Fly Boy ?????

"Gordon" a écrit dans le message de
...
.. Opposite is when another Mossie
took a terminal hit at 33,000' and the escape hatch jammed. The pilot
stayed
in down to 6 grand, waiting on the Nav to escape and only at that point
did he
direct the Nav to follow him out the top hatch (the pilot had to be out of
his
seat for the Nav to use his overhead hatch). In that case, the pilot
perished,
while his Nav hit the ground after two swings in his 'chute.


There was also this Free French pilot of the Normandie-Niémen squadron, on
the russian front. As he was approaching a new airfield at the end of a
relocation flight, his Yak had a major engine malfunction. Despite formal
orders from both French and Russians officers to jump and save his life, he
refused to bail out and therefore abandon his Russian mechanic he was
transporting in the rear tank of his plane. Both perished.

His name was Maurice De Seynes.

ArVa

Subject: Fly Boy ?????
From: "ArVa"
Date: 10/22/03 3:11 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

"Gordon" a écrit dans le message de
...
. Opposite is when another Mossie
took a terminal hit at 33,000' and the escape hatch jammed. The pilot
stayed
in down to 6 grand, waiting on the Nav to escape and only at that point
did he
direct the Nav to follow him out the top hatch (the pilot had to be out of
his
seat for the Nav to use his overhead hatch). In that case, the pilot
perished,
while his Nav hit the ground after two swings in his 'chute.


There was also this Free French pilot of the Normandie-Niémen squadron, on
the russian front. As he was approaching a new airfield at the end of a
relocation flight, his Yak had a major engine malfunction. Despite formal
orders from both French and Russians officers to jump and save his life, he
refused to bail out and therefore abandon his Russian mechanic he was
transporting in the rear tank of his plane. Both perished.

His name was Maurice De Seynes.

ArVa


A name to remember.
Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

From: Art Kramer:

One further comment. When a
crew has to hit the silk, the pilot is not the first to go, he is always the
last to go. Thus the questions.


Here's an example of how, except for some luck, the pilots would have bailed
out and the three crewmen in back would have gone down with the ship (from an
unpublished memoir):

"Our approach to Piombino Harbor was from the south. I guess one of the things
that the weatherman did not count on was that the wind blew in the opposite
direction from our attack approach and we were heading into the wind instead of
going with it. This obviously meant that our ground speed had been cut down
considerably, leaving us sitting ducks for Germans fire. As we made our IP and
turned for the bomb run, the flak started. It was terribly accurate, no
brackets, just hits.
Surprisingly, no one aboard our ship was even scratched, amazing in
itself! Others in our formation were not so lucky. Our box [of six planes] lost
3 aircraft over the target that day, two got back to Corsica and one was
missing at sea. The two that made it back were so badly battered they were
junked and used for spare parts.
The enemy flak was very accurate and we were in the lead element. One, two
and three. The German 88's had us nailed! The lead ship nosed over and went
down, the number two aircraft made a sharp diving left turn and it never did
recover from that dive while we banked abruptly making a diving right turn and
finally did pull out close to a hundred feet off the ocean.
There were three of us gunners in the back, behind the bomb bay, of this
model B-25. The tail gunner, radio gunner, and the top turret gunner. So when I
climbed over the bomb bay to see what was going on up front I really startled
the pilots a lot. One cannot see the pilots from the back of the ship unless
you literally climb over the bomb bay to the front. It seems that they had
punched the bail out bell but it had been shot out and didn't work. Since they
thought all the gunners had bailed out over the target they were preparing to
bail out themselves and were very surprised to see me.
We headed in limping fashion toward Corsica. The red flashes and bangs
meant the flak bursts had been close and they certainly were, as inspection of
our ship bore out upon landing. One engine, ailerons and rudder controls had
been shot out as well as the hydraulic system controlling the lowering of our
wheels. When I tried to use the emergency system by manually pumping the wheels
down, it didn't work either so we made a wheels up landing. We flew back from
Italy on a single, sputtering, smoking engine.
As we approached the downwind end of the field this remaining engine gave
up and the pilot had to bring her straight in or else. The last thing I
remember seeing (before ducking into my crash landing position), was another
B-25 landing on the metal runway heading directly toward us and looking like we
were going to crash. Our pilot really took care of us that day with much skill
and daring. But I have often thought about if I had delayed a few seconds
before crawling forward to see what was up."



Chris Mark

Subject: Fly Boy ?????
From: ost (Chris Mark)
Date: 10/22/03 5:42 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

From: Art Kramer:

One further comment. When a
crew has to hit the silk, the pilot is not the first to go, he is always
the
last to go. Thus the questions.


Here's an example of how, except for some luck, the pilots would have bailed
out and the three crewmen in back would have gone down with the ship (from an
unpublished memoir):

"Our approach to Piombino Harbor was from the south. I guess one of the
things
that the weatherman did not count on was that the wind blew in the opposite
direction from our attack approach and we were heading into the wind instead
of
going with it. This obviously meant that our ground speed had been cut down
considerably, leaving us sitting ducks for Germans fire. As we made our IP
and
turned for the bomb run, the flak started. It was terribly accurate, no
brackets, just hits.
Surprisingly, no one aboard our ship was even scratched, amazing in
itself! Others in our formation were not so lucky. Our box [of six planes]
lost
3 aircraft over the target that day, two got back to Corsica and one was
missing at sea. The two that made it back were so badly battered they were
junked and used for spare parts.
The enemy flak was very accurate and we were in the lead element. One,
two
and three. The German 88's had us nailed! The lead ship nosed over and went
down, the number two aircraft made a sharp diving left turn and it never did
recover from that dive while we banked abruptly making a diving right turn
and
finally did pull out close to a hundred feet off the ocean.
There were three of us gunners in the back, behind the bomb bay, of this
model B-25. The tail gunner, radio gunner, and the top turret gunner. So when
I
climbed over the bomb bay to see what was going on up front I really startled
the pilots a lot. One cannot see the pilots from the back of the ship unless
you literally climb over the bomb bay to the front. It seems that they had
punched the bail out bell but it had been shot out and didn't work. Since
they
thought all the gunners had bailed out over the target they were preparing to
bail out themselves and were very surprised to see me.
We headed in limping fashion toward Corsica. The red flashes and bangs
meant the flak bursts had been close and they certainly were, as inspection
of
our ship bore out upon landing. One engine, ailerons and rudder controls had
been shot out as well as the hydraulic system controlling the lowering of our
wheels. When I tried to use the emergency system by manually pumping the
wheels
down, it didn't work either so we made a wheels up landing. We flew back from
Italy on a single, sputtering, smoking engine.
As we approached the downwind end of the field this remaining engine
gave
up and the pilot had to bring her straight in or else. The last thing I
remember seeing (before ducking into my crash landing position), was another
B-25 landing on the metal runway heading directly toward us and looking like
we
were going to crash. Our pilot really took care of us that day with much
skill
and daring. But I have often thought about if I had delayed a few seconds
before crawling forward to see what was up."



Chris Mark

Great story Chris. Did the pilots check the gunners on the intercom before
they assumed they had bailed out?

Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

In article ,
ost (Chris Mark) wrote:

From: Cub Driver look

Mr. West refers to grenades as "hand
bombs", and it's not because he doesn't know better. He was a platoon
leader in Vietnam. I assume he decided to make things easier for the
modern reader.

Or his editor did. On a book I am working on in every instance where I wrote
"radial" engine, some genius changed it to "circular."

Maybe your editor is using the same software package that some major
newspapers have been using that does suggests word substitutions in some
cases, ostensibly to improve readability (or something). Unfortunately,
one example of its behavior was to suggest replacing every occurance of
the word "black" with "African-American".

Or so the story goes.

I think he lived up to his responsibility to the helpless passenger - thanks
for sharing his story, Arva

Or his editor did. On a book I am working on in every instance where I
wrote
"radial" engine, some genius changed it to "circular."

Maybe your editor is using the same software package that some major
newspapers have been using that does suggests word substitutions in some
cases, ostensibly to improve readability (or something). Unfortunately,
one example of its behavior was to suggest replacing every occurance of
the word "black" with "African-American".

Or so the story goes.

My first version of Word would offer some of the most amazing substitutions -
for every use of "penal", it would offer "penis" and similar faux-pasian words.

G

From: (ArtKramr)


Anyone with combat experience is familiar with the pilot goes last tradition.
Once you hear that the pilot suivived but the crew was lost a few hundred
thousand aircrew all get their suspicions aroused. It is the normal natural
response for those with combat experience. Only inexperienced wannabees would
look at it any other way.
Arthur Kramer

This has been an interesting thread,,,,,but........

I can't get one particular piece of footage out of my head. It is the film of
that silver (non painted) B-24 somewhere over Italy (I think, but my memory is
starting to really suck) taking a flak hit right around the number 2 engine
with the almost instant crumpling of the wing right at that engine. The plane
IMMEDIATELY begins its fall as the gas tank ruptures and fire breaks out at the
wing root.

Within 4 or 5 seconds, this aircraft was in a death spiral, probably with
enough G force to pin most of the crew against their compartment walls.

There wasn't a damn thing this pilot could do to "fly" this airplane...he was
merely a passenger soon after the wing separated and control was completely
lost.

I can only imagine that the pilot called a bailout, and after that it was
"every man for himself" because this plane WAS NOT flying anymore. If anybody
got out of it alive, I'd certainly be surprised.

Now, IF the pilot got out and was the only one to survive that incident, I
guess it would seem sort of suspect to the rest of the unit's guys with respect
to the "pilot goes last tradition", but in the actual course of events, "stuff"
happened....and happened really, really fast. I'd say anybody who wasn't out of
that aircraft within ten or fifteen seconds (max) probably died in it.

To second guess the decisions of any person caught in such a circumstance,
wherein life changed in the blink of an eye, could possibly result in a
slanderous injustice to that person......although, when all is considered in a
war zone wherein death, mutilation, and crippling are occurring on an
industrial scale, a slander is the pettiest of an injustice one can suffer.

Just an observation.
Dave

Subject: Fly Boy ?????
From: (Dav1936531)
Date: 10/22/03 8:27 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

From: (ArtKramr)


Anyone with combat experience is familiar with the pilot goes last
tradition.
Once you hear that the pilot suivived but the crew was lost a few hundred
thousand aircrew all get their suspicions aroused. It is the normal natural
response for those with combat experience. Only inexperienced wannabees would
look at it any other way.
Arthur Kramer

This has been an interesting thread,,,,,but........

I can't get one particular piece of footage out of my head. It is the film of
that silver (non painted) B-24 somewhere over Italy (I think, but my memory
is
starting to really suck) taking a flak hit right around the number 2 engine
with the almost instant crumpling of the wing right at that engine. The plane
IMMEDIATELY begins its fall as the gas tank ruptures and fire breaks out at
the
wing root.

Within 4 or 5 seconds, this aircraft was in a death spiral, probably with
enough G force to pin most of the crew against their compartment walls.

There wasn't a damn thing this pilot could do to "fly" this airplane...he was
merely a passenger soon after the wing separated and control was completely
lost.

I can only imagine that the pilot called a bailout, and after that it was
"every man for himself" because this plane WAS NOT flying anymore. If anybody
got out of it alive, I'd certainly be surprised.

Now, IF the pilot got out and was the only one to survive that incident, I
guess it would seem sort of suspect to the rest of the unit's guys with
respect
to the "pilot goes last tradition", but in the actual course of events,
"stuff"
happened....and happened really, really fast. I'd say anybody who wasn't out
of
that aircraft within ten or fifteen seconds (max) probably died in it.

To second guess the decisions of any person caught in such a circumstance,
wherein life changed in the blink of an eye, could possibly result in a
slanderous injustice to that person......although, when all is considered in
a
war zone wherein death, mutilation, and crippling are occurring on an
industrial scale, a slander is the pettiest of an injustice one can suffer.

Just an observation.
Dave


True. But he still would be suspect since most would not know the details fo
the loss. When a crew is lost and only a pilot survives, questions will be
asked no matter what.

Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

From Art Kramer:

To second guess the decisions of any person caught in such a circumstance,
wherein life changed in the blink of an eye, could possibly result in a
slanderous injustice to that person......although, when all is considered in
a
war zone wherein death, mutilation, and crippling are occurring on an
industrial scale, a slander is the pettiest of an injustice one can suffer.

Just an observation.
Dave

True. But he still would be suspect since most would not know the details fo
the loss. When a crew is lost and only a pilot survives, questions will be
asked no matter what.

On March 20, 1945 on a mission to Campo, near the Austrian border, B25J
#327487 received a direct hit by an 88MM shell and went down. Crew included
Mack Coneglio, Granger McKinnan, Racetlo and Zawestowski. Mack (pilot) was the
sole survivor and spent the remainder of the war in Mooseburg Prison Camp.
So instances of only the pilot surviving as a matter of luck did occur. Of
course, in most cases no one knew who--if any--of a crew that went down over
enemy territory survived. They just weren't around anymore.


Chris Mark