World War II Aviation at the Lyon Air Museum

While visiting our daughter and two granddaughters at Christmas, I received a very nice Christmas present from them: an afternoon at the Lyon Air Museum, in Southern California! The Lyon Air Museum is located at Irvine’s John Wayne Airport and contains many vintage World War II airplanes, all beautifully restored, most in flying condition. In addition to the airplanes, many other vintage conveyances from the era are displayed, including one of Adolph Hitler’s personal staff cars, presumably used by him to ride into Paris after conquering the French in 1939.

One of the museum’s prized flying airplanes is the B-17 heavy bomber, Fuddy Duddy. The tradition of painted “nose art” on World War II aircraft was prevalent particularly on heavy bombers such as the B-17 “Flying Fortress” and the B-24 “Liberator.” These four-engine, long-range bombers were as instrumental to the defeat of Germany as any weapons in the U.S. arsenal. The B-17 earned its renown by destroying much of Germany’s military and civilian infrastructure, flying out of large air fields located in the English countryside.

I relished the afternoon we spent in the museum with our girls, not only because I have long appreciated the history of World War II aviation, but also because I had a rare chance to give my grand-daughters an up-close-and-personal awareness of another time, the “greatest generation,” and aviation’s important role in defining the path of world history. There is no substitute for experiencing, up-close, the mystique of these great airplanes in order to appreciate their role in that history.

Peering up into the underbelly of Fuddy Duddy through the crew entry hatch is bound to stimulate any teen-ager’s appreciation of the courage it took for crew-members to clamber up inside such a large, complex airplane for dangerous mission after mission over enemy territory. So many crews and men never made it to the magic mark of twenty-five completed missions which would give them a one-way ticket back home, perhaps to become a flying instructor training pilot-recruits. Many thousands of B-17 and B-24 crew members went down in the gunsights of swift and deadly German fighter planes whose mission was to intercept and destroy the “heavies.” And there were the thousands of huge, long barreled German flak guns on the ground, poised and ready to fill the high skies with exploding shell fragments, any one of which could rip apart men and machines alike.

It was gratifying to observe the curiosity and interest which quickly developed as we began our tour of the museum! Soon after we started at the B-17, we spent a half-hour in the museum’s mini-movie theatre to watch a film documentary on the air war over Europe which included much aerial footage and commentary from Andy Rooney. Rooney was the long-time, now deceased, CBS commentator on 60 Minutes. During the war, he served as a war correspondent experiencing, first hand, the B-17 during actual missions. I was pleased to note that the film was one included in my personal DVD collection of worthy war documentaries; one cannot help but be impressed by the viewing experience!

A museum docent approached us as we examined the B-17 and produced two dummy bullets to illustrate the fire-power of the thirteen .50 caliber machine guns positioned at six locations around the airplane. Alongside the .50 caliber sample, the .22 bullet looks downright puny, and, yet, these airplanes were still very vulnerable to German fighter interceptors until late 1943 when the fabled P-51 Mustang fighter was introduced which could escort the bombers deep into German territory and back. The .50 caliber machine guns on the B-17 fired thirteen rounds per second, all fed from long cartridge belts. After a protracted aerial battle with German interceptors, the waist gunners stationed inside the fuselage at both sides of the airplane were typically ankle-deep in empty brass shells ejected from hot, rapidly firing guns!

One of Hitler’s several Mercedes Benz personal staff cars –likely the one in which he entered Paris after the Nazi victory in France.

A sign on the wall provided a summary of the debt owed to the men of the Mighty Eighth Air Force which operated B-17’s out of England. Among its stats:

“Hitler started boasting that he converted Europe into an impregnable fortress. But he neglected to provide that fortress with a roof.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, message to Congress, September 17, 1943.

-2,300,000 sorties flown
-24,228 enemy aircraft downed
-350,000 served in the Eighth Air Force.
-47,742 killed in action.
-696,351 tons of bombs dropped.

Of course, these numbers pertain only to the Eighth Air Force, not including the other arms of the Army Air Force and their theatres of operation.

Douglas A-26 Attack Bomber

North American Aviation AT-6 Trainer

Douglas DC-3: The backbone of the airline industry

 

All in all, we had a very fine afternoon at Irvine’s Lyon Air Museum. I heartily recommend it for adults and youngsters, alike! Our thanks to the spirit and generosity of Gen. William Lyon for preserving this important collection and for making it available to the general public.

Time to say goodbye: our Southwest Airlines 737 pulls into the gate at John Wayne Airport for the trip home.

“Toulouse Nuts” : Flying the Collings Foundation P-51 Mustang

To celebrate Memorial Day last Monday, I was fortunate enough to fly an iconic World War II warbird, the P-51D Mustang owned by the Collings Foundation. The Foundation’s nation-wide Wings of Freedom tour and its airplanes had landed at Livermore Municipal Airport, in California, for a three-day stay before moving on.

Photo: Collings Foundation

The experience was not only unforgettable, but very meaningful for me. As a student of aviation history, particularly in the World War II time-frame, going up in a P-51 was something I always wanted to do: more accurately, something I had to do!
What finally moved me to act was a quote by the author Mark Twain which I recently heard and (loosely) paraphrase here: You will regret most the things in life you did not do, not the things you did.

Many are the accounts of young farm boys in middle America scrounging a quarter and going up for the first time in the rickety biplanes of traveling “barnstormers” back in the mid-nineteen-thirties. For many of those boys, that experience led ultimately to flight training in the Army Air Force during the prelude to war. This adventure of mine felt somewhat like my own, personal, modern-day version of the barnstormer ride, but more costly and with no future flight training likely!

That’s me (bluejeans) with the father of my young pilot (he also flies)

The P-51 Mustang was the greatest fighter plane in World War II, bar-none. For that, and for so many other reasons, it is the one airplane I wanted to fly and experience. It is often claimed that the P-51 won the war for us. Most certainly, without its introduction to combat in 1943, many more B-17 and B-24 bomber crews would have lost their lives to enemy fighters which flew up to intercept the “heavies” on their bomb runs over hostile territory. The P-51 was the first fighter with the fuel-range capable of escorting our bombers all the way to their targets in Germany and back to their bases in England and Italy.

P-51s also proved their air superiority over the best the Germans had to offer. When enemy fighters came up to attack our bombers, the P-51s excelled in the oft-times, close-quarter aerial dogfights with their German Me 109 and Focke-Wulf 190 counterparts. The Mustang quickly won the hearts and gratitude of the brave men who flew her and survived the war along with their indelible memories of combat. As for the bomber crews who were such vulnerable targets, they universally referred to the P-51 escorts as their “little friends.”

Heading out to the taxi-way prior to take-off

Toulouse Nuts is a rare variant of the Mustang which features not merely a seat behind the pilot, but a second full set of instrumentation and controls like the pilot’s. For a good portion of my half-hour flight, I was in control of the airplane from my rear seat vantage point. For the rest of the flight, my young pilot performed some textbook aerobatics per my request: wingovers, aileron rolls, etc. He began by pointing the nose of the airplane up a bit and then partially rolling the airplane into a dive while 90 degrees to the horizon. After a few warm-ups (for my benefit), we nosed up, “came over the top” while rolling into a fully inverted flying position while diving and leveling out. That uneasy feeling one gets when a Southwest Airlines 737 banks into a steep turn with “wing way down” is but prelude to the feeling of doing wingovers in a P-51! I now have some inkling of what combat maneuvers in a life and death dogfight with a German Me 109 must have felt like to our pilots.

Steep climb and sharp bank at take-off (runway in the background)

I have read many memoirs of World War II aces who survived, thanks to luck and skill, to tell their stories. In recent years, much of my time and library acquisitions have been devoted to learning more about the histories of the men and machines who defeated Hitler’s Luftwaffe. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I cannot conceive of more daring and dangerous, yet adventurous endeavors than those experienced by the bomber and fighter crews of World War II. A quote from one of the best, Clarence “Bud” Anderson, a triple Mustang ace (16.25 air victories) who flew 116 combat missions out of England, is embedded in my consciousness:

Staying alive was no simple thing in the skies over Europe in the spring of 1944. A lot of men couldn’t. It was a bad thing to dwell on if you were a fighter pilot, and so we told ourselves we were dead men and lived for the moment with no thought of the future at all. It wasn’t too difficult. Lots of us had no future and everyone knew it.

I wanted to experience, as best I could, what it must have felt like to ride out to the flight-line in a far-away place on a cold, early dawn, to greet your crew-chief who got up even earlier to prepare your plane, and then to clamber into the cockpit for yet another mission over Germany. Your crew chief helps you strap-in and briefs you on the status of your airplane. You look at him and he looks at you, briefly, each realizing that you might not come back from today’s mission. Then you close the canopy to form an eerie silence, and your crew-chief slides off the wing to the ground – perhaps the last human you will see…at least for several hours. At your touch of the starter, the big four-bladed propeller slowly turns, and turns some more, and turns some more, and finally the powerful, twelve-cylinder Rolls-Royce/Packard Merlin engine coughs and belches its way to life, shaking the cockpit in the process. In a matter of seconds, the big Merlin engine settles into a smooth, steady cadence and you are set to face the great unknowns that await all pilots on such missions.

To capture some essence of that scenario in a real P-51 Mustang is what drove me to do what I did last Monday. What better way to pay tribute to the memory of our flyers than to take to the skies over Livermore in a vintage airplane on an absolutely gorgeous, cloud-free day like Monday, May 28, 2018. It was everything I had hoped it would be, and more. I will never forget the experience.

I was supposed to fly at 11:00 am on Monday. I did not get airborne until 3:00 that afternoon. A problem with the fuel pressure gauge surfaced on the flight before mine. As Linda and I arrived at the field, I saw the airplane head off to the taxi-way for the 10:00 flight scheduled before mine. In less than two minutes, my heart fell as I saw the airplane taxi back to its parking position on the apron. I knew there must be some problem. Soon, pilot and passenger were out of the plane and the engine covers were off the nose of the airplane. The pilot and several others were all over the front portion of the plane. The previous flyer, an older fellow like me named John, stood around for at least three hours as did Linda and I. He indicated he would wait it out because, for him, the experience was “now or never.” By the time the crew had the airplane ready to go after heroic efforts on their part, John had given up, cancelled at the desk, and gone. The flight crew told me, “You are next-up,” to which I retorted, “Let’s go, then!” The fellow who flew after me was also older – at least my age. I sense that there are many older guys like me who feel the significance surrounding this airplane and its historic role while confronting the approaching decision point for themselves: to go do it or not.

I had written an earlier post on the Collings Foundation and their older P-51C, Betty Jane. She is currently undergoing a ground-up restoration/overhaul. The tour introduction of their newly restored P-51D Toulouse Nuts occurred in 2016. Technically, she is known as a TF-51D, being a rare, two seat, dual-control airplane. “T” for trainer and “F” for fighter, I believe, is the way it works. The “P” in P-51 is an outmoded reference for “pursuit,” nomenclature which was commonly used early in World War II and prior. Toulouse Nuts represents the “D” evolution of the airplane’s design, its ultimate configuration during the war. For pilots and would-be flyers/passengers like me, the bubble canopy of the “D” offers a superior visual experience compared to the birdcage structure of the earlier “C” models like Betty Jane.

An amazing, unforgettable experience!

Toulouse Nuts is one of three original TF-51Ds remaining in the world. She is painted in her original markings of the West Virginia Air Guard, 167th fighter squadron.

B-24 Liberator Bomber, Witchcraft – the last one flying of over 18,000 built!

The Iconic P-51 Mustang: The Fighter That Destroyed Hitler’s Luftwaffe and Won the War

Last month, I had yet another opportunity to ride in and fly one of the most iconic military aircraft of all time, the North American P-51 Mustang. Sadly, it did not happen. Maybe next year!

The chance to ride in a P-51 materializes yearly when the Collings Foundation and its “Wings of Freedom” nationwide tour of restored World War II aircraft lands at nearby Moffett Field. For nearly a week, the public has the opportunity of getting up-close-and-personal with several “survivors” from the mass post-war scrapping of airplanes which defeated Hitler and Japan not so long ago.

The Betty Jane P-51 is a flying survivor from 1945, one of the very few Mustangs outfitted with two seats and dual flight controls (that’s her pictured above in a Collings Foundation photo and below, in one of mine). For $2200 along with a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” attitude, a visitor can reserve a half-hour ride over the San Francisco bay area in that venerable war-bird along with the opportunity of briefly guiding her through a gentle turn or two.

Linda and I took our two young grandsons to Moffett for an afternoon of gawking at and clambering through the foundation’s B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator bombers. These two aircraft were the major weapons used to dismantle Hitler’s war machine by destroying German factories, airfields, and infrastructure. Implementing a revamped allied strategy in late 1943, these four-engine airplanes commenced attacking the civilian populations of Berlin, Hamburg, and Dresden in a successful effort to erode the German people’s support of Hitler’s war effort. The Collings Foundation’s B-24, Witchcraft, is the lone remaining flying example of its genre (close to nineteen-thousand of them were built during the war)!

The B-17 Flying Fortress was the more storied of the two workhorse bombers early in the war, and the Foundation’s Nine O’Nine is a beautiful example. It was anticipated that the multiple 50 caliber machine guns protruding from the aptly named “Fortress” would provide an adequate defense against German fighter-interceptors. That soon proved to be misplaced idealism as the Luftwaffe and flak from the ground took its toll on the “heavies.”

But the airplane on the tour that, as in years past, captured my imagination even more than the others, was the Betty Jane. The P-51 Mustang rapidly became the best friend of the B-17 and B-24 bomber crews who flew mission after mission in large formations from their airfields dotting Great Britain’s countryside. Their destination: Targets deep into German airspace. Earlier in the war, the slow-flying four-engine bombers and their deadly cargo were initially escorted during the long flight into Germany by allied fighter planes like the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, a plane of limited flying range and mediocre maneuverability. Typically, well before the heavy bombers reached their targets over Germany, the fighter escorts were forced to break-off and return to base due to their limited range (fuel). At that point, the bomber formations became sitting ducks for the agile and deadly German fighter planes which came up to meet them.

The P-51 Mustang: Just-In-Time Delivery to Allied Fighter Groups

The deeper the penetration into German airspace, the greater the allied bomber losses. The turning point came during the infamous raid over Regensburg, Germany, where 60 bombers were lost, each with a ten-man crew – 600 men. Just at this critical point, the newly-developed P-51 Mustang reached operational status and became available to the fighter groups based in England. Designed from the get-go to be a superior fighter, the P-51 was just that. With its fine maneuverability and the powerful, in-line, twelve cylinder, liquid-cooled engine conceived by Rolls-Royce but built under license by the Packard motor car company in the United States, the Mustang was superior to its German counterparts, the Messerschmidt Me 109 and the Focke-Wulf 190.

 A German Me 109 caught in the gun cameras of a P-51

 Critically important was the Mustang’s superior range, aided by external, under-the-wing, drop-tanks carrying fuel. Now, the bombers had an escort fighter which could not only accompany them deep into German territory in a defensive, protective posture, but could inflict losses on the Luftwaffe as its pilots attacked the bomber formations. In this dual sense, it can justifiably be said that the P-51 both destroyed the Luftwaffe and won the war by allowing the “heavies” to reach and destroy their targets.

At about that time, allied commanders expanded bombing targets to include the populations of Berlin, Hamburg, and Dresden. Late in the war, General Jimmy Doolittle also famously altered the successful defensive role of the P-51 from solely  a long-range bomber escort by ordering the fighter groups to adopt a more offensive posture, attacking Luftwaffe fighters wherever they could be found. The mandate was to leave the bomber formations, when feasible, and destroy the German interceptors before they could locate and reach and the bombers. Doolittle wanted to strafe and destroy German planes on the ground – at their airfields – when possible. The goal: To gain complete air superiority prior to the planned ground invasions central to D-Day. The Luftwaffe was nowhere to be seen by D-Day, thanks in large part to the effective dual role of the P-51 both as bomber escort and Luftwaffe killer.

Firing-Up the Big Packard Engine of Betty Jane

As my grandsons and I stood outside the roped area, a mere 50 feet from Betty Jane, the pilot fired up the big Packard-built twelve-cylinder engine sporting a large, four-bladed propeller. The pilot yelled “clear” from the cockpit, the big prop started to turn, and the engine came to life after belching smoke and the usual series of backfires. The engine sounded a throaty roar as Betty Jane moved out toward the taxi-way. My grandsons held their ears…I did not and drank it all in. In my mind’s eye, I could imagine the emotions of a pilot on the flight line at Leiston, England, bringing that big engine to life en-route to yet another bomber escort mission over Germany in 1944/45. Despite the huge war effort and all the backing provided by the allies for combat flight operations, out there on the flight line, as the engine coughed, sputtered, roared to life, and the canopy closed, it was one man in one machine – very far from home. The pilot was about to face the uncertainties of weather, navigation, and his enemy counterparts who would be out there, somewhere, waiting for him and the opportunity to shoot him and his machine out of the sky.

For me, it is difficult to conjure up a more daring and exhilarating human experience than that encountered by those flyers in World War II. For them at the time, there surely seemed nothing “romantic” about the deadly task they faced – only a sense of high adventure and “what the hell, I hope I come back from this one!” I have read the late-life accounts of some who flew Mustangs against the German Luftwaffe and lived to tell about it. Despite some surely ugly recollections of killing and death which stubbornly remain, time dulls many of the sharp edges – as it always does – for these men. These flyers are revered by the public for their courage, daring, and skill during wartime, and that is appropriate. Despite old age and the challenges of settling down after flying, these warriors possess indelible and precious memories of that time in their young lives when they and their machines defied the great odds stacked against them. Those who flew the P-51 Mustang, to a man, relate their admiration of and gratitude to the airplane that saw them through.

Lt. Jim Brooks and his P-51, February – 1945

Perhaps next year, when the Collings Foundation tour returns, I will have an extra $2200 to go up in Betty Jane as well as the requisite moxie to do so. I cannot think of a greater, more meaningful thrill.

The Sky Warriors: In Memoriam

Monday, May 27, is Memorial Day, a time to reflect on those living and dead who have served our country. Our debt of gratitude is great to all of them. I am particularly intrigued by those who took to the skies in the Second World War; that period has always fascinated me. As I write this, I am currently reminded of the intrepid sky warriors of that war by the unusual sounds heard overhead the last few days, the unmistakable heavy drone of multi-engine aircraft periodically flying over the house. When not engaged in something pressing, I more often than not drop what I am doing and run out the front or patio door to gawk once more at what I know to be the source – one of the iconic heavy bombers from the 1940’s. I have been doing this drill for some years, now.

The Collings Foundation is back in town for several days with it’s “Wings of Freedom” tour, part of an annual pilgrimage across the country. The tour features one of the few flyable examples left in the world of both the mighty B-17 Flying Fortress and the once ubiquitous B-24 Liberator. It is difficult to resist the urge to run outside to see one of these legendary “warbirds” lumbering fairly low over the neighborhood on early approach to the runway at nearby Moffett Field. The foundation, true to its mission, keeps these icons flying (no small task) by touring the country and charging a nominal admission to walk through the aircraft or $400 for a brief ride in one of them.

 Linda and I made the short trip to Moffett Field a few years ago to see these planes up-close and personal. We chose a weekday, early in the morning when there were few other people out and about other than the daily commute. We were rewarded with a leisurely and thought-provoking, self-guided experience clambering around within the bowels of each of these legendary airplanes. Unlike so many typical “airshow experiences” where the sheer press of people in line behind you necessitates a hurried look before quickly moving on, we were able to linger in the bellies of these beasts and truly visualize, to the limited extent possible, what those intrepid flyers must have felt each and every time they clambered aboard their aircraft for yet another dangerous bombing mission.

 

For many, it was to be their last. Death came quickly in the skies, usually in the form of German fighter aircraft in the skies over Europe or shrapnel from the deadly flak-shell explosions which enveloped these aircraft as they lumbered to and from their targets. Many a crew was lost when a tail or wing was sheared off by shrapnel. In such a situation, the plane quickly spun wildly out of control as it plunged to earth literally pinning the crew within its confines and rendering their parachutes useless.

 What stories they tell, those who survived the overall experience! I recall quite vividly one evening in the mid-1950’s when a very good friend of my father came one evening to visit. He, like dad, was employed at United Airlines and was working his way up the ladder. They had enrolled together in a calculus night class at San Mateo Junior College some years prior. He happened to be in San Francisco on business and was invited to the house for dinner that evening. At my parent’s urging, he recounted his war experiences during dinner. He was flying a B-24 Liberator on a critical and quite famous bombing mission over German territory. Their target was the German oil supply and the Ploesti oil fields.

 His aircraft was shot down by flak as I recall. He parachuted safely down only to be captured by the Germans and held for a considerable period of time. I cannot recall whether he escaped from the prison camp or was ultimately set free after the war. I was but a young teenager at the time of his visit, but I listened intently to his story and asked some questions about his experiences. As interested as I was, it seemed to me at the time that the Second World War was already ancient history, yet what I was hearing had happened a mere ten years prior – oh, the time-warp of youth. Would that I could talk to him today! He later worked his way up the ranks at United Airlines and became a vice-president stationed in Chicago; alas, we rarely saw him after that.

 

Linda and I had the good fortune to meet a volunteer at Moffett Field who, like my dad’s good friend, had plenty of war stories to relate to a gathering throng beneath a wing of the Collings B-24J, Witchcraft, the only one still flying of the original 6,687 J-type aircraft built by Consolidated. He was a bombardier aboard a similar Liberator during the war. You can bet that the appreciative crowd kept him very engaged for the hour-plus we spent listening…and that is how it should be! These flyers, their stories, and their lessons-learned (also known as wisdom and a mature world-view) should be heard, appreciated, and their experiences recorded for future generations. And – just as important – future generations should be encouraged by parents, teachers, and mentors to read these histories and reflect on what such veterans went through. Let us not forget the soldiers and sailors as well; they have their own stories to tell.

 

I just heard in the news that the final reunion of the Doolittle flyers has been held this year. Only three or four remain alive and able to travel. The daring early raids on Tokyo were conducted by Jimmy Doolittle and his men flying medium-range B-25 bombers from the deck of an aircraft carrier in April, 1942 – an unheard-of feat. Although these brave flyers are almost all gone, their stories will live on. Let us not forget such momentous history. 

Have a relaxing and meaningful Memorial Day weekend!

 As a postscript for those interested, Linda has alerted me to a currently best-selling book titled Unbroken, the story of Louis Zamperini who went down in a B-24 Liberator over the Pacific and was held prisoner by the Japanese. Linda has read it and raved about it as has everyone else, apparently. The aviation aspect is only a portion of the total story of this amazing man who still lives in Southern California. So many stories surface in that one life that it is hard to believe, even though they are verified and well documented. I plan to read it.

For you aviation fans and for anyone with an interest in the history, there is a brief documentary (in color) made by the government during the war about the famous B-17,  Memphis Belle – not to be confused with the Hollywood movie of the same name. This one is actual footage filmed in color during her crew’s last (and successful) bombing mission over Germany. Twenty-five such missions got you a ticket home from the war, and this is the documentary story of the B-17 that brought her crew safely back each time. Ride along on that last mission, and you will begin to understand what it was like! I highly recommend it. If you have difficulty finding this, let me know by leaving a reply (comment). I can tell you where I ordered my DVD copy.

 As always, I have no connection with any product which I endorse (other than my own book). My recommendations are based strictly on merit for the benefit of you, the readers.