Karma, Kismet and probably something else that begins with "K"

I don't expect to find two Jalopy developments in 24 hours. But there I was riffling through the posts on AAF.com when I saw a reference to an Album on Ebay and a note that it included a reference to the 44th Bomb Group. Time to open a new browser tab.

It gets better. The album appears to be the operational record of someone who flew 30 missions of his ETO tour with none other than Lt John Titter. And of course my trembling scroll-mouse finger took me down to August 1944 and there are two missions mentioned as having been flown in #535 "-C" (as she would have been then). Also shown are the strike / target photos of La Perth and Saarbrucken. There is no mention of the flak damage the "Jalopy" took on August 9th 1944 but I wouldn't expect that. This in itself is all pretty staggering.

The album contains a few items of general interest, including some shots of Shipdham and London, and various B-24s in the 44th BG. There are a couple of picture of 506th BS B-24s whose individual aircraft letters look tantalizingly like "O" - but there's not enough detail.

Sadly I don't think my $350 or however much it ends up costing will be winging its way to Italy, where the item seems to be located. But it's nice to have seen it.

Trip to Joplin

On Thursday night I received an e-mail from Joplin (good start!) from Chris Wiseman, who is the curator of the Joplin Museum Complex (even better!) making contact with some general enquiries about the "Jalopy". He says he's thinking about an exhibit centered on the Jalopy some time next year.

I can report that this morning I paid Chris a visit at the museum complex and we spent a couple of hours chatting about the Jalopy and its sojourn in Joplin. We talked about some of the local personalities who have been in touch with me and fortunately Chris has kept track of some of them.

I was fortunate enough to look at a couple (three or four) of the Murwin Mosler collection negatives of the Jalopy's arrival in August 1946 which are hitherto (and actually still) unpublished. There may be even more as John Hacker's 2006 interview with Brad Belk (Executive Director of the Complex) indicated - and time (and the JMC's effort) may reveal them. Chris mentioned that the museum is employing an intern to catalog the Mosler archive, which will be something of a massive task as there are 100,000 images in the collection from Mosler's 60-year career in photography.

There are a couple of views of the starboard side of the plane which showed some details I was expecting, namely that the squadron code letters and the AAF serial number are still there - the black group stripe at the top of the starboard vertical stabiliser shows very definite sings of abrasion. There are also some interestingly bright spots around the rudder pintles which may be an indication of some preparatory work before the plane was flown to Joplin. I don't really know. The picture also confirmed that the 'star and bar' national markings had been stripped off the skin and wings. This was also the case with "Thunbderbird" when it was flown from Altus to Flandreau, SD.

One detail which I must have looked at several times in other pictures and which jumped out at me today was the individual aircraft letter painted on the nose just underneath the nose turret. On looking at the Mosler picture closely the letter is very clearly a "C" not an "O" - so when the aircraft letter was changed from "bar-C" to "bar-O" in October 1944 someone simply didn't alter the letter on the nose. Of course it's possible that there was some degree of abrasion or damage, but I think it's more likely that someone forgot, or no-one bothered to change the letter.

Anyway, just at the point when I was feeling the effects of the Day Job again, Chris managed to revive my interest in the project and has given it, and me, a considerable boost. I was glad I was able to supply him with one or two details (crew operation and target spreadsheet, for example) and lay the 63 mission myth to rest.

We talked about some of the people we know around Joplin and how maybe making a small push once again might shake a few memories loose. I'm all in favor.

Thanks again Chris.