Photo of the week
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This weekends photo.
A Bf 109 E which ended up in a ditch alongside the Waltingaleane, south of Pingjum , following a forced landing. The aircraft was hit by machine-gun fire May 12 1940 The German pilot, Leutnant H. Mertens, was uninjured.
Pingjum is a small, historic village located in the municipality of Súdwest-Fryslân within the Friesland province of the northern Netherlands. -
This weekends extra.
Grumman Avengers being handled by "DADE", for there shipment to the UK.
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This midweeks photo.
Major Hannes Trautloft, commander of Luftwaffe Fighter Wing 54 (JG 54), in the cockpit of his Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-2 fighter at an airfield.
Otto Hans "Hannes" Trautloft (3 March 1912 – 12 January 1995) was a German Luftwaffe military aviator during the Spanish Civil War and World War II, and general in the postwar German Air Force. As a fighter ace, he is credited with 58 enemy aircraft shot down, including 5 in Spain, 8 on the Western Front and 45 on the Eastern Front of World War II. -
This weekends photo.
And a crisp shot of Curtiss SBC-4s,taken at NAS Corpus Christi, Texas circa 1941, where they were used for intermediate and dive bombing training.
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This weekends extra.
Otto Schmidt, of LW-Stuka Geschwader 77 taken after his 500th mission.
Channel pilot, WIA 18 August, 1940 when his ac was damaged during an attack on Thorney Island, Sussex. He managed to return to base with his seriously wounded R/O, Uffz Gerhard Bärsch. BäDOW 2 October, 1940; bur War Cem. Waldfriedhof Oberrad, Frankfurt Germany (D.Drury).
At wars end, a British POW, released in the Fall of 1947.
Credited with 555 missions destroying 61 tanks, several supply ships and a Soviet submarine in the Black Sea. -
This midweeks photos.
And a couple of shots of a He-115-B1 seaplane of Küstenfliegergruppe 406, with an interesting paint scheme.
At the beginning of the year, the headquarters of Coastal Aviation Group 406 (*Küstenfliegergruppe 406*) was based in Brest, France, while its three squadrons were stationed in Norway and the Netherlands. The headquarters remained in Brest throughout the year. The 1st Squadron relocated to List in January 1941, where it re-equipped with the He 115. From April 1941, it was stationed in Tromsø, Norway, and resumed operations over the North Atlantic, serving as a torpedo squadron.
The 2nd Squadron moved from Trondheim to Hörnum in February 1941, where it re-equipped with the BV 138. It subsequently returned to Trondheim in May 1941 and was deployed for long-range reconnaissance missions.
The 3rd Squadron relocated from Schellingwoude to Trondheim on February 17. In November 1941, it moved to List, where it also re-equipped with the BV 138. In December 1941, it was transferred to Tromsø, where it was likewise employed for long-range reconnaissance -
This weekends photo.
Spitfire Mk XIV serial RM936 taken somewhere in India.
6MU 05-12-1944 82MU 19-12-1944 1PATP Mahadevi 22-01-1945 India 19-02-1945 SOC 31-07-1947 -
This weekends extra.
And some amazing photos of a Consolidated B-24D-110-CO (42-40897) Liberator bomber being serviced at an air depot group hangar, at Robins Field Georgia.
The War Department, in search of a site for an Army Air Corps Depot, selected the sleepy whistle-stop town known as Wellston, Georgia, 18 miles south of Macon. Army Colonel Charles Thomas, originally from Atlanta, landed at the Herbert Smart Airport near Camp Wheeler near Macon in October 1941 to oversee the building of the location which would later become the home to Wellston Air Depot at Robins Field (later to become Robins AFB).
It was Col. Thomas who chose the name Robins for his mentor Brig. Gen. Augustine Warner Robins. Brig. Gen. Robins is considered the "father of logistics" in the United States Air Force for his system of cataloging supplies and materials. He had a lengthy military career prior to becoming the chief of the Air Corps Materiel Division. Robins traveled in China disguised as a millionaire tourist, collecting intelligence for the Army. He also went to Mexico where he served under Gen. John J. Pershing in the Army's campaign against Pancho Villa. He trained during World War I to become a pilot earning his wings in June 1918. He didn't get to see combat because the war was ending. Robins suffered a near-fatal plane crash in 1921 in which his jaw and arm were severely broken. Brig. Gen. Robins died of a heart attack on Father's Day, 16 June 1940, at Randolph Field, Texas, while he was Commandant of the Air Corps Training Center.
