WWII in color: Rare photos from 1942 show Flying Fortress

MailOnLine ^ | 03/19/13 | Snejana Farberov

[Doogle]

Millions of poignant black-and-white photos have come out of the World War Two era, but it is not often that scenes from the deadliest conflict in human history can be seen in living color.

In 1942, LIFE Magazine sent Margaret Bourke-White, one of its four original staff photographers and the first female photojournalist accredited to cover WWII, to take pictures of the VIII Bomber Command, commonly known as the Eighth Air Force or The Mighty 8th.

The photographs, executed in brilliant hues that make them look almost like oil paintings, put on full display the massive American B-24s and B-17s - or Flying Fortresses - that rained terror on Nazi-control cities often in tandem with the Royal Air Force.

In the early stages of the war, the Eighth Air Force and the bombers under its command were praised for the 'fantastic accuracy' of the attacks.

But as the conflict dragged on, the Flying Fortresses and their crews would face heavy loses, the most dramatic of which came in October 1943 when 60 bombers were destroyed and 600 pilots perished in a single raid in Germany.

[jmacusa]

Was that the one at Allaire Airport in Wall Township? That was the one I saw. Tight isn’t the word. My God how those guys managed to get into those planes wearing those bulky flight suits and a parachute!

[jmacusa]

Hubba Hubba! My favorite ‘’nose gal’’ on a B-17 was a scantily clad cutie named ‘’Miss Bea Haven.’’

[Doogle]

...same group the week before, up in Morristown, *smiles*
I thought I became part of the group when I got wedged between the two uprights in the bomb bay.

[antceecee]

My Father in Law passed away yesterday. He was a WWII radio man and gunner on B17 - crew called it “Pride of the Yankees”... shot down over Switzerland and interned. He and buddies escaped across the Alps and ended up with the French underground. He was a true hero... he saved a fellow crew members life who had been severely injured by flak. An amazing man. He gave us a recording of an interview that the daughter of the Pilot of his plane made with him in May of 2001... four tapes. My husband and I listened to this today and it brought back the enormity of what this man who was just barely in his twenties did to protect this country. He was shot down April 13, 1944 and he passed away on April 13, 2013. I guess this was one battle he couldn’t best.

[antceecee]

My Father in Law’s Pilot was 22. You are right about the youth involved here....and they embraced the mission and sought to win.

[jmacusa]

My condolences for your fathers passing. I thank him for my freedom. Sadly but as it is all in Gods grand design day by day, we're losing the hero's, the men and women who fought and struggled , bled and died that we today can enjoy the freedoms that they, the “Greatest Generation’’ defended and secured for all of us. They were young once and had the war not happened their lives would have gone on to the normal, even mundane of going to college or getting a job, getting married and raising children. Instead they were called on as no generation had ever been, before or since, to defeat pure evil and imperialist aggression such as the world had never seen in the single most cataclysmic, brutal and life-altering event in mans existence to date.And as a repudiation of the evil and the horror and death that is war the young men, like your late father, and the young women came home and were responsible for the single greatest population boom in the history of the world. War may destroy but it's love that conquers.

[ken5050]

Your FIL had a full, rich life..he was about 90 when he passed, and was married, had kids, and got to see grand children and maybe great kids. Celebrate, rejoice in his life.

What is just staggering, and awe-inspiring to me is that when we consider that the casualty rate for 8th AF and RAF Bomber command was 65%, and the KIA was above 25%, a 25 mission tour was a near-suicide assignment, yet they went up, and back up day after day.

[Vigilantcitizen]

For the Colonel...and Mr.Bob Reid....Two b-17 pilots we lost this year from Legion post 216...Austell, Ga.

[Sirius Lee]

When it comes to admiring these legendary war birds, it's hard for me to do more than choose a top ten in no particular order. Like a doting mother, I can't seem to choose one over another :-)

Agreed. Anytime there's an airshow and there's a F4U, or Mustang, or (rare) Lightning, or B-17 or B-29 at the show, I am well pleased. I have not seen a Spitfire live and up close, alas, and it is in my top 5 of most beautiful aircraft ever made, alongside the big Connie (if we include aircraft from all eras).

But back to WWII...I know she's the ugly, redheaded stepchild of fighters, but to me she's pretty to me - not hollywood beautiful, but like the cute girl you see in church one day with the great personality that you end up marrying. I speak of course about the Hurricane. They shot down 3 Germans for every 2 that Spits shot down.

[Sirius Lee]

And speaking of plain Jane Hurricane, the U.S. started the war with it's own undersung hero - the P-40

And here's a color photo allegedly from China from the war of a P-40 shooting down a zero.

[Windflier]

...the big Connie

Here's one in military camo:

A U.S. Air Force Lockheed EC-121R Constellation of the 553rd Reconnaissance Wing over Southeast-Asia on 15 January 1969.

[Windflier]

I have not seen a Spitfire live and up close, alas, and it is in my top 5 of most beautiful aircraft ever made...

I consider myself lucky to have seen a Spitfire live and up close once in this life. I was working in southern England in the late eighties, and was invited to an air show during a short break.

Of all the enjoyments I experienced that day, only one remains fresh in my memory, and that's when a Spitfire came roaring over the grandstands at low altitude. I can't even begin to describe the awesome effect of pure power that thing put out. It was magical.

[jmacusa]

To me the B-17 was the coolest, most beautiful looking airplane ever built, beautiful and deadly. A more potent symbol of righteous American might and the technology and craftmenship America could produce. It’s been my honor to have known three men who flew aboard B-17s and to a man they all told me that they’re today “By the Grace of God and that plane’’. It could take tremendous punishment and still keep flying. I’m just in awe of it. This nation owes a great debt to these men and to the Boeing family.

[antceecee]

He spoke about the casualties on his interview tapes... he kept repeating it to the interviewer... the death count when a squadron was taken out. He spoke about the crewman who had his leg and hip muscle splayed by flak and how he tried to give him first aid and then morphine. They parachuted the guy into Switzerland and he lived through it (they did something so his chute would open, I couldn’t understand it on the tape). May not have if our Pop had not have done what he could. Amazing that he could think while taking flak and the plane going down. I looked at the age Pop was at the time... He was born in June of 1925 and this happened in April 1944... He was just shy of turning 20.

[antceecee]

I think they were the “greatest generation” precisely because they embraced their duty to defend our freedom and fight evil ...and they were so very young when they embraced this mission. Not like today when we call 19 year olds ‘children’ and they need to be on Mommy and Daddy’s health care plan... because they are too ‘young’ to provide for themselves. What a long way we have fallen.

[garandgal]

Amazing...what a hero he was! We are in a business where we “find” written journals and things of that nature.

Many times, we have found flight diaries from the guys on the planes...detailing which planes went down during a certain mission (and which of their friends were on board). Usually says something like “Red’s plane hit over XXX, went down..we counted two or three chutes.”

One in particular really hit home to me. This airman was a turret gunner and he watched as his good friend’s plane went down. He wrote a screed about it at the end of the day in his diary. I was so upset reading it that I nearly cried. HOWEVER, later we discovered a letter from the “lost” friend dated just after the War. Turns out he did survive, had been in a Prison Camp, and was writing from a Hospital on the West Coast to let his buddy know he was OK.
I was “dancing” around when I found this letter...telling my husband “Look! He Made It!”

Just think of what those very young people did! Your FIL saved guys who went on to have kids, grandkids, great grandkids and who probably contributed greatly to society. My Great Aunt was a WAC nurse overseas...I’m sure she did her share too. Sadly, she died of cancer before I was old enough to ask her.

My sympathies for your loss; and my thanks for sharing a little of him with us.

[antceecee]

His papers have his flight diary and he lamented not being able to locate his journal that he kept from the day he entered the service. I hope my husband will be able to locate it. He did write several essays about what he went through right after his return to US in late 1944. I wish I could share his story. I am going to seek out a way to do that.