Tidal Wave Footage Photos, 15th AAF and Luftwaffe, 'Black Sunday', 1 August 1943

Alex, did you know if Merv used a picture for painting the Wing Dinger nose art or only info from TW airmen.

Dan.

Hi Chris, because i'm the artist who painted the Jose Carioca color profile i want to show my reasons to put the serial number in the middle of the fin.
First i used a picture with close number serial tail fin ( Jersey Bounce 42-40609) and second a picture of tail fin marks from another B-24 Honky Tonk Gal ( 42-40265) from the same squadron( 409th) as B-24 Jose Carioca.
It is only a schoolary guess until someone could find a picture of the tail of Jose Carioca before the TW.
Also for modellers Jose Carioca it should have on the left side of the fuselage painted the "Teddy Bear" 409th emblem ( like the others B-24 in the squad: Honky Tank Gall and Tupello Las ).

Dan.

Below Jersey Bounce fin.

This post has been edited by Cantacuzino on March 15, 2005 08:32 am

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And below "Honky Tonk Gal" fin.

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Bruce

The plane we took to Ploesti was originally Lt. Schwellinger's plane. The day before Ploesti he was in hospital with the GIs and he got out on 1 Aug and flew his own plane in the right seat. He bumped our co-pilot Lt Hickey. He had bad luck with the plane, many changes of fuel tanks, they were always leaking and had
a reputation of a gas burner. When we landed in Izmir the wing tanks were leaking.
It had no name and I dont recall any photo of it....

There is a question of the second plane Bill was in...The pilot Lt Brown was known to have the "Big Brown Jug" but there is a question of whether it was the one he had when shot down.... Brown's kid brother flew a Jug, P-47, named the 'Little Brown Jug'

Earl

Merv,

you're right about the six .50s in HAIL COLUMBIA 's nose. Our late buddy Chris
Christensen couldn't believe that anybody would load down their plane with that
many guns (and requisite ammo), but eventually we convinced him. If memory
serves, HC had two cheek guns, a flexible socket-gun in the center of the
greenhouse, a twin-.50 rig of the Gura type recessed in the lower nose, and a
fixed-.50 angled down from the bottom of the nose. That makes six by my count. I
don't know if the twin-.50s were added at the Gura modification depot -- perhaps
the 98th's ground crews were able to imitate the Gura mod by then -- but you
can see photos of the standard Gura rig in John Swancara's "Project 19" book.
It closely resembles the rig used in HC's nose.

Someday, I'd love to see a large print of the photo in question. It's
possible we might be able to spot an N-7 gunsight in place of the usual Norden.

I'm told that George Baroni's collection of "Pyramidiers" photos may gone to the
Pima County Museum in Tucson. If anybody ever gets confirmation of this,
please let us know.

Regards,
Al S.

Alex,
Very sorry I did not respond earlier but my computer server could not find the problem of why I was not receiving my messages UNTIL I talked with a gal in India. She was sharp and finally deleted a couple of messages that were holding up all the others. But I'm back and will have a new E address in about 10 days.

The answer about a one man operation flying the B24 isn't a problem until it came to landing. At the time you stared to flare you needed the co-pilot or engineer to hold the throttles off while you pulled the wheel back. I used the trim tab all the way down the approach but at the last you had to use both hands on the wheel to pull it into your lap. If you don't do this you can land on the nose wheel and that's a no-no.

They don't like you to turn sharp in the 24 as the landing gear might twist. So you had to make shallow turns.

The B24 with a full load generally overloaded all the time required the pilot to constantly fly the plane. If and I mean if...the auto pilot was working, 9 out of 10
did not in our area, the fine sand would get into the openings around the stems of the controls thus stopping good contact, the B24 was a pleasure to fly. Also, our CO Col. Killer Kane felt that reduced power would make the engines last a bit longer. The fine sand was killing the engines. But the plane did not handle well at slower indicated air speed.

I hope my computer problems are over but in 10 days or so I'll be changing my E address as I'm going with another server. I'll let you know the new address.

Looking for your letter.

Bob Sternfels

Were there any P-40 as escort during "Tidal Wave", or just the bombers?

I did the photo of this P-40 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The plane in the photo was used in China, against the Japanese, in the "Flying Tigers" squadron.

This post has been edited by Florin on March 19, 2005 06:51 am

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Another photo with the same P-40:

This post has been edited by Florin on March 19, 2005 06:51 am

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And another one:

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This is a P-40, not a P-51 and no, there weren't any American fighters on that mission.

Your correction being taken into consideration, I'll edit my post and I'll write P-40 in stead of P-51.

Florin

The P-40's photos are great, though they dont have a thing to do with Tidal Wave and perhaps re post them under a new topic or under Bombing of Constanza because they were used by the Soviet Navy in WWII in the regain of Sevastopol and Krimea but also on Baltic Fleet .



Alex

Earl,

General Compton told me he was in the left seat and to confirm this I called Red Thompson a few years ago and he confirmed that Compton flew as command pilot.

Red Thompson was quick to tell me that he was flying the plane with direction from Compton. So this probably was a way to tell me that Compton ordered the turn at the wrong IP.

Thompson also was trying to tell me that Kane caused all the problems because he wasn't staying near Compton. I just could not get it through that guy's head that Kane had nothing to do with Compton's decision to turn at Travogesti.

In looking back at the situation it was fortunate that Kane did not stay with Compton as I doubt if Kane would have followed Compton at the wrong IP. Those two guys were not the best of friends and when Ent was assigned to Compton, I'll bet Kane went off his rocker.

By the way I found a copy of the story printed by the Office info the Assistant chief of the Air Staff Intelligence dated 30 of Sept. 1943. This was sent to me by Al Salton sometime ago.

A review of the Ploesti states in the Conclusions of Commanding General #4 "The decision of the commander to execute an attack from the south after his formation had been lost and missed its IP was unsound. IT RESULTED IN THE WRONG TARGETS BEING BOMBED,DESTROYED COORDINATION AND SACRIFICED THE BENEFITS OF THOROUGH BRIEFING AND TRAINING OF THE CREWS." This is not fair to the guys who lost their lives due to our target and the 44th target being bombed before we arrived. Even with above statement Compton was not in any way held responsible and in the end was promoted to General......Doesn't seem fair DOES IT?

Bob S.

Hi Chris Bryant,

When I was doing the research for my book I had many interviews with General
K.K. Compton.

The one point we discussed a few times was who led the mission. Compton said he did not know how the phony story was started but to quote him"he(Compton) was the leader from take off to landing..No one else! "

Just to shed a little light on this statement, I asked him if he saw Wongo
Wongo go down, his answer was he did not know he crashed until he returned
to Benghazi. So, if he wasn't in the lead position he would have seen the
smoke from the fuel burning in the water....JUST AS MOST OF THE 98TH, 44TH
AND 389TH GUYS DID. I sure and hell did...And guys behind Compton!

That clue does indicate that Compton was leading as well as other statements
such as how high did he fly going over the mountains in Greece. Many
reported he climbed to 16,000 feet...that's all wrong per Compton as well as
the navigation log kept by his navigator.

Your are right, my book does make all the other books and articles look bad
as the authors did not try to verify anything about the mission with the
survivors but I did and we now have the truth.

Two things that have bugged me for years about the reports of the missions
by others. First, some one reported that we made a "frontal penetration
maneuver" to get over the mountains after leaving Corfu. The mountains were
about 9,000 feet and all we did was fly through the clouds ...IN
FORMATION!!! now I never heard of a frontal penetration maneuver and asking around no one else has. Also as I understand it might have taken over a couple of hours to get over 100 planes through the clouds one at a time!

Second...some guys just make up stories and when they started to rewrite
the Ploesti Low Level history I felt it was time to set the record straight!
Fortunately we did as Compton is not with us, maybe some of the other people
may have joined him. After all this event happened over 62 years ago and we
all were about 22 or 23 maybe except Earl Z!! Only pulling your chain Earl!!

Bob Sternfels

Alex,
Don't have any idea about Strawberry Bitch. From the pictures I've seen, the color of the plane is not correct. We had "pink" planes but it was a lighter beige pink.

Kane was a colorful guy. We know much of his history starting with his graduation from Baylor U in Texas, entering the Air Force then placed on inactive status but when the war clouds were appearing he was called back.

Upon return to the states is when he was pushed from command to command almost on a yearly basis. He also was in command of a unit that was drilled in delivering "the bomb" to Russia if that became necessary. But Kane's liking for the other sex created a stir among the upper brass. At one of his stations the Air Force sent a few guys to talk with Kane & to tell him it wasn't the way a guy in his position should act. The next day he cleaned out his desk and walked off the base and quit the Air Force. After 19 years in the service he threw it all away!
Next - he became a bar tender in the south. After a couple of years the Air Force new commanders found Kane and talked him into being reinstated as a Sgt. but placed on leave., Then he completed 20 years and retired with a pension. All this is true and recorded at Baylor Un. by a Prod. Turner. Kane was the only MOH from Baylor. He bought a small house in Arkansas, his English wife died, Kane finally went into a VA hospital and passed away about 9 years ago.
Bob S.