#1 Piston Fighter was British

ArtKramr wrote:

Subject: #1 Piston Fighter was British
From: (Kevin Brooks)
Date: 6/30/03 12:04 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

(ArtKramr) wrote in message
...

LIke what? The war actually began on D-Day. Everythig before that was a
long
list of trivial attacks like Dieppe that mostly failed.

I can't wait to hear the result of your trying to make such an
outlandish claim to a veteran who had been slogging his way along in
Italy, or who had fought with Eigth Army (BR) in North Africa, when
you try to dump that particular load of fecal matter on him. No to
mention the odd Russian who had already started slogging his way
towards Berlin before we managed to pull off the Normandy landings.
And how about those 8th AF types who were already seeing friends dying
in droves *before* D-Day? Any natural teeth you may still enjoy the
company of will likely be a brief memory should you feel a burning
desire to share such drivel with any of the above.

This reprehensible statement rivals your past mealymouthed mutterings
in regards to how those who served during WWII without seeing combat
in the air over Europe somhow don't meet up to your own high standards
of honorable conduct, how officers are much smarter than enlisted men,
groundcrews did not experience war, etc. Stick to talking about that
small, finite element of the war about which you may have a clue (B-26
air operations in Europe); everytime you meander from that topic you
further reveal how increasingly imbecilic you really are.

Brooks


And your combat experieces were?????

Oh, grow up, Art, you've at least 75 years on this celestial orb.
You've set me off; watch and shoot.

My father, a Canadian resident in Britain, was conscripted (willingly)
into the Royal Navy in January 1940. He, and all his mates, fought
like ****! Fie, that you would devalue their effort. In *human* terms,
it was worth, second-for-second, everything your service was.
Second-for-second, in human terms, they contributed the same to the
defeat of the NAZIs. My father's class (b. 1919) at Lord William's
Grammar School was nearly wiped out à la the tradition of the Somme;
because he chose the navy he was one of the few who survived. He
sailed in the Atlantic and in the Indian, and not while it was easy --
part of his service was in a naval infantry battalion during the
invasion scare of 1940. It is a needless slight to your
brothers-in-arms -- cousins, allies, what ever you want to call them
-- to say that the war started on 6 June 1944.

Anyone who has even held a staff post knows that building an army is
like cultivating asparagus: you go back three years and dig. If you
want to wage a war, you start ten years prior. I will not say that
there was any wilful disregard of the impending storm in Europe on the
part of the U.S. When the U.S. might have been preparing for war, they
were fighting internal demons like the Great Depression. Polities
react to threats as they appear; for the U.S., the threat was not
apparent until later. Its citizens, however, should give credit to
those who did perceive the threat. They are right to chastise those
other polities (the UK and France) for not trouncing those threats
(the Rhineland in '36 and Czechoslovakia in '38) when it might have
saved, quite literally, a world of grief. However, the mistake once
made has to be lived with, and men like my father, ineligible to vote
or to influence effectively the course of event, inherited the hand
fate dealt them.

Anything that could reduce my father to silent tears on 11 November
was out of the normal course of human events; I think it was war, and
i rightly imagine much of it happened before D-Day. I suggest you read
carefully Charles Causeley's "Armistice Day":

I stood with three comrades in Parliament Square
November her freights of grey fire unloading
No sound from the city upon the pale air
Above us the sea-bell eleven exploding.

Down by the bands the burning memorial
Beats all the brass in a royal array.
But at our end we are not so sartorial:
Out of (as usual) the rig of the day.

Starry is wearing a split pusser's flannel
Rubbed, as he is, by the regular tide;
Oxo the ducks that he ditched in the Channel
In June, 1940 (when he was inside).

Kitty recalls his abandon-ship station,
Running below at the Old Man's salute
And (with a deck watch) going down for the duration
Wearing his oppo's pneumonia-suit.

Comrades, for you the black captain of carracks
Writes in Whitehall his appalling decisions
But as was often the case in the Barracks
Several ratings are not at Divisions.

Into my eyes the stiff sea-horses stare,
Over my head sweeps the sun like a swan.
As I stand alone in Parliament Square
A cold bugle calls, and the city moves on.

Art, come to Ottawa some time and I will give you a tour of how the
World Wars still create a turbulence beneath the surface of everything
that happens in the Canadian galaxy. Call me, I'm in the book.
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)

"Andrew Chaplin" wrote in message
...

My father, a Canadian resident in Britain, was conscripted (willingly)
into the Royal Navy in January 1940. He, and all his mates, fought
like ****! Fie, that you would devalue their effort. In *human* terms,
it was worth, second-for-second, everything your service was.
Second-for-second, in human terms, they contributed the same to the
defeat of the NAZIs. My father's class (b. 1919) at Lord William's
Grammar School was nearly wiped out à la the tradition of the Somme;
because he chose the navy he was one of the few who survived. He
sailed in the Atlantic and in the Indian, and not while it was easy --
part of his service was in a naval infantry battalion during the
invasion scare of 1940. It is a needless slight to your
brothers-in-arms -- cousins, allies, what ever you want to call them
-- to say that the war started on 6 June 1944.


I don't mean to be a stickler for accuracy, but Art didn't say the war
started on 6 June 1944, he said it began on D-Day. Art believes D-Day was
June 5th.

Subject: #1 Piston Fighter was British
From: av8r
Date: 6/30/03 5:38 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

Hi Art

The following B-26 Marauder-equipped units of the 9th Air Force bombed
Utah Beach:

344th BG (Medium)
386th BG (Medium)
387th BG (Medium)

A total of 290 Marauders dropped 550 tons of assorted ordnance on the
beach with incredible accuracy. Bombing altitudes ranged from 1,600 to
3,000 feet depending on the cloud base.

As you know only 12 members of the 4th Infantry Division died on the
beach. Surprisingly, this was less than the number who died while
training back in England for the landing.

Cheers...Chris


Chris,

Thanks for all that good stuff. I appreciate it. And thanks for putting the
344th first. We did lead the way for the 9th Air Force that morning. Do you
have any record of the 322nd having been there? I always thought they went in
with us. All and any material on the 344th on D-day is very welcome. My
experioenceis form the nose of "Wil;lie the Wolf" but I never read any books on
the subject./
Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

In article ,
(The Revolution Will Not Be Televised) writes:
On Sun, 29 Jun 2003 22:19:23 +0200, "Emmanuel Gustin"
wrote:

Even the Spitfire XVI was powered by the American-built
Merlin.

Yes, but that was the exception. AFAIK most of Packard's
production for the RAF was single-stage Merlins for bombers.

And that was in September/October 1944, on one production line at the
Castle Bromwich factory at a time when the British were still
producing Mk IXs and Griffon-engined Mk XIVs. The Packard-Merlins in
Lancaster B.IIIs and Kittyhawk IIs were much more significant in terms
of their impact on British operational policy.

Gavin,
I don't wish to sound argumentative, but wouldn't it be more fair to
say that the Packard Merlins i Lancaster B.IIIs and various flavors
of Mosquito were more significant. I'm not trying to cut down the
Kittyhawk IIs again, but I think that everybody except, perhaps
those in the CBI Theater had pretty much decided by 1943 that P-40
based airframes weren't the best option available. As a point of
information, how long did teh Kittyhawk IIs stay in service? There
seemed to ba a rapid turnover of fighter types in North Africa in
'42 and '43, and I've seen information that indicates that the
Kittyhawk IIs in the RAAF Squadrons that wwere in North Africa were
replaces with Kittyhawk IIIs (P-40Ks and Ms) in relatively short
order. Could you please shed some light on this?

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

"ArtKramr" wrote

We did lead the way for the 9th Air Force that morning.

They sent the bombers in before the transports carrying the
82nd and 101st? Weren't those transports in the 9th?

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...

I never read any books on the subject.


It shows.

In article ,
"Ed Majden" writes:

"Richard Brooks" Long live the memory of the Spitfire and our
Merlins!


The Spits are famed for winning the Battle of Britain. The Mustangs
are
famed for winning the war.

Ahh, those Merlins again! ;-)


The P51 wasn't a high performance fighter until the Brits installed the
RR Merlin in it. This increased speed and performance making the Mustang a
top long range fighter.

You might want to look into that a little bit deeper. All P-51s, (and
A-36s, and F-6As) were pretty damned high performance in their effective
altitude bands, faster cruising adn better accelerating at high speeds
than the than the contemporary Spitfire Vs and IXs. (Long tange
cruise at about 170 mph IAS vice 160 mph IAS for the Spits note that
that's indicated airspeed, which is the Sea Level equivalant of the
airplane's True Airspeed, which is higher as altitude increases, due
to the decreasing air pressure at altitude.) At low altitudes, a
P-51A or A-36 were quite high performers, better even than the V1650-3
engined P-51Bs. They were quite capable of dealing with the Fw 190As
of the time. In the Mediterranean Theater, the lower critical
altitudes of the engines wasn't as much of a factor, most combat
taking place at altitudes below 15,000'. It's worth noting that,
until the introduction of the 2-stage/2-speed Merlin 61 in the Spit
IX, Merlin/SPitfire critical altitudes were dropping as well, from
16,000'+ for the Spit I's Merlin III, , to 13,000' for the Spit II's
Merlin XII, , to 9250' for the Merlin 45 on the Mk V, and, later 3700'
for the cropped supercharger Merlin 45M for the Spit L.F V.
Merlin 45 engined Spit Vs, The Mistangs (and A-36s) could carry a
useful load as a fighter-bomber, and even without the extra fuselage
tank fitted to many B models, had an astonishing amount of range. The
first RAF firgters to reach Germany from Britain were Allison-engined
Mustang Is, in mid 1942, and they roamed all over Western Europe
shooting up whatever targets of opportunity came along.

The Spits did not have the range to be an effective long range bomber escort
but it was an excellent fighter. During the Battle of Britain the Spits
generally went after the fighter while the Hurricanes dealt with the
bombers.

The Spit certainly was an excellent fighter, and it had a lot of
stretch. I do find the claim that "Spitfires were sent after Figters
in the Battle of Britain, and Hurricanes after bombers" a bit dubious.
Especially with the command and control systems available at the time,
you don't get to pick and choose that way. Raides were intercepted by
whatever was available. The kill figures, vis-a-vis Fighters
vs. Bombers really don't differ all that much between Spitfires &
Hurricanes. What was more important was teh elimination of the
unweildy and worthless setpiece Fighter Attack tactics, which would
have casue crippling losses even if the RAF were flying Zeta Reticulan
Flying Discs. An excellent airplane doesn't make up for very bad tactics.
--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

Subject: #1 Piston Fighter was British
From: "Wolfie"
Date: 6/30/03 8:35 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id: m


"ArtKramr" wrote

We did lead the way for the 9th Air Force that morning.

They sent the bombers in before the transports carrying the
82nd and 101st? Weren't those transports in the 9th?



Transports are not combat aircraft. We led the combat units of the 9th on that
morning. If you live near Stansted airport, see the plaque dedicated to the
344th that states that we led the charge for the 9th that morning. Stansted
airport was built for the 344th. Thy cleared and leveled a cowpasture, threw
down a runway put up a load of Neissen huts and we had an instant airfield.


Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Subject: #1 Piston Fighter was British
From: "Steven P. McNicoll"
Date: 6/30/03 8:44 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id: nk.net


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...

I never read any books on the subject.


It shows.


I was there. I looked for you but didn't see you, where were you? Read a
thousand books. You still won' t have the feeling of what it was all about..

Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

"ArtKramr" wrote

We did lead the way for the 9th Air Force that morning.

They sent the bombers in before the transports carrying the
82nd and 101st? Weren't those transports in the 9th?

Transports are not combat aircraft. We led the combat units of the
9th on that morning.

The AF has always considered transports carrying paratroops
to drops to be aircraft fulfilling a combat role. What other
definition for "combat aircraft" is realistic? Sure, they need
fighter protection (or to fly at night), but so do/did most
bombers...

If you live near Stansted airport, see the plaque dedicated to the
344th that states that we led the charge for the 9th that morning.

Well, you know what they say about learning things from reading...

The 344th, AFAIK, led the *bombing* raids for the 9th on D-Day.

Doesn't the 9th AF Official History says a transport unit spearheaded
the 9th's efforts that day?