Eighths assembly ships.

Love the way on the first of Swiss Mustangs links, the bottom picture shows two B24 noses painted on the forward fuselage, as if to try and confuse other planes about the number of aircraft actually flying!

The Little Gramper 42-40722 – Actually it was yellow with red spots 491 BG Assembly Ship

I dont know if any of you guys ever saw one, they were painted in outrageous colour schemes to be clearly visible, I only ever saw one and it was a Liberator painted bright yellow with black spots, I was wondering if the B 17s units also used these unusual aircraft.

My Dad remembers seeing that one as well (at the time)

I think it was the Assembly Ship of the B-24 491st BG

I think I looked it up once – A picture is it ins in the Mighty Eighth by Freeman – I think it is called Grumper or something

In a similar vein , I learnt recently that strikingly painted Stearmans were used to round up stray trainee pilots and lead them back to base. The Stearman at the Zuccoli collection in Australia is painted in one of these ‘recall’ schemes , as shown in these photos which I took on a recent trip to Australia

I always wondered why it was painted that way – don’t recall seeing an explanation anywhere!

Here’s a few:

http://www.controltowers.co.uk/H-K/Hardwick_the_airplanes_2.htm

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b24d-3.jpg

http://www.amv-lilliput.org/mostra2004/aerei/72/seconda/018.JPG

Many groups had their own “war-Weary” Assembly ships – a bit of googling should yeals more.

Martin

Loving that B-17! 😀

In a similar vein , I learnt recently that strikingly painted Stearmans were used to round up stray trainee pilots and lead them back to base. The Stearman at the Zuccoli collection in Queensland is painted in one of these ‘recall’ schemes , as shown in these photos which I took on a recent trip to Australia

Visit the 2nd Air Division USAAF Memorial Libary at the Forum, Norwich. There are models of each of the assembly ships used by the Groups within the Division.

There are also good side views in ‘The Mighty Eighth’ by Roger Freeman.

Here at Horsham St Faith, the 458th Bomb Group had three assembly ships at different times, First Seargent, Spotted Ape and Mizpah.

City of Norwich Aviation Museum

Here’s a few:

http://www.controltowers.co.uk/H-K/Hardwick_the_airplanes_2.htm

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b24d-3.jpg

http://www.amv-lilliput.org/mostra2004/aerei/72/seconda/018.JPG

Many groups had their own “war-Weary” Assembly ships – a bit of googling should yeals more.

Martin

“For some reason it seemed to be almost exclusively a B24 thing.”

Agreed,although I’ve seen a picture of atleast one B17G painted up in an overall white scheme with blue polkadots(!),although I can’t remember which group she belonged to.
There is a story that the actor James Stewart was detailed to fly a B24 assembly ship before a mission over occupied France. Instead of turning back after they’d formed up as usual,he carried on flying with the group far into enemy territory despite having no bombs or defensive armament! I think the example he’s meant to have flown in this incident was the none-too-subtly painted ‘Little Gramper’-overall yellow with red polkadots and bright green fins!

For some reason it seemed to be almost exclusively a B24 thing.

The assembly ships were war weary, but being stripped out of all inessential equipment, light on crew and with nil bomb load and not a lot of fuel they were a lot more sporting than the combat ships.

I believe there was a lot of competition to be the guy to fly them

Moggy