Oops, wrong Airport

This is, ah, interesting. I expect some of the local historians will be wrly amused.

Having seen that photo with the inscription "Old Joplin Airport, West 7th" I started wondering if there was another airport in Joplin. Oh yes there was. It was at 7th and Schifferdecker and extended a way south. This is about where the Joplin Historical Museum is now. So it would make a degree of sense to land the plane at the location where the museum was going to be. (Duh!).

More history of the two airports forthcoming. I have to see some more historians in the Joplin area.

Contacts

I'm pleased to report I have had a couple of follow-up emails after the Globe article last weekend.
I did email Andy Ostmeyer to ask him why my friends couldn't find the article on the Joplin Globe website but haven't yet had a response.

I have had an email from a lady in Joplin who sent me a couple of additional photographs of crowds round the "Jalopy" on its arrival in August 1946. She also sent me a couple of other photos of other planes which were around at the time. I haven't started to look them up yet but I will.

I also had an email from a young man who would like to finish a B-24 model to look like the Jalopy. This is great. I'm really pleased that I could send him a few details. He's also asked me if I'd like to see a picture of his model when he's finished it. Naturally I would.

"Jalopy" had a brother

The research project on the "Jalopy" widened into something I was referring to as the "Town Bomber" project which is puttering away in the background but which is someting much bigger than I'd thought and is very exciting in its own way.

During the research process I found out that another combat veteran B-24 (San Diego-built B-24J-150-CO 44-40238 "Thunderbird" from the 491st Bomb Group based at North Pickenham, Norfolk, UK) had been retrieved from Altus and flown to Flandreau, South Dakota by their local Civil Air Patrol. It stayed at the local airport in Flandreau for ten years, and was reluctantly scrapped in 1957. If you can lay your hands on a copy of Air Progress Warbirds International - May/June 1992 issue, there is an article all about it, and several pictures. My thanks to B-24 authority Allan Blue for loaning me his copy of the article.

The parallels with the "Jalopy" are startling.

And there are more - maybe.

There were a number of B-17s and other warbirds which were obtained from the War Assets Administration and found there way to towns and cities across the US for use by schools, scout troops, colleges and schools. A very small number survive. This is why I said something in the "Globe" article about not being too hasty to judge the Joplin War Dads for getting rid of the Jalopy so quickly. They were not alone. Attitudes may have been different. See the movie "The Best Years of our Lives" (1946 - 8 Oscars!) and you get a sense that many people at the time wanted to move on, not to wallow in nostalgia. Now of course we would like to recognise those who served for their contribution. I think this is where i came in...

How many people?

I checked my records today - I have an Excel Spreadsheet listing all the crews and the targets they flew against for all the Jalopy's 66 missions.

It would seem that the Jalopy was flown by 29 different crews. Some flew for only 1 mission. The greatest number of missions flown by any crew was 6 - two different crews flew her for 6 missions.

Assuming an average crew of 10 (sometimes more, sometimes less) that means that 290 different souls flew on the Jalopy on combat operations. This doesn't include people like Ronnie Hall and his ATC mates and anyone else who flew it on tests.

And of these 290 people, only one was killed in the Jalopy in combat.

Different War...

Andy Ostmeyer sent me this interesting e-mail from a soldier in Iraq. He's e-mailed them back asking for a picture.

"I think it is so funny that during another war there was a vehicle called the Joplin Jalopy. I am currently in Iraq and my unit named my vehicle the Joplin Jalopy, I call it JJ for short."

Louis Wimsatt

My attention was drawn to this obituary in the Washington Post - Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - I have not quoted the obituary in full - the link to the full article is here

Louis Wimsatt; World War II Pilot

"Louis Johnson Wimsatt, 83, a World War II bomber pilot and the former co-owner of a Washington lumber company, died Jan. 1 at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington.

He attended Georgetown University for three years before enlisting in the Army Air Forces during World War II. He was the pilot of a B-24 Liberator with the 506th Bomb Squadron of the 44th Bomb Group in Europe.

His wartime exploits, according to one of his sons, included an emergency landing for repairs in Reims, France. When it came time to leave, he could barely get the aircraft aloft after his crew had loaded it with cases of champagne.

He flew 35 bombing missions over Europe and provided air support during the Battle of the Bulge. He was discharged as a first lieutenant and received the Distinguished Flying Cross and four awards of the Air Medal".

Louis Wimsatt flew two missions as captain of the Joplin Jalopy

• 11/26/1944 - Target Bielefeld, Germany (Group Mission # 258)
• 11/27/1944 - Target Offenburg, Germany (Group Mission # 259)

Requiescat in Pace

Thank you Andy Ostmeyer

The Joplin Globe ran an article on the Jalopy today, written by Andy Ostmeyer

Joplin Globe Story

It's pretty impressive - Andy did a great deal of work in a short time, including listening to me rambling for an hour or so. If you ever read this blog, Andy, thanks very much! There should be a separate email comng to you.

Work to be done (2)

There are still several things to be done, or which I'd like to find out:

Jalopy Pictures

1. Picture of the port (left) side of the nose - there are conflicting opinions about the existence of a cartoon character (Snuffy Smith has been suggested) appearing on the port side of the nose. Jerry Folsom told me when he flew the Jalopy there was only the name on the starboard (right) side. Maybe Murwin Mosler took a photo of the port side in 1946 at the Joplin Airport which would confirm if the nose was further embellished.
2. Was a bomb log painted anywhere?
   
3. Any pictures of the whole of the plane showing group and squadron markings. On one of the Mosler photographs you can just see the vertical black stripe on the fin (signifying the 44th Bomb Group) and also the individual letter "Bar-O" ("O" with a horizontal line over it) which was the Jalopy's Squadron Identity. If you imagine really hard you can also see the 506th squadron code letters "GJ" but they're hidden by the starboard wing and the crowds.
   

Wonderful discovery

I just found a terrific website while looking for a better map of Shipdham for the "details" section

http://8thcontrails.com/ipw-web/gallery/8th-Bases
8th AF Bases in East Anglia by Mark E. Brotherton

Photos of all the 8th Air Force bases in East Anglia taken by an Active Duty Air Force Chief Master Sergeant. All inputs, suggestions, comments welcomed! Over 2000 photos The photos are arranged in photo 'albums' by base to make viewing easier.

There are some interesting Shipdham pictures in the relevant album:
http://8thcontrails.com/ipw-web/gallery/album23

Work to be done (1)

1. I've requested a copy of the Jalopy's Individual Aircraft Record Card (IARC) from the National Air and Space Museum archive. There seem to be a couple of different ways to get IARCs and this was the first one I found.
When I have this, I will be able to find out a couple of other facts including:

• When the plane was delivered to the USAAF
• What bases it travelled through on its way to England
• What bases it travelled through on its way to Altus, OK
  

2. I'm still interested to find out how the City of Joplin named the plane. I know that this became possible when the City raised $300,000 value in Category 'E' War Bonds (what's a Category 'E' War Bond?)

3. It'd be interesting to know how someone from Joplin found the plane in Altus and made arrangements for the local Civil Air Patrol to fly it back to Joplin. There must have been some degree of preparation because you don't just settle the bill with the WAA, hop into your new B-24, fire it up and take off. It had been sitting in the weeds in Altus since June 1945 - it wasn't back to Joplin until August 1946. You wouldn't drive a car which had been sitting in a field for a year without checking it over. (!)

4. The archives of the Joplin Globe mentions a couple of arrests (around January/February 1947) after thefts of major items from the Jalopy but doesn't go into specifics. I don't want to confront anyone with a 60-year old crime but the Police or court records might be interesting

5. Herbert Davis in his 1984 Globe article appealed for any items which may have been stolen from the Jalopy to be donated to the Joplin Historical Museum. I don't expect this happened but I wonder if anyone out there does have a piece of the Jalopy in their barn / shed and isn't aware of the fact?

Helpful People

I had a terrific response from several sources:

• The 44th Bomb Group Veterans Association who provided a complete list of the missions the Jalopy flew between July 1944 and April 1945, and which crew flew it on each occasion. They also said "Oh, by the way, our past president was co-pilot on the Jalopy"
  Mr. Gerald W. "Jerry" Folsom emailed me and also mailed some very intersting material, incuding a picture of himself, pilot George Beiber and the rest of the crew standing in front of the Jalopy on what looked like a very wet day (well, it was Autumn / Winter 1944!) at Shipdham airfield
  


• The Post Memorial Art Reference Library in Joplin and its Librarian, Leslie Simpson - local author and pillar of the community


• The Joplin Public Library (did I say once upon a time I worked there?)


• The Joplin Globe, particularly in the shape of Andy Ostmeyer whose energy has given this project something of a kick. Debby Woodin (who Andy tells me is still working at the Globe) gets a vote of thanks from me for her 1984 "Jalopy" article featuring the late Herbert W. Davis - who came back to his hometown to carry out some research on the "Jalopy" on behalf of the 8th Air Force Historical Society.

I hope to make contact with other people and organisations locally and see what other information is out there. I've therefore created a specific email address for contact about the "Jalopy" for Blog readers, it is

This is not a live link because I don't want to receive a heap of spam. My apologies if you were expecting to click on it and have your email client open up.

Research Procedures - a personal note

There's one thing you may need to know about me which might explain some of the things I do. I'm a Librarian by training. I've been a librarian for the last 25 years except in those times when I've been out of work or pursuing my other interest in computing and was actually employed to help people with computer issues.

I was never a fan of local history when I was younger. I was never enthused by history at school. Then one of the teachers had the foresight to take me on an archaeological dig in my hometown in England (oh yes, did I tell you I'm English? - I'm from Rochester in Kent - about 25 miles SE of London) and things changed. I am now one of those people who gets a buzz from things which were "there" at times in history. Rochester is a town full of history (old Roman town, Norman Castle, Cathedral going back to the Dark Ages - literally. Even my School had it origins in the 18th century) and sometimes people like me took (and take) it for granted.

You can see where this is going - the moment someone says "I need to find out something that happened in (town) at (time)" I think - "Is there a library there I can ask ?" This is actually a good place to start. I would say that, of course since I *am* a librarian (when I'm not trying to convince people I'm a systems manager or PC Technician, which I also do)

I'm one of those people who knows that just because you read something in a newspaper or on (hushed whisper) the Internet it's not automatically right. It's not "right" if you've seen it on the TV or even read it in a book. If you want information, you have to gather as much of it as you can from as many different places and then try to make sense of what there is. Asking Librarians is always a good thing because we are (allegedly in some cases) trained to be able to find things.

However, a quick run through Google is never a bad thing. Just make sure you look through more than the first couple of pages.

The "Jalopy" in Joplin

Here's what we know of the "Jalopy" in and after the war.

The "Jalopy"was flown back to the USA on May 31st 1945 - arriving in Bradley Army Air Field (Connecticut). It was intended that the 44th Bomb Group was to be retrained to fly the Boeing B-29 and serve in the Pacific. After VJ-Day the "Jalopy" and many other B-17s and B-24s were taken off the USAAF inventory and passed to the Reclamation Finance Corporation (later the War Assets Administration). The "Jalopy" was flown to the recently deactivated Altus Army Air Field (Oklahoma), where it sat with 2600 other warplanes waiting to be turned into aluminium ingots.

Sometime in 1945 or 1946 somebody in Joplin must have become aware that the "Jalopy" was sitting in Altus waiting for the scrapman's torch and the smelter. The Joplin War Dads had the idea to bring the plane back to Joplin to act as a museum / memorial and planned to include it in the proposed Joplin Museum on Schifferdecker Avenue.

The "Jalopy" was flown back to Joplin on Sunday, 11th August 1946. Its return was photographed by Murwin Mosler and some of his photos appeared in the Joplin Globe on August 13th.

Sadly, the money needed to house a bomber with a wingspan of 110 feet and a length of 60 feet was not forthcoming. The bomber sat at the airport and was prey to thieves, souvenir hunters and vandals. The state of the bomber declined rapidly and in February 1947 (I think) a committee met to decide the fate of the "Jalopy". It was unfortunate, but the plane was becoming a danger as well as an embarrassment. The plane was broken up for scrap and hauled off to a smelter in Kansas City. The "Jalopy" had gained an extension of 6 months in its short life.

About "Joplin Jalopy"

Joplin Jalopy was a Consolidated B-24J-1-FO Liberator with the US Army Air Force Serial number 42-50535 and squadron code "GJ-Bar-O". It served with the 506th Bomb Squadron, 44th Bomb Group, 2nd Air Division, 14th Bomb Wing, 8th Air Force, United States Army Air Force. It was based at Station 115, Shipdham, England between July 1944 and May 1945.

What does all this mean?

B-24J-1-FO
This signifies a "J" model Liberator, part of the first production block (J-1), made by the Ford Motor Company at their factory in Willow Run, Michigan in 1944 (FO)

42-50535
The AAF Serial number 42-50535 indicates the Jalopy, as she was later known, was the 50,535th plane to be ordered in Fiscal Year 1942. All USAAF machines left their factories with the AAF serial number on the vertical stabilizer (or fin), usually with the first digit missed off. The Jalopy's serial number would have been displayed as "250535".

"Joplin Jalopy"
I don't know exactly when (yet) but at some time 42-50535 was named in honour of the City of Joplin's 1944 achievement in collecting a total of $300,000 in War Bonds.

506th Bomb Squadron, 44th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force
The 44th Bomb group consisted of the 66th, 67th, 68th and 506th Bomb Squadrons. The 44th Bomb Group The "Flying Eightballs" was the first B-24 group in the Eighth Air Force and was part of the Second Air Division.

Station 115 Shipdham
Shipdham is a small village in Norfolk, (England) near Watton and Dereham. The airfield itself is still used for general aviation (light planes and gliding) although some of the runways are now disused. Memorials to the men of the 44th Bomb Group and to 8th Air Force Bomber Command can be seen in the town and at the airfield.

This is how it all started...

In the September 2005 issue of "FlyPast" there is an article entitled "Junior Aircrew". It is the story of Ronald (Ronnie) Hall and some of his friends from 1429 Squadron, Air Training Corps from Dereham, Norfolk. (England - in case you hadn't guessed)

These cadets had managed to get flights on a number of RAF and USAAF aircraft (officially, as guests of the units based there - try doing that today!!) Ronnie, in May 1945, even got a 6-hour ride in a B-24 of the 44th BG to see the towns, cities and facilities which the bombers had been targeting only months before.

On November 22nd 1944 Ronnie Hall had been taken on a flight over England in a B-24 called "Joplin Jalopy" allegedly to test the stalling characteristics of the Liberator.

There is a picture of an unidentified crewman standing in front of the nose of "Joplin Jalopy". The picture's caption says that "Joplin Jalopy" had survived the war and was exhibited at the Joplin Municipal Airport until the 1950s when it was scrapped.

Now Joplin is only 30 miles away from Pittsburg, Kansas, where I now live. I also worked briefly in Joplin. There were many reasons why I would know nothing about this, but I couldn't believe that a combat veteran B-24 had sat at a local airfield for what I thought then was 10 years and hadn't been noticed or profiled in the local scenery or by the warbird preservation movement. Of course I found out why fairly quickly. It wasn't there for 10 years, it was only there for 6 months.

And the rest, as they say, is history...and the contents of this blog.