotter at age 13!
I may look at the B17 artwork again and see if I have any ideas, but I did like the action oriented view of the B25.
Man, your father-in-law is lucky he made it back. Bomber personnel must have had the highest
loss ratio of anyone in WWII.

Here's a B17 (I think.) And, yes, the different tail section is quite obvious.

[dgriffin]

Here's a quick fix. I rebuilt the tail section.

[frankcor]

Two engines vs four might be a good clue too. The B-17 was a strategic bomber, replaced by the B-29 near the end of the war. The B-25 was a medium bomber.

My hero turned 90 this month. I better get off my ass and ask him to tell me again his story of getting an engine shot out and having to fly hundreds of miles back to New Guinea with one engine. He flew the entire way with a death grip on the remaining engine's throttle, keeping it jammed up against the firewall. It took him days to regain the feeling in his hand. And he still praises the engine builders at Pratt & Whitney. Their engine held together despite so many hours operating beyond the red-line on that flight home.

When I write his story, I'll send it to you so you can use your original artwork.

[dgriffin]

Absolutely! What a great story it would make!
Let me see if I can put on a couple of extra engines.
Such a task may be too much for my abilities.

[dgriffin]

[frankcor]

Dave, there are realistic pictures here showing some B-17s in action.

www.af.mil/mediacenter/transcripts/story_media.asp?id=123006538

You wouldn't normally see a B-17 that close to a naval vessel. They usually flew at 30,000 feet.

[dgriffin]

And then there's the nose .....


Thanks for the ref to the pix, Frank. They look pretty good.