Dayhoff Westminster Soundtrack: Where have these pics been hiding the last 65 years?

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Where have these pics been hiding the last 65 years?

Snow on deck. USS Philippine Sea North Pacific 1945

HARVS on the way in shot by a P-47. Rare shot.

Deck crew climbing up to get the pilot out. He did. That's a fuel tank his foot is on. Empty?

Marines disembark LST at Tinian Island .

Bougainville.

Guam

Outside Bastogne

German 280mm K5 firing

U.S. munitions ship goes up during the invasion of Sicily .

Spitfire "tipping-off" a V1. If you've never heard of this insane tactic .......

At first V1's were shot down by gunfire. Optimum range was inside 200yds, which was marginal for survival. Many planes were damaged and quite a few pilots killed. Basically at such high speed and low altitude a plane had to fly though the explosion and hope.

With the high risk of being blown up some of the best pilots started tipping the V1's wing, because of damage to wing tips they later developed a tactic of disrupting the airflow by placing their wing very close to the V1's wing, causing it to topple.

Not every pilot did this. At night this was not possible, the flame from the V1 blinded the pilot to everything else, though some Mossie pilots flew past closely in front of the V1, again causing it to topple. The thought of doing this at 450mph, 4,000 feet above the ground, at night and being blinded gives me the willies.