USAAF - First Post

[Distant People]

Hello and good evening,

After having read through the 145 pages of the WWII section over the last month, I would like to thank you all for such a storehouse of information, but especially for your enthusiasm for this era.

Have put together some of the uniform and service equipment for the 8th or 9th Air Force around 1944. Would value your opinion on what's wrong, right, missing or simply a cliche. Do not have the very cold weather clothing, so for now will need to stay at lower altitudes or closer to the bombsight/radio/cockpit.

I would also count myself lucky to be able to connect with a USAAF reenactment group in the UK.

Thank you in advance for your thoughts!

 

[Tiki Tom]

Welcome aboard, DP!

All I can say is: that is quite an impressive series of photos. Well done. Exceedingly so. I especially liked your modern photos that capture the mood that can still be found in certain historic locations. You've got quite an eye for detail and for the ghosts of the past. I'm sure that others will jump in with helpful observations about your first rate gear. My bottom line is that I'm always thrilled to meet others who share my fascination and enthusiasm for the era. I will watch this thread with interest to see what others have to say. Welcome.

 

[Distant People]

Tom- Thanks for that - well appreciated. Delighted to meet you as well. Of note, the B/W photos come from a portfolio left to me from my grandfather. Like you am also keen to hear what others have to say...

 

[BlueTrain]

Nice set of photos, also. My wife has a number of photos, some enlarged, that belonged to her father who served in the USAAF. He went in as a second lieutenant and came out as a second lieutenant. She has his flying log and I have his web belt with canteen (water bottle), first aid pouch and magazine pouch. I only discovered a few weeks ago that she had the photos.

The photos are remarkable and include several taken of bombs dropping onto (hopefully) the target. I don't know if he took the photos or not. I don't think he qualified as a pilot in the air force but he later owned several airplanes as a civilian. He was an aeronautical engineer. He still had his service uniform when he died, unfortunately rather moth eaten. Don't know what happened to it.

The web equipment that belonged to him is rather dirty and was clearly used. But oddly enough, one of the photos of a crew show a couple of crew members wearing shoulder holsters around their waist.

I also have a web belt and associated pouches that belonged to a relative of the family from the WWI period. It's in that distinctive pea-green shade of drab khaki. It looks unused. His officer's sword came down in the family also, but someone else has it. It has one of those peculiar sword knots that has a whistle incorporated in it. It tasted awful, by the way. Another curious thing is that the 1st aid pouch on my father-in-laws belt is actually older than the one on the WWI belt by a year or two. But I'm positive which is which because the owner's name is written on the WWI set.

I wish I had the ability to post the photos but it's way over my head.

 

[Distant People]

That is excellent. Hold on to them. Thanks for your comments as well!

See if you can post some photos... just hit the image button to add from your computer. So many things that belong in a family seem to get lost over the years. That's what I've tried to at least start photographing them. For example, my grandfather's Bancroft cap is with my aunt in Texas, though but she did send photos.

 

[BlueTrain]

Well, what can happen is that in a family, inherited objects sometimes are distributed among family members who are at least half-way interested in holding onto them and so they wind up dispersed instead of being held together. Eventually they end up being owned by someone with negative interest in the objects and that's the end of them.

I also inherited a large quantity of hand tools, some of which were very old, like all-wood planes (a woodworking plane made almost entirely of wood instead of metal). Much of it belonged to my wife's grandfather. A year or two before he died, my father-in-law told me as we were walking around one of his sheds, "Now, I don't want you boys fighting over any of this stuff," there being one son and three son-in-laws in the family, plus about ten grandchildren. But when the time came and the house was being cleared out, one son-in-law and daughter were just about to move to Germany and so took nothing. Everyone else took anything they wanted, more or less, and there were tools left over.

Henry David Thoreau said that when someone passes on, you take stuff out of their attic and put it in someone else's attic. So that when you die, you literally kick the dust.

 

[Distant People]

Thoreau certainly had it right.

Anyone with advice on a USAAF reenactment unit in the UK?