Ileen Lois: The name on a ball turret that identified an entire B-17 crew
Ileen Lois was the name given to a B-17 bomber which was recovered in 2013, 69 years after it crashed in Lake Bolsena, the biggest volcanic…
Pilot Killed In P-47 Crash In Hudson River, New York City – Thunderbolt Has Been Recovered
At around 7pm on Friday, May 27th, the vintage Republic P-47D Thunderbolt flown by Bill Gordon, 56, started experiencing engine trouble. Gordon broke away from…
The Three Fighters that Brought the Luftwaffe to its Knees
The German air force (the Luftwaffe) was probably the strongest air force in Europe at the dawn of the Second World War. It isn’t surprising…
WWII WASP Women Pilots Denied A Place In Arlington National Cemetery
The first women pilots’ organisation – called the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was set up in Britain, early in 1940. The idea behind the service…
Magpie – Exploring the untold stories of World War II & PTSD
Looking at the website for ‘Magpie’, it’s hard to miss the self-proclaimed phrase ‘not just another war film’ nosediving out of the screen. I’m sure…
The Friendly Invasion Returns to Suffolk: Welcoming Home Two Men of The Mighty Eighth
Often, my father frustratingly reflects on his 17 year stint in the office of a sugar beet factory through the realisation that almost every man…
American Researcher Donates U.S. Airmen’s Records to the American Air Museum at IWM Duxford, England
WW2 Researcher Bill Beigel hopes to reunite airmen’s stories with families searching for answers American military casualty researcher William L. “Bill” Beigel, who has researched…
USAAF Stories – The B-24D “Lady Be Good”
Lady Be Good was a USAAF B-24D liberator which had been bombing Naples on April 4 1943. It disappeared without a trace only to be…
USAAF War Stories- Ileen Lois, the love story bomber
Ileen Lois was the name given to a B-17 bomber which was recovered in 2013 after 69 years since it crashed in Lake Bolsena, the…
Operations Manna and Chowhound – Supplying the starving Dutch with food dropped from bombers
A B-17 dropping food over The Netherlands, image courtesy of armyairforces.com In April 1945, over 3.5 million Dutch citizens in the western part of The Netherlands…
B-24 ‘Lady Be Good’ – Crashed on it’s first and last mission in 1943, discovered in 1958
The wreckage of a USAAF (United States Army Air Forces) plane that went missing during its first and last mission in the Second World War…
ALL ALONG THE CONTROL TOWER – Review by Mark Barnes
The Barten brothers are quite rightly noted for their automotive passions expressed in a series of genuinely lovely books of monochrome nostalgia. I repeat, this…