Oh man, there's just something about the drooping stance of that beast that speaks to me. Next to the iconic B-17, it's one of my favorite war birds.
Posted on 03/19/2013 5:44:56 PM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Humble thanks. And thanks to the men who flew them and won us our freedom.
Oh man, there's just something about the drooping stance of that beast that speaks to me. Next to the iconic B-17, it's one of my favorite war birds.
Hah! That's definitely got me beat!
Gotta love that ‘nose art!’ Yeah they were not PC back then, now you probably would get a court martial for being insensitive towards females.
Or the P-38:
She caught fire in flight in Il 2011 but landed safely. I don't that she was based anywhere once she was restored; I think she was on a perpetual tour.
Definitely one of the top ten pin ups.
Yeah, I saw that posted further down in the thread. What a tragic loss.
I still use my Mamiya twin lens reflex. Film processing is problematic.
I learned on a Yashica D TLR camera. Very high quality, both of them.
Another kinda neat site to check out is:
http://www.thirdreichruins.com/ lot of before and after pics
Ya. My dad spent the entire war in the PTO, but wouldn’t buy VW. Or as he puts it any ‘Damn Jap car”
Funny how having someone trying to kill you for 4 years can color your outlook...
He’ll get over it.
Liberty Bell survived the forced landing with little damage, but the fire crew were afraid their truck would get stuck in the wet field, and after they heard all the passengers had gotten out, they decided not to risk getting their truck stuck and just let her burn.
P-38 .....my father’s plane. So proud.
You’re probably thinking of the Avro Shackleton, which isn’t a Lancaster but rather a third or fourth generation evolution of the Lancaster, powered by Griffon engines.
They were mainly ASW/Patrol aircraft, until the Nimrod came into service. Some were used as AEW platforms into the late 1980s or early 90s, their retirement postponed by the delays and cancellation of the Nimrod AEW. They were replaced by the RAF version of the E-3 Sentry.
Along with flashbacks of trapping shots aboard angled deck supercarriers loaded with F-4 Phantoms and A-6 Intruders.
Plus WW2 nurses wearing tailored form fitting uniforms and Farrah Fawcett style feathered hairdos.
BOY-ING-TON!!!!!
Now that you mention it, I should have remembered that it was a much newer plane with Lancaster heritage.
This is less colorful but it meant something to me.
My dad was in the Navy, (the German fighting part was in the Normandy invasion) and he spent most of the war fighting the Japanese from a well known light cruiser that earned combat fame, during the 1990s I got to tour a Japanese destroyer in San Diego, it also gave me that strange feeling.
The most beautiful airplane of all time, for my money though, was this:
The British Spitfire.
Hard to argue with that pick, but of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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 :-)
damn... i had to look twice to see them
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