Help with a P-51 Mustang photo

Help with a P-51 Mustang photo

Couldn’t agree with you more about the memorial, it has to be the nicest of them all. Unfortunately, I understand from the 355th Association, that it is in much need of some drastic TLC treatment. Let us hope that they can manage to find the resources to carry out the necessary work.

Peter

..Hi Peter,

yes, it would have been a while ago, so your info is obviously more up-to-date..

Having said that the airfield memorial alone is worth a lengthy trip – must be the finest 8th AF FG memorial in the country…

..if its of any interest, Ken Wells lives in the village, his details were posted up in the local shop last time I was there. I went and knocked on his front door hoping to get a copy of “..Strafers” – none left..

If you don’t mind me asking, how long since you knocked on Ken’s door. Only curious because the last I heard from him, it was to give me his new address in Norwich. Wouldn’t want any one to make a longish drive for no result. :confused:

Peter

Thanks its about a three hour drive for me to go down there:eek: if i ever hear back from the school or his publishers i will let everyone know, also what he has to say about the photo, but with it crashing in France he probably knows less now than we do or he may know more.

Thanks everyone even if one of us is leaping before looking;):)
There appears to be no contact info for Ken Wells but i have sent a e-mail to the school with it being a small village the headmaster may know Mr Wells a fairly long shot i know but worth the try;)

Keep the coments rolling in any info however small will be followed to conclusion:)

..if its of any interest, Ken Wells lives in the village, his details were posted up in the local shop last time I was there. I went and knocked on his front door hoping to get a copy of “..Strafers” – none left..

DOH!!!!:):) i didnt when i posted them but i do now:eek: hope you dont mind? and because 44-73155 doesn’t have a 14 in the reg either forwards or backwards i missed it completely!!!

oh and the bit at the bottom of you post to Warbert confused the hell out of me but not any more!!!

Help with a P-51 Mustang photo

The pleasure’s all mine Quid 41. I trust though that you realise the URLs quoted are for my own web site? 🙂 Hence my comment to Warbert.

As you seem to have an interest in Billy Hovde, you might not have noticed that 44-15494 YF-I and 44-73155 YF-L were both named “Ole VI”. It took Bill Marshall and I an age to work out how that happened!

Pyker (peter Randall)
www.littlefriends.co.uk

Pyker THANK YOU for solving my obsession, i was fairly confident of it being one of Maj. William Hovde’s machines but i thought it was 44-13531 Ole III (pic here http://www.littlefriends.co.uk/gallery.php?Group=355&Style=item&origStyle=list&Item=20&Temp=255&searchString= ) the number 14 and the missing D-Day stripes had got me completely baffled, i guess it is far too easy to see things in a picture that you want to be their when clearly they are not.

44-14541 pic here http://www.littlefriends.co.uk/gallery.php?Group=355&Style=item&origStyle=list&Item=21&Temp=256&searchString= as you can see the D-Day stripes are missing and the 14 is explained:)

Lastly a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who has helped with my obsession you all deserve a drink on me:);)

Help with P-51 photo

Gentlemen,

I stumbled across this thread on Saturday morning and have been waiting since then for the moderator to accept my registration so that I could provide you with what I believe to be the answer.

The crux of the problem is that the photo caption in Danny Morris’ first “Aces and Wingmen” is incorrect and that is why you are going round in circles. I don’t know where Danny got the information from but I will try to remember to ask him next time I speak to him. The error is no fault of Danny’s, as the information available to him when the book was published in 1972, hardly compares with the current level of knowledge. He was of course also dependent upon the accuracy of his sources.

Although I would not like to comment too much on the identification of the officer in shot (highly suspect), I can say with a fair degree of certainty that the P-51 is Maj. Billy Hovde’s “Ole IV” 44-14541 YF-I. Naturally, the code appears as I-YF on the starboard side, and the crumpled skinning could well lead one to suspect that the letter is “L”. The event happened on 16 January 1945 when Maj. Hovde spun-in during a dead-stick landing, being out of gas. (per Bill Marshall, 355th FG) It also happened in France, not Manston or Steeple Morden. (per Ted Damick database compiler for Accident Report.com) It is this location that makes me highly dubious about the officer being a Lt.Col. Moody, unless of course he took the opportunity to pop over to France to bring Billy back to Steeple Morden. Again highly dubious as there was no pilot of that name in the 355th FG. Alternatively, he could well be with 8th Air Force Service Command, as seen on the fuselage, for although I do not have detailed information on that unit, I do know that it had a detachment in Brussels towards the end of the war.

Hope that this helps with your obsession Quid 41.

Peter Randall

BTW Warbert, many thanks for your confidence but these “guys” happens to be just me, a one man band! My son Stewart only handles the programming aspect. Input is from me plus all of you kind people who provide me with the information and illustrations.

Thanks for the help everyone i’ve got a busy weekend to get through so i will catch up with everything on Sunday night.

Thanks Longshot i will do your search in a few minutes:)

As promised the feedback from LIFE.com copied word for word from the mail i recieved:-

Hi,

I work in the PR department at LIFE.com and we received your request. We have forwarded your email to our archive and edit departments and they will try their best to find this photo. If they can find it, we will let you know. In the meantime, you can try going to your nearest public library. The Reference Librarian may be able to search for the photo in The Readers Guide to Periodical Literature .

Thanks a lot and have a great weekend,
Natasha

Longshot searched for “‘Margaret Bourke-White plane” thats a huge site with links to the National Archives and all sorts of things thanks:eek::)

Sorry Quid41….I’ll explain….. there is a Google hosted LIFE archive which went online last November and has 2milllion plus images at 1280 pixels wide…this is reached on
http://images.google.com/hosted/life

confusingly the Time-Life Corp relaunched LIFE as a sales photo website a couple of months ago(and I think this may be the one you contacted, and may not have the P-51 photo ) on:
www.life.com

this is separate from the first site and the online pics are smaller and there are less of them. I think

If you put US Bomber Command into the search box on the first site you’ll find the colour B-17 photos or directly the url is:

http://www.images.google.com/images?q=US+Bomber+Command&q=source%3Alife

The same photo is in the original ‘Aces & Wingmen’ captioned as being YF-L of the 358th Fighter Sqn (355th FG), crashed at Manston on 3rd Jan 1945. However 44-14564 was bellied in by Capt. Grant A Seeley near Steeple Modern on that date. According to the database on Littlefriends site it was coded YF-E but what can be seen of the letter doesn’t look like an ‘F’.
The officer is identified as Lt Col Moody of the 355th, which would make more sense for him to have been photographed close to their base rather than Manston.

It’s recorded in the 355th Group Combat Diary for 1945 (ref FO.1479A) for January 3rd 1945 which I used to research our Airfield Focus on Steeple Morden. Seely was with the 358th FS and belly-landed at Steeple Morden as stated. I have not had time to check the actual aircraft, but if it was YF:L, on that side, it would read L:YF, which matches the pic.

Thanks Longshot i will do your search in a few minutes:)

As promised the feedback from LIFE.com copied word for word from the mail i recieved:-

Hi,

I work in the PR department at LIFE.com and we received your request. We have forwarded your email to our archive and edit departments and they will try their best to find this photo. If they can find it, we will let you know. In the meantime, you can try going to your nearest public library. The Reference Librarian may be able to search for the photo in The Readers Guide to Periodical Literature .

Thanks a lot and have a great weekend,
Natasha

Longshot searched for “‘Margaret Bourke-White plane” thats a huge site with links to the National Archives and all sorts of things thanks:eek::)

P-51 photo on Google /Life archive

ok Life database has turned up nothing so i’ve queried them about the photo, hopefully i should get some feedback from them soon. I will keep you posted on that one.

Kiteflyer youve confused me slightly are you talking about the letter near the officers knee or the letter at the back near the star and bars?

The Littlefriends site is extremely good but is not complete, Admitedly i have used it to try and track down this particular Mustang.

There is no ‘Life archivist’ as such (we are the archivists! :))….. the photo is in a folder(see link) but there’s no info at all with it, and its most likely an Agency or Air Force photo print LIFE got hold of.Its worth searching ‘Margaret Bourke-White plane’ for WWII aircraft photos in the archive….lots of B-17s in colour, too

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=1939-1945+US+source:life&sa=N&start=126&ndsp=18

Ok mailed them as always will keep you all abreast of further developments:)

Like a wally i missed that one thanks:):eek:

There appears to be no contact info for Ken Wells but i have sent a e-mail to the school with it being a small village the headmaster may know Mr Wells a fairly long shot i know but worth the try;)

Have you tried contacting the publishers in Bishops Stortford, the address is at the bottom of the page I linked you to?

Brian.

Thanks everyone even if one of us is leaping before looking;):)
There appears to be no contact info for Ken Wells but i have sent a e-mail to the school with it being a small village the headmaster may know Mr Wells a fairly long shot i know but worth the try;)

Keep the coments rolling in any info however small will be followed to conclusion:)

Sorry,
Should have looked before leaping!
Albert

Try contacting these guys, they may be of some help.

http://www.littlefriends.co.uk/

Albert