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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 17,916
Campfire Ranger
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OP
Campfire Ranger
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 17,916 |
Great pics from stateside, 1943, after her return from England: http://warbirdsnews.com/warbird-res...hoto-essay-from-n-a-c-a-lewis-field.html"While we doing some research for Monday’s article concerning the imminent completion of the Memphis Belle at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, we came across an intriguing series of images taken on July 7th, 1943, showing the B-17’s visit to the N.A.C.A. facility then known as the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory (AERL) at Lewis Field in Cleveland, Ohio. As most of you will know, the N.A.C.A., or more formally, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, was the forerunner of today’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration and had a number of significant research establishments across the country during WWII."
"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." -- Thomas Jefferson
We are all Rhodesians now.
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Joined: May 2004
Posts: 56,089
Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
Joined: May 2004
Posts: 56,089 |
I am..........disturbed.
Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass. -Twain
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Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 7,418
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 7,418 |
Love the old stuff. Thanks for posting.
You only live once, but...if you do it right, once is enough.
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Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 11,914
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 11,914 |
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Joined: Mar 2010
Posts: 4,379
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Mar 2010
Posts: 4,379 |
Wonderful photos. They were some very lucky guys, to have made it home.
Thanks for posting.
"No good deed shall go unpunished!"
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 17,916
Campfire Ranger
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OP
Campfire Ranger
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 17,916 |
Moar about the little Scottish Terrier pictured above: https://memphisbelle.com/2016/04/22/stuka-the-mascot/"Stuka – the name given by the Germans to their dive bomber, the Junkers 87. Stuka is a contraction of the word Sturzkampf-flugzeug, which translates into English as something like ‘diving battle plane’. In the spring of 1943, Jim Verinis, the Memphis Belle co-pilot, gave the name of Stuka to a frisky little Scottish terrier girl puppy whose best idea for creating terror was to chew up her master’s socks on the floor of his barracks bedroom at Bassingbourn.
There were rumors that became newspaper stories that Stuka actually went on one of the bombing missions with the Memphis Belle, enclosed in a little box that had its own oxygen supply. Verinis says it isn’t so. ‘I don’t know where that one got started. Somebody made it up. Stuka never flew with us unless we were staying below 10,000 feet and we never flew a mission that low’.
The Stuka story began sometime around February or March of 1943. Verinis said he and Leighton, the Memphis Belle’s navigator, made one of their escapes to London for a little relaxation. ‘We were just walking down the street, when we passed a pet shop. I saw this little puppy in the window’. The frisky little dog appealed to him so mightily that he went straight in and bought her.
I don’t remember the exact price, but I believe it turned out to be something like $50 in American money.
Somehow, both master and puppy survived each other. When the Memphis Belle returned to the United States, Stuka went along. ‘I believe that was her first plane ride. When the engines started and the plane began to move, she got nervous and ran back and forth. She didn’t bark or yelp, though’.
The little dog didn’t seem to mind all the stunt flying Morgan did as he arrived over each new city on the tour. ‘After she got used to flying, Stuka seemed to enjoy all the wild stuff. She was a big hit with the crowds. People went wild over her. She seemed to be enjoying all the attention. When the cities put on parades for us, she would ride in it as if she were a queen’.
Newspaper photographers and newsreel cameramen had a field day, taking pictures of the flying dog. A man could start a conversation with a pretty girl by telling her about the little black terrier that flew with them. They would always be surprised to see her waiting for me at the door of my hotel room. They would say to me, ‘Gee, you really do have a dog, don’t you?’
Word got out that Stuka liked whiskey. Some people would slip her a saucer full. ‘She’d lap it up. She’d stagger around a little, act silly and go off somewhere and lay down to sleep’.
Then Stuka had her own ‘short snorter’ Those were dollar bills which overseas GIs would collect autographs on. When one got filled up, they’d start on a new one. Some soldiers had big collections of them.‘Stuka’s short snorter had signatures on it such as Clark Gable, Burgess Meredith and William Wyler, the director who made the Belle movie’ said Verinis."William Wyler directed The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and Ben-Hur (1959)
"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." -- Thomas Jefferson
We are all Rhodesians now.
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 11,496
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 11,496 |
The hanger with NACA written on it in those pictures still exists.
Don't blame me. I voted for Trump.
Democrats would burn this country to the ground, if they could rule over the ashes.
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Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 206
Campfire Member
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Campfire Member
Joined: Nov 2011
Posts: 206 |
Wow good stuff gonehuntin
I am a 2nd cousin to Donald Gott.
Anybody out there hear of him?
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Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 5,190
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 5,190 |
The movie is great as well.
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