Jules Horowitz

Thanks Moggy.

Cheers Jules! It was amazing reading your stories here.

Thank you for the reminder, Moggy. A glass will be raised this evening in his memory. Wha’s like us, and all that.

Adrian

Just a note that this valued contributor, who passed away in August 2014, would have been celebrating his birthday today.

Those who didn’t read his stories of B17s in the Med would be well rewarded by a search of his postings.

Cheers Jules

Chris,
While I was in the 99th the logo was as the above picture. Later, the logo changed, it was a large diamond,I think it was yellow with a large Y inserted, the 4 sqdns were numbered 1 to 4 roman numbers.
There is a club (CONDORS) that fly radio controlled models, One of the people built a B17 1/12th scale, he can make the plane have smoke trailing an engine, retractable landing gear. The owner said that it took him 3 years to build, at a cost of $10,000,
This past or next July (I forget, senior moment) it will be in the Smithsonion Museum,
He said that his next project is to build a B24

Those are wonderful. Yes, any details on context would be great. Those engines make me think we could learn something from the modellers in terms of distressing our restored aircraft as they would have been in service. I’m sure its done elsewhere but I’m struggling to think of Duxford examples as I write this. Our B-17 is getting there I suppose, with the cowlings open and guys working on the engines. But you rarely see the really dirty stuff that’s evident in photographs and video.

Jules, did you know an almost identical (larger version) photo ended up here? http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/wwii/photos/gallery_006/B17-Vienna-ack.jpg
(I got the link from Dave Homewood´s B-17-Caption-Competition-Thread.)

I think I can even see the “Y in the Diamond” marking on some B-17s! It seems to be black, but maybe due to the type of film used…? Or had each squadron a diamond in a different color?

Edit: Amazing, about 10 years ago, I built a 72nd scale B-17G model named “2nd Patches” … 99th Bomb Group, Tortorella, Italy …

B 17 /with flak

I don’t have the date of the photo
I think that this was taken over the target, Weiner Neustadt. Note the open bomb bay doors on distant plane, Also notice the probable flak dents in the nearby wing.
I flew to WN in Nov 2 1943 from Tunis 1007/906=1913 miles, we were aloft close to 14 hours. We staged to land in Sicily for an overnight, get enough fuel to return to base next AM. I slept under the bombay, in the AM the engines were preflighted, I was about 25 feet distant and never heard a sound, I guess that I was out cold.

Flak…

Hi all
Jules sent me this one overnight.
Perhaps he’d like to give us some detail on when, where, etc.
Again, thanks for sharing with us Jules.
Andy.

Welcome aboard Jules!

Lovely photo. Please keep them coming. 😀

Cheers,

Todd

Steve- I don’t know if I’ll get to Lakeland, but I await the Collings B17 coming to Boca Raton and Pompano Beach the latter part of Feb 2005.
Moggy- My group was called “Diamondbacks”. later the logo was enhanced by having a large yellow diamond with a “Y” enclosed, and sqdn stripes beneath.
Robbo-The only time any thing was done to the skin of the aircraft was to repair flak and bullet holes.

Incidentally, I flew Queenie several times. It was one of the planes that bombed Rome the first time, on July 19th 1943. Much publiciy because of religious places, 3 well known newsmen were aboard 3 planes. At breifing we were told if any aircraft had a malfunction, not to drop bombs. A number of planes didn’t drop, no churches were damaged.

Nice pic of the B17.

But it needs an ‘H’ in a square on the tail to look really cool! 😎 😉

Moggy

Don’t forget the quality tea you get in the UK, Steve !

That’s spelt AEROplane.

Damned furriners.

Welcome to the forum, Jules. Even though the Brits dominate here, we still manage to have an American contingent. I look forward to your contributions on this board, as nothing can replace first person experience and narrative.

I hope you get the chance to attend the Sun N Fun airshow in Lakeland, FL next April. It’s usually a pretty good warbird show, and I would love the opportunity to meet you. Of course, I occasionally travel to England. If you haven’t been back since the war let me give you a little advice. Nothing has changed. They still ration (ice cubes, mostly), and the beer is far from cold. But they do love their airplanes, these British.

Again, it’s a pleasure to welcome you to the forum.

Steve Patterson

Superb, thanks for supplying it Jules and Andy for posting it.

Excellent! Look forward to seeing more. Thanks Jules, thanks Andy.

Regards,

Paul

Welcome Jules. I bet the modellers would also appreciate that pic.

Luuuvvvely 😀

Hope Jules figures out how to post more. This is just fantastic 😀 😀