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Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 4,570
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 4,570 |
Plinker, where are those pics from? Great pics.  Does the USAF museum at Wright-Patterson have an outdoor section? Also, I was aware the Hellcat was the real scurge in the Pacific!! Much more so than any version of the Zero/Zeke, or even the Corsair.
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Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 3,795
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 3,795 |
My grandfather did time with Zemke in Stalag Luft I. He was always greatful for Zemke's efforts to get the US brass to take seriously the fact that the Soviets who liberated the camp wanted to take the POWs as hostages to bargain for more of Europe after the war. Zemke got them liberated from Russia after they were liberated from Germany. Zemke hated the rooshiins! I was unaware 'Ivan' liberated Zemke's Stalag (where he was the SRO - senior ranking officer, among POW's), and tried to take Americans "POW" or as hostages, but I'm not surprised! Much earlier in Zemke's time-in-theatre, Zemke was a instructor to the Russians on the earlier P47's that were part of the Lend Lease program. Those particular P47's were the razorback, three-bladed versions. I never understood the name Zemke put on his aircraft (it was in Russian), but besides meaning "friend" (in part), it was also supposed to be a warning! To the damm Russians Zemke never, ever trusted! Not to mess with him or shoot at him when his back was turned Even in the late eighties/early nineties when i saw him, Zemke held Russians in low regard - not that I blamed him! ACTUALLY, I thought any so-called libbs or dumbazzes who thought they knew better about Yankee-rooskie relations could learn a lot listening to Zemke! The man was still very lucid and quite sharp.  There are some great stories in my grandfather's diary, which I'm preparing for possible publication, about the uneasy sense of fear they felt being liberated by the Russians. One of my favorite is that the Russians put on a traditional Russian dance show when they liberated them. Around the stage as they did their Cossack dances were men with machine guns pointed at the POWs. One of my grandfather's friends turned to him and said "Pax, why aren't you clapping? Can't you see they have machine guns pointed at us?" To which my grandfather replied "It isn't any good!"
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Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 3,795
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 3,795 |
Just finished this book, bought it the day this thread started. I really enjoyed it.
One of the most vivid images was at the end, when he sees a German pilot bail out of a plane that a P-51 has shot down. The Mustang pilot miscalculated speed and was too close behind and the German pilot fell right into his prop.
The Mustang made it home. Awful to imagine what must have happened in the air.
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Joined: Mar 2010
Posts: 10,896
Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Mar 2010
Posts: 10,896 |
Will have to get this.. the Bolt was a great aircraft but I won't go as far to say it was the "best of the piston's"
You better be afraid of a ghost!!
"Woody you were baptized in prop wash"..crossfireoops
Woody
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Joined: Apr 2005
Posts: 3,763
Campfire Tracker
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OP
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Joined: Apr 2005
Posts: 3,763 |
After reading Thunderbolt! I had to order "Zemke's Wolfpack". What a great story and man. finished it last night. Now I'm looking for "Zemke's Stalag".
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Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 3,795
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 3,795 |
I think my grandfather had that book. IIRC it's on my dad's bookshelf now, heavily annotated by grandpa.
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Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 42,819 Likes: 4
Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 42,819 Likes: 4 |
I read the story of Robert Johnson as a kid when my dad was stationed in England from 63 to 66...It was about 1965....
from that book along with several others, such as books about the 56th Fighter Group, and other stuff about the P 47, plus being able to go to Duxford when they were stationed most of the time in their time in England...
the P47 became my favorite American Fighter... and has remained so..
at the same time, the B 17 became my favorite bomber of the time, and my favorite bomb group became the 303rd Bomb Group, not only because of their history and combat record, but I also went to school on the base that they were stationed at during the war RAF Molesworth..
me and friends use to get our bikes on the old Airfield.. It wasn't being used, so no one really stopped us...
it was fantastic riding around on the same concrete that those B17s flew off of 20 year before...
and lord knows did our imaginations soar on those fields...
a dump on base still was crowded with B 17 parts from the War, as Molesworth was pretty much decommissioned right after the war was over... but under NATO it was kept where it could be made operational in about 48 hours if needed..
"Minus the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the Country" Marion Barry, Mayor of Wash DC
“Owning guns is not a right. If it were a right, it would be in the Constitution.” ~Alexandria Ocasio Cortez
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