I was given quite a few black and white unlabeled photos by a friend who is a widow. Her husband was a B-17 gunner with the 832nd BS, 486th BG, 8th Air Force so I think he was based at Sudbury (?). He served two B-17 tours with the 8th Air Force and I believe these pictures were from his second tour in 1945. Can anyone shed any light on them? [I don’t think these two were taken at the same time.]
Note the engineless B-17 on its belly next to the Lancaster in the larger photo.
The collection includes a number of pictures taken with a portable gun camera (against regulations!) while out on bombing missions of formations of B-17s from the waist windows and tail gunner position and straight down from the bomb bay with bombs falling toward the target. There are also some of B-17s loading up lines of liberated POWs and some aerial shots of Paris.
Thanks in advance, Dennis
By: 25deg south - 5th June 2006 at 15:55
Ref #4 above and “KW” possible code.
There is a good shot of a 425 “Alouette” Sqn Halifax III at Tholthorpe in 1944 on page 405 of C H Barnes’s Putnam book on Handley Page. It shows the Preston-Green single 0.5 ” Browning ventral mounting well.The same shot is in John Rawlings’s “Bomber Squadrons of the RAF” p244
By: JDK - 5th June 2006 at 15:20
Impressive analysis as ever.
Dennis – the RAF Museum will supply an airframe history if you ask nicely for S – Sugar. They may well be interested in a copy of the photo as well, if it’s an original you have rather than one they may have from another source.
I’d guess that Sugar’s seen on a USAAF base, as the only identifiable non – US kitted men are looking at the engine. The can in the foreground seems like an American type to me, but I’m not certain.
The book ‘Claims to Fame – The Lancaster’ by Norman Franks has a chapter on Sugar. The Lanc was used up to the War’s end, and the bomb tally on the nose looks the same as the final one in a photo in the book taken on May 7th 1945 at Kitzingen airfield, Germany. It made a raid on Flensberg on April 23rd, and ‘a trip to Czechoslovakia on 18/19 April’, and the book alludes to four ‘Exodus’ trips (the repatriation of POWs) which the listing gives as 24th April Brussels, 4th May Juvincourt, 6 May Jv again and 12 May Brussels. It left 467 RAAF Sqn on 23rd August 1945 for No.1 Maintenance Unit. That gives you a ‘date window’ I’d guess as to when the photo may have been taken. It could be at one of the continental airfields while on one of the Exodus trips, or a USAAF base on return – although you’d expect the return to be to an RAAF base.
Hope that helps.
By: 682al - 5th June 2006 at 13:57
My caption would be “Somewhere in England 1944” for the Halifax photo.
Surely it has what appears to be a standard Type E rear turret with four .303 Brownings? And it has Monica aerials fitted beneath the turret.
It’s a pity we cannot get a positive i.d. on the Mark of Halifax since it would help date the photo, but I’m assuming it is a Mk.III with Hercules engines, as the propellors look like the de H Hydromatic ones.
The Mk. IIIs were introduced around early March 1944, but Monica was stripped out of our aircraft in August 1944, after the famous “Woodbridge Ju88” trial when it was discovered just how far away that system could be tracked by German nightfighters equipped with Flensburg.
As there is snow on the ground, I assume the photo was taken during a winter. So, it might be a very early Mk. III, photographed in the snow in March (or maybe April?) 1944, before Monica was removed.
And the Squadron Code might also be KN, indicating an aircraft from 77 Squadron, which was based at Elvington at the time.
(Presses “Submit Message” button and sits back to wait for what seems like about twenty minutes before Keypublishing forum responds)
By: cdp206 - 5th June 2006 at 13:52
If you look closely at the picture of Halifax it is possible to see the very indistinct outline of some squadron codes possibly KW which would make it 425 sqn RCAF based at Tholthorpe Yorkshire and it is fitted with the 0.5 Frazer-Nash ventral turret so it probably a B111. Sometime early 1944 to late 1945 I guess.
Yep – I didn’t look at al closely enough! (It was a long day though and that’s my excuse!).
Given that the bloke in the photo looks a tad cold, is he standing on a light covering of snow? The last winter of the war, given your assessment of the date range Pongo?
By: pogno - 5th June 2006 at 12:50
If you look closely at the picture of Halifax it is possible to see the very indistinct outline of some squadron codes possibly KW which would make it 425 sqn RCAF based at Tholthorpe Yorkshire and it is fitted with the 0.5 Frazer-Nash ventral turret so it probably a B111. Sometime early 1944 to late 1945 I guess.
By: cdp206 - 4th June 2006 at 22:47
The Lancaster is certainly R5868 (S ‘Sugar’) and judging by the amount of bomb symbols on the nose, it must be close to the end of the war. The other photo is certainly a Halifax with with an H2S radome under the fuselage (a GH formation leader?). Unfortunately, the squadron codes seem to have been censored out (although nowing me I’m probably missing something). What Mk. Halibag carried H2S? I can’t remember of the top of my head and it’s been a long day! Pity the fins aren’t visible as any formation stripes would have been partly useful for ID. Might have narrowed it down a bit.
By: Rlangham - 4th June 2006 at 22:21
Well, the first pic is ‘S for Sugar’, now on display at the RAF Museum, Hendon, no clues on the second one, but judging by the B17 in the background, maybe it’s S for Sugar again? http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafwaddington/r5868.html
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June 4, 2006 at 10:17 pm