One of my all time favorite

[Curahee]

Langley Field Virginia 1942, pre-flight briefing at dawn....you can almost smell it

 

[C.J.]

That's always been one of my favorite too

 

[Roughwear]

Very atmospheric picture. Thanks for posting it on the new forum.

 

[better duck]

It's a nice shot, and shows A2s to their advantage, but I find the picture a little too posed for my taste. But thanks for re-posting anyway!

 

[tamoko]

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[Pete17]

Great pic!!

Cheers
Pete

 

[bfrench]

Hi, Guys,

Not a WWII pic but one with an A-2 in a taildragger going into a grass strip which did have four Harvards there - Texans for you Yanks.

Bill French

 

[woodshed]

Not a great pic but Grandpa's crew in front of their replacement plane. Too bad it was hot that day, no leather visible whatsoever. My grandfather, 2nd Lt. Arthur H. Trier is in the upper left of the pic. Here is the story, from the 461st.org website of how they came about getting a replacement plane.

Mission #115

13 October 1944

Target: Vienna North Marshalling Yard, Austria

The target for the mission of 13 October was the North Marshalling Yard at Vienna, Austria. Finding the target obscured by an almost solid undercast, the thirty-four planes over the target dropped their bombs by the pathfinder method. The formation straggled back to base through adverse weather conditions where it was learned that sixteen of them had been hit by flak. A few enemy airplanes were seen in the target area but none were encountered.

After the planes had gained 9,000 feet of altitude and had nearly completed their assembly, the planes flown by 1st Lt. Willard R. King and 1st Lt. Arthur H. Trier collided. The plane flown by Lt. King was knocked to the ground and Sergeant Van V. Smith, Jr. was the only survivor. Despite the fact that his plane had had an engine knocked off and had suffered severe damage to the empennage, Lt. Trier flew out over the Adriatic to jettison his bombs before returning to the base. This marked the first time the 461st Group had ever lost an airplane in take off or assembly on a combat mission.

Pretty scary stuff. He said visibility was next to nothing and the other plane appeared out of the fog just below him, bumping his engine and then falling from the sky. He was ordered to ditch the plane in the ocean but had no parachuting training or experience and elected to not jump and instead flew back to the strip and crash landed. They used a tank to drag the plane back from the strip salvage parts off of it.

Scott

 

[T-Bolt]

Great photo of you in the plane coming in of final, Bill. Seeing a shot like that makes me want to get in touch with a local CFI and get my pilot's license current again!

Scott, thanks so much for posting that photo of your grandfather and his crew. Very interesting stuff! I love to see WWII photos with personal stories that go along with them.


Ted