Daz,

You may find this link of interest which has scans of an RNZAF pilot’s log book. The RNZAF book was much the same as the RAF one it seems.

http://www.burrowes.org/FamilyTree/E.F.G.Burrowes_LogBook/

One thing I want to mention is that from what I’ve been told by several pilots, the entries in red ink are night flights, not missions as mentioned above. However if the pilot were on RAF bombers or night fighters this equates to much the same thing which may be where the confusion arose.

Also I understand that when pilots or crews were awarded medals they got an endorsement thing to slip inside their log book at the appropriate page.

The log books are an absolute treasure of recorded history and it is superb when you look through a well detailed one. A lot of the information that I’ve been gathering for my Cambridge project has come from old logbooks.

It is also interesting to note that people other than pilots also had their own logbooks, airgunners, navigators, flight engineers, etc… anyone who flew I guess

I must excuse myself…….I should have said P-40 pilots AND crews. Without the maintenance guys no airplane would ever fly and it’s obviously only right to give them some credit too.

Indeed Phantom II, I have spoken with many of the Kiwis who were up in the Pacific, and read many books by others, and the conditions the groundcrews were under was simply awful compared with those fighting in Europe. In the daytime the aircraft would heat up so much in the sun that to touch the aluminium surface would burn the skin so bad it would come off apparently, and you couldn’t leave your tools out of the shade or they were also too hot to pick up. And they were expected to maintain full squadrons of aircraft for readiness each day. At night they were bombed so often by ‘Washing Machine Charlie’ they spent more time out of bed than in, running to the slit trenches. The food was disgusting, the living conditions rancid with rats and snakes and insects in the tents, etc. Trying to eat with the insects round was near impossible. One guy told me he was eating a can of bullybeef when he accidentally swallowed a fly. He began to throw up, and due to the poor health state most were in including him, he couldn’t stop vomiting and he became so dehydrated he had to be hospitalised. I could see as he told me he really thought he was a gonner – he began to cry as he told me, 60 years later. That upset him more than anything else he told me about. Amazing.

And then there was the disease and constant threat of it – and the medication needed such as salt tablets and anti-malaria pills which turned the skin bright yellow: this colour apparently leached from the skin for years later and after they’d return from the Pacific for some time they always found their white sheets had turned yellow overnight – another legacy of the Pacific war.

There was the lack of recreation too (except swimming with sea snakes or if brave, sightseeing amongst the Jap-sniper riddled jungles.

It amazes me how these chaps managed to do such a valiant job. All those who served, the US Navy and Marines, the RAAF, even the Japanese were under similar conditions. I dear say even the RAF chaps in the SEAC area had similar problems to deal with. But I especially admire the kiwis in the Pacific.

In a very short space of time against huge odds the New Zealanders shot down 100 enemy aircraft confirmed with their P40’s, for a much smaller loss ratio themselves (a few of which were shot down by Allies by mistake). And the groundcrews kept them flying, using all the skills could muster, and by scavaging from dumped US P40 airframes, etc. To make matters worse the US Government didn’t want the New Zealanders there, but the NZ Govt insisted so there was also politics going on behind it all. On the ground however many US units helped the kiwis out very generously, even if their Govt didn’t want them there.

Our bomber crews in the Hudsons and later Venturas also carried out extraordinary duties and they were doing work that no-one else was doing.

I would love to see your B25 film someday Corsair, and also one about the P40’s, whether US, RAAF or Kiwi. Personally I hope to make something about an RNZAF Hudson crew, maybe based around the tagedy that was survived by only Flight Sgt Trevor Ganley, who came from my home town. Now that’s a story and a half of survival.

PS – sorry for straying so far from the topic of this thread which I am also finding fascinating.

I’m sure I have seen a coloured photo of US Navy Wildcats on a carrier somewhere in the Meditearanean conflict, but I don’t know where. Maybe around the time of Anzio, Sicily or Operation Torch?

What’s this about Americans skipping bombs along the water to sink Jap ships? Is this true or just a fantasy of yours Corsair? (not meant as a jibe, I’m simply curious, as I have not heard of this sort of thing before). I agree it is high time a decent Pacific film was made too – all those made so far include either Lee Marvin, a lot of girls and gay sailors singing and dancing or even worse nonsence as in the case of *#$%@ Windtalkers, which was bordering on worse than Pearl Harbor for cheesiness and a waste of a big budget.

The Thin Red Line was good, but a bit wacked out for the average viewer. The best Pacific film’sTV shows have all been from a non-US angle, and include the BBC’s ‘Tenko’, Auusie’s mini-series ‘Heroes’ and ‘A Town Like Alice’ and the more recent mini-series ‘Changi’, which was superb. The Aussies film war stories very well. And of course the Aussie drama series The Sullivans was very very good for its time and managed to include both the Pacific, and Europe, and the home front as well. I wish they’d repeat that series here. I’s like to see a film or mini-series on the NZ efforts in the Pacific, which are as important to us as as these others to their respective countries. Maybe I will do it someday.

Oh yeah, hasn’t Mel (never mind the truth) Gibson already done a film where he flew B25s?

I have seen the footage that you refer to also at the IWM in London. When i was there in 1996/97ish they had it playing in a simulator type thing so it was on a big screen right in front of you and you moved with the action.

I am sure that from memory the blurb for the simulator claimed that the film was taken from the leader’s aircraft, Group Captain Pickard. But he was shot down and killed so I doubt the film was from his plane unless the Germans recovered it and kept it for posterity. Either way it was extremely dramatic. I am sure I have scene a piece of it in a documentary too but I don’t remember where. I think a video was released of the footage around the 50th Anniversary, but i can’t be certain of that. I know several paintings were done then too, and a lot was in the press. It was one of the glory raids of the RAF like the Dam Busters ilk.

One of Cambridge’s (my home town) airmen was killed on Operation Jericho too. Richard Webb Sampson (NZ401465) was a navigator in a 464 Sqn (RAAF) Mosquito FB.VI MM404/T and after they bombed the target flak hit the aircraft killing **** outright. The pilot was wounded and belly landed in the snow at Freneuville, to be taken prisoner.

This websitelists ten Americans who flew in the Battle of Britain, and gives a little about each.

I know one of them appeared in the series Hunters In The Sky, interviewed about his part in the war. Can’t recall which one now. I think he was in a few episodes including International Squadrons about the Eagle Sqns.

http://www.taphilo.com/history/BofBamericanpilots.shtml