The A2A Simulations Community

Hey guys
Grandfather has been gone for about 4 years now. After he passed I found a box of photos from his time during the war. He was a C-47 pilot with the 96th Squadron (6Z) of 440th Troop Carrier Group. Alot of his time was spent at Exeter. Here are some of the photos he took. I can't remember if I have posted these here before.



Cheers
TJ

one more vote for an accusimmed C-47/DC-3 package from A2A

_________________
"The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." - Douglas Adams

Those are AMAZING, TJ! Especially the one of Ike and also the one of the copilot!

I know how you feel, brother. It's been ten since my grandpa passed - he was a P-47 mechanic during the War - and I'm still not over it. Whoever said time heals all wounds was being either naïve or overly optimistic.

_________________

Amazing stuff. What the story behind the damaged truck and C47 tail. Night intruder attack?

thankyou for sharing these pieces of history

_________________
A2A Facebook for news live to your social media newsfeed
A2A Youtube because a video can say a thousand screenshots,..
My twitter for my own twitter and random A2A insights

Awesome pictures.By the way a DC-3 (the civilian version) will be at an airshow soon in my area so I will be getting a video of one.You should post those pictures at the armyairforces website too as many people would be greatly interested.By the way do you have lots of his detailed records (these can be obtained from the national archives)?

_________________
Son of a U.S.A.A.F. 15th Air Force 463rd bomb group 772nd squadron B17 pilot.
Video of my dad on a B-17(So you can kind of meet him-he passed away in 2004)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGOP53TkGtA

I vaguely remember Grandpa telling me about it, but I looked it up and here is what I found from a paper at af.mil


The incident occurred when a detail of paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division's 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment Company
I, were unloading parapacks from a 6x6 truck and placing them under the left wing of the "Bama Belle," C-47 number 43-15067
belonging to the squadron. One of the parapack bundles toppled onto a bundle containing 28 landmines, which exploded
simultaneously. Sgt. Shearer, Pfc. Mitchell and Pvt. Spera were killed instantly and two other member of the 82nd Airborne were
wounded. Sgt. Dahlberg was the only casualty in the 96th TCS.

Full article here
http://www.af.mil/shared/media/document ... 01-119.pdf


JJB
I do have his flight records. I'll see if I can find them and I'll scan them.


Cheers
TJ

_________________
"The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." - Douglas Adams

TJ awesome.
I believe that every registered member (free) of the armyairforces website forum gets a photo album (storage) on that site too that can be used as well as discussions too.There is a Combat Cargo & Troop Transport section of the forum.
Anyway would love to see the Pilot's log book (though it can get quite extensive with prior training time prior to the combat service (action)).Have you registered him at the National WW2 memorial too?
One of my uncles wartime (WW2) record (he was a Mortar Team Leader) was almost forgotten until I discovered a letter addressed to him with his specific unit.
That's a nice thing to do for your family in case future generations forget what unit that he served in (it can be used in initial searches plus sometimes records get lost and there was a fire with many Army Air Forces records lost in the past).

_________________
Son of a U.S.A.A.F. 15th Air Force 463rd bomb group 772nd squadron B17 pilot.
Video of my dad on a B-17(So you can kind of meet him-he passed away in 2004)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGOP53TkGtA

amazing how many airplanes were used. I call WW2 the NUMBERS war. if you had more numbers you were gonna win.

Man I love seeing photos like this! Thank you for taking the time to share them!

Kyle

_________________

ASEL, AMEL, Commercial, Instrument.
Former Naval Aviator.

TJ

Thank you very much for posting these pictures.

I have been lucky enougth to be an aircraft engineer on the C-47 for the last 14 years. It's by far my favorite aircraft, and when I was working for Ar Atlantique in the UK, the open days were fantastic. Most times their would be a veteran arrive with his / her family and take a flight in the Dakota.

I remember sitting in the cockpit with one gentalman who used to fly C-47 Glider tugs, picking gliders up from fields in Europe. Can't beat the memories of this.

Would there be any chance of some high resolution scans on a PM?

I have a full set of DC3 & C-47 manuals etc, if you fancy some for your collection.

Take care

Dave

_________________