Cold Blue

I was immensely honored to have a flight in a B-17 a while back. It was a bucket list endeavor to feel one scintilla of what my forefathers felt in that lovely bird - minus the terror.

More Airmen died in the 8th AF Euro Theater than U.S. Marines in the Pacific Theater.

I just hope it makes it into theaters around here this summer. Seems like this area, you're SOL for decent movies, unless you're a fan of Marvel Comics.
7mm

Had a good friend from church who was a Navigator. He received the French Legion of Honor Medal for his action over Europe. He passed last year just a month short of his 100th birthday. He was really disappointed when he knew he wasn't going to make it to the century mark. A great man and Christian for sure. Lloyd Mitchell.

Another of our Heroes from the Greatest Generation gone. RIP Sir!

I could swear yesterday, that I saw one flying over Elizabethtown, KY. I was headed into a local farm and home store and saw it flying towards the E-Town airport. I wasn't paying too much attention until I saw the wing profile as it made a turn, and I noticed the wing shape. I was probably two miles away from it, and couldn't get a really good look, though.

When I lived up in Louisville, I'd often see a C-47 flying over town, this was no Gooney Bird.

My mom's brother was a flight engineer/top turret gunner on the B-17G "Galloping' Ghost", 34th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force. Killed on his 28th mission, would have been sent home after 30 missions. T/Sgt. James E. Hulings, KIA 01/20/1945. Rest In Peace.
I visited his grave today, trimmed the grass, and planted a Flag. He won't be forgotten.

A beautiful airplane. My grandfather was an instructor pilot in the B-17 during the war. He really had good memories of flying that thing.

There’s a B-17 is suspended in the WW ll museum in New Orleans (I can highly recommend it. We took a day and a half) and you can walk around it on a suspended catwalk. What surprised me about it is how narrow the cockpit and fuselage are. After watching the Movie and the TV series, 12:00 High, I would have thought it was bigger. There’s not too much room where a/c machine gun fire or flak fragments could hit and not damage someone or some important piece of gear.

My grandfathers brother was a Ball turret gunner in a B-17. He was shot down over the English Channel but ended up flying his 25 missions. I was searching for his name a couple of years ago and came across this old picture of him on the internet. When I was a kid he would tell me stories of the things he saw while flying.

Its hard to believe now he would be well over a hundred years old. I sure do miss him and my grandad. He is the man in the middle.

http://www.americanairmuseum.com/media/21578

That's a cool photo! I need to find some of my grandpa's from his B-17 days.

my old man was a 8AF bombadier on the b17. he never talked about it much except i remember him saying it was cold as hell and he liked night bombing better than day. he used the norden. he was also in flight school with frank cady, Mr Drucker from Green Acres and Petticoat Junction. i have his yearbook and cady looked like mr drucker even when he was about 20.

Wow. He was born in the next county west of my home.

It's a wonder they could even get in a Ball Turret with balls that big.

Thanks for posting. I just bought two tickets for my wife and me to see it tomorrow here in Aurora, Colorado.

My father was a B-17 pilot and he flew 35 missions in WWII. He is 98 years old now, but he is still the bravest man who I've ever met.

My dad was a fighter pilot in the Eighth. He flew Mustangs and escorted B-24s mostly out of Belgium. He told me he went for a ride as co-pilot in a 17 right after the war when they went back to England. Like a lot of young guys before the war all that sounded glamorous to him. But after the war he was the first to tell you there was nothing glamorous about being strapped in a little cock pit for 6-8 hours sometimes and being cold and smelling gasoline all the way to target. Also, on most of his missions they would be up against ME-262s which were 100 MPH faster so it weren't no turkey shoot. He was just mainly relieved when it was over. But then they were facing going to the Paciific. However while training out of an English base he took off one day and got up to 800 feet and his engine froze up. He crashed it in a flax field. After the war you couldn't get him in a plane. In the late 60s the company he worked for sent him to Torrence California on a job. That was the first time he'd flown since 1945. And he later flew to Alaska with my mother once to visit my nephew who was in the army in Anchorage. But those were the only times he flew after being mustered out of active duty in 1945. Once somebody in the family ask him why he wouldn't fly commercially, He answered, "Because they won't let me drive."

The math was very sobering for much of the war.

My father-in-law was a ball turret gunner on a B-17, flying with "The Forgotten Fifteenth". Credited with 51 missions he came home a lived an ordinary life. Best man I ever knew. Rest in peace dad.

I was very fortunate to get a flight in the B17 “Yankee Lady”. Great experience!

The thought of hitting birds while sitting in the nose was concerning. Can’t image what running through flak was like! My hats off to those many fine men!

A friend from college was the son of an enlisted bombardier from B-17’s. While at Navigator School in the mid-80’s, I obtained some 8x10 photos of the Norden Bomb Sight. I sent them to him so he could share some of his experiences with his children. Later, I was able to sit with him and hear some of his flying experiences. He talked of the bombing missions taking 8-10 hours from takeoff to landing because of the time it took to form the huge formations.

He was quiet when telling of watching as planes loaded with bombs and his friends took hits and exploded into small pieces. It was a lot for an 18-22 year old to endure.

No PTSD other than to return home, get married, and raise a productive family.

He died about 10 years ago in his 90’s. One of a generation of great ones who did what needed to be done when called.

I am proud to have known Francis “Pete” Parham.

Man that ain't no bull! My balls are microscopic compared to those guys!!!

Seriously I had an uncle that was a B-24 gunner and flew the hump out of India and China to bomb the bridges in Malaysia leading down to Singapore almost everyday. He said they would destroy the bridges and two days later they'd have them rebuilt. He said it kept the Japanese busy. WWII sounds like it was a ball...

I salute the huge balls of my country men. I hope I could only be that brave in battle!

My MIL was in USSTAF Headquarters 8th AF. She got to England on D-Day on the Queen Elizabeth and was stationed at Brushy Park with General Spatz. After the beach head was established in France they moved part of Headquarters across the channel into St. Germaine. She said when the Battle of the Bulge was fixing to happen, they were giving rifles to cooks, mechanics, anybody who could carry one. She told them she was from Texas and had no problem shooting bullets into Krauts but they shipped her and the other women back to England until the Bulge was over. I was talking to her one night about the 8th and she started crying and said the 8th got all the attention during and after the war but no one ever said a word about the 9th, which had their share of devastating losses. She got out a corporal and said she was doing a sergeants job, but it was rare the Army put Sgt. stripes on a woman. I miss that old gal.

When I was a kid in England, when my dad was stationed over there from 63 to 66....Relics from WW2 was all over the place....Dad was stationed at Alconbury, which was a WW 2 field.. in fact the one that Glenn Miller flew from and was never seen again...even tho it was modernized by 1963 standards....flying RF4Cs out of there from 1964..... the old flight tower from WW2 was still on the field....as were bomb shelters...

I went to school on a peripheral base, RAF Molesworth, where the 303rd Bomb Group was stationed at during the war, flying B 17s... I've walked that Airfield quite a few times.. no one bothered we kids as the flight line wasn't being used.. but could be operational in 72 hours.... the entire base was still with most of the WW 2 buildings still standing.... there were acres and acres of Quenset Huts, boarded up all over the base...I went to the elementary school and Jr High on Molesworth....

The Junior High, was the original HQ Bldg during the war....our cafeteria was one of the squadron chow halls during the war...we had bomb shelters still standing all over the place, along with the fire pools, that were used during the war....the school requested to have one of the buildings made available to use as an auditorium....So they gave us the Briefing bldg... Our Gym class was assigned to go over, and clean it up, and get it ready to use....

It had a stage at one end of it, and the seats were like a movie theater, instead of what I've ever seen in movies....on the stage was a huge purple curtain, covered in dust....we were told to take it down so that it could be sent out and washed....our gym class was like 15 guys and that was it.... after we took it down, you could see pins in the wall, with string attached, going in different directions to the right...the wall was covered in dust....when we got off the stage and walked half way back from the stage, thru the dust, you could make out a detailed map of NW Europe and England....

What we stumbled across was the last mission flew by the 303rd out of Molesworth in April 1945...coordinates and routes to be taken for the last bombing mission.... the unit stood down... the curtain pulled over the wall, and the building locked up.... this was 1965, so that had been 20 yrs of dust we were cleaning off the walls, floor etc...

on one part of the base, still sat parts of several scrapped B 17s, that had been shot up in combat, made it home... pulled to a certain point off the airfield... and stripped of parts in 1945... when the 303rd stood down, they were just left there....in 1965, they were still there....we boys use to love to go down and play in them, reliving thoughts of what it must have been like to go on those missions...I was 11 to 14 when I was there... so I had a mindset like everyone else, no thoughts of people were getting killed daily during those missions..

we also use to go into Quenset Huts, that the doors had rotted off of in the English winters of rain...most of them still had the potbelly stoves... you could find pin ups on the walls, the bed frames were still in some of them....old broken foot lockers ... a trip back in time....

The entire area of East Anglia was still covered in the remains of WW 2 airfields...the main town of Huntingdon nearby Alconbury.. during the war, there were 10 bomber bases within a 10 mile radius of Huntingdon.... We had friends who lived on the other satellite base to Alconbury, that was Chelveston...
The Air Force, still maintained a skeleton crew on base, the base housing etc.... it was just like Molesworth... we could ride our bikes on the runway which was still there... go climb up and into the WW2 Air Tower...
there was a dump there that had many B 17 parts there also.. fuselages, wings or parts of a wing, or tail..
turrents with the Brownings long gone....

it was a 3 dimensional history museum of WW 2, where we could run loose and climb all over it... the war only being over 20 yrs before....

I had a very fortunate experience that few kids in general got to live....

That is why I have been a hard core aviation buff since I was 11 years old..... would have become a military pilot if my eye sight didn't prevent that from happening....

Took my 12 yo son to Wright Pat for the 100th Anniversary of Flight air show in 2003. He was still a skinny little chit. There was a B17 on display that you could enter. Pilots had to crawl over the seat backs to get into the cockpit. My 12 yo son was able. No way that I was going to do so at 6ft tall and 230 lbs. Nose gunner had to belly crawl under the cockpit to get into position. Waist gunners were offset because the gunners had their backs against the opposite side of the fuselage when in position.

Still, very impressive aircraft...

I grew up in the fifties and sixties. Dad sometimes told stories if I showed interest. I certainly wish I had showed more interest as he died in 74. He was a bombardier/ navigator instructor for the B24. Was on leave before going to England when the war in Europe was settled. He was released from service at wartime field in Iowa. And that was it. He failed to report his back injury so he could get out but a training run ending in a crash caused him a bit of pain over the years. He didn't talk much of the Mother's sons who were sent to their death in the European theatre. We all lost much in that conflict. All because someone didn't shoot true enough in WW I. Hitler needed a bullet then. Rusty

I had a Quality Control inspector working for me. Older fellow. 'Was a member of the R&D team that developed the P-36 Seversky, our first low winged monoplane fighter. He had always wanted to go up for a ride on a B-17 when the air shows came to town, but couldn't afford the $500.00 price. We took up a collection to get him on the plane. The aircrew found out about Jack's past history in aviation and kind of took him under their wing for the day. He got to have lunch with the crew and they presented him with a flight cap autographed by the whole team. He was a very happy man.

You and the guys you work with are a good bunch of guys to do that for him . I wish I was a fly on the wall for that, he Must of had a blast.

A very good friend of our family was a navigator on a B-24 in Europe. After the war he never set foot inside a plane again up until the early 2000's.

He was on Cape Cod with my parents when he suffered a stroke and they had to fly him to Boston. That was the only time he ever got into a plane. He survived the stroke, but passed away a few years later when he was in his early nineties. When I was a little kid, I asked him why he wouldn't fly. He would just say that he'd spent enough time in the air and didn't need any more. They went to Florida every year in the spring. They would drive from the Cape to our house and stay a few days. Then they would get on the Auto-Train the rest of the way down. My parents would fly down and meet them, but they never flew.

My father flew 34 missions in B-24's out of Shipdham in '43 and '44. He started out as a ball turret gunner then transitioned to the tail turret. Had to bail out once, luckily just off the coast of northern England. Onshore breeze blew them all to land. They has lost one engine on the bomb run, then a a second on the way out. A third one quit just off the English coast and the pilot gave the bail out order. Of the 120 men he trained with in the states, only 34 came home.

That museum is a "must do" if in the area. Old lady was in New Orleans for a few days for work, then I flew in for a long weekend. Took a day to visit the museum. A day was not enough. If one has any interest in things WWII, is is a hell of a place to spend at least a day. Very interesting, and at times a bit emotional. When we go back to N.O. later this year, I'll be planning on another full day at the museum.

I had one fly over me at about 200 ft off the deck while riding my bike during the EAA Fly-in. It definitely gets one's attention.

My oldest cousin was a B-17 belly gunner. They had to pull him out when flak cut his air hose. The rest of the WWII vets in my family were uncles.

We saw it last night and really liked it. Great movie!

He was a very happy man. The crew really took good care of him. At his age, it was a little tough for him to get around in the incredibly cramped confines, but he poked around the old bird as much as he could, and really had a great time.