BOAC 777

I am pretty sure I heard this story before, but I came across a mention of it recently and was intrigued all over again.  There are tons of these little WWII stories out there.

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Sign this petition

The petition is to get Ed Dyess the Medal of Honor.  Please go here and click the link to sign the petition.

Operation Ju-jitsu

I had never heard of this.  Interesting story.

Book review: Images of Aviation Bowman Field

Book review: Images of Aviation Bowman Field
Author: Charles W. Arrington
Arcadia Publishing
128 pgs, numerous B & W photos
ISBN: 978-1-4671-2699-1

Those of us who live in Louisville, KY think of Bowman Field as the general aviation airport for Louisville.  The one in the heart of town with the beautiful 1930s terminal.  However, as Charles “Charlie” Arrington knows there is much more to Bowman Field than that.  Charlie comes by this love of history naturally, and he spent his career as a history teacher.  Charlie, a former longtime MMCL member, has an encyclopedic knowledge of Louisville’s aviation history.

This book is clearly a labor of love.  It starts with this history of Bowman Field as nothing more than a farm field on the far outskirts of Louisville in the around 1920.  The first aircraft recorded to have landed at the new airfield was a Canadian built JN-4 Canuck.  Bowman Field grew along with the rapid expansion of aviation technology and before long there were hangers, paved runways and regular airline service to destinations all over the US.  This is all documented thru an amazing collection of period photographs.  This is one of my favorite periods in aviation history, and it is really neat to see all the different 1920s and 1930s aircraft which passed thru Louisville.  Charles Lindberg and the Spirit of St. Louis was one such aircraft, and, of course, Charlie has the photos to document the occasion.

The next big event in the history of Bowman Field is the outbreak of WWII.  Like many civilian airfields, Bowman Field became a training base.  Bowman specialized in training glider pilots and was the home base of the airborne nurses program.  This period saw a rapid expansion of the field’s facilities.  As you would think, much of this wartime effort was well documented in photos and Charlie has gathered the best ones and included them in this book.

It is in the postwar period that Louisville’s current commercial airport was established.  Staniford Field became the commercial airport, which relegated Bowman Field to the status of a general aviation airport.  While this was a change, it didn’t mean that history wasn’t happening at Bowman, and again this postwar development is well recorded in many black and white photos.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough.  It is fascinating, and has enough great photos to provide hours of interesting browsing.  I purchased my autographed copy directly from the author for $20.

Norway 1940

A really nice high level analysis of the British failures in the 1940 Norway campaign.  I don’t think it lays enough blame at the feet of Churchill, who deserves a huge amount of blame, but nonetheless it is a good overview.

February MMCL meeting

My local IPMS chapter, MMCL held its February meeting last Thursday.  Sorry about taking so long to get this it.  The meeting was great.  If you have an IPMS chapter near you, I urge you to attend and join.  Also, join IPMS/USA.  This meeting we had a guest speaker who works for the Department of the Army, identifying and recovering remains of MIA soldiers.  It was an amazing talk.

 

Also, we had some great models brought in by the members.  Here are a few shots.

WWI German war plans

An interesting discussion/analysis of the WWI Imperial German war plans here.  Worth a read.

The passing of a hero

I meant to post this last year.  One of the American volunteers that help found the Israeli Air Force passed last year.  In addition, Mitchell Flint was also a US Navy flyer in WWII. He flew the F4U with the US, and the Avia S-199, Spitfire and Mustang in combat with the Israeli Air Force.

Campaign for North Africa

I actually owned this game.  This is a great article.

The Cuban Missile crisis

A nice article on the crisis.