dad's plane, mom's plane

[jon_norstog]

It's a family affair. This was my dad's plane - not this particular one, but a B-17 in AAF paint. He flew these stateside training crews for the european theater, then flew P-61s doing something he would never talk about.

Attachment 4917



This one was my mother's plane. She was a keypunch operator at Kaiser main when they had the contract for the C-119. She was UAW all the way! The Flying Boxcar was a pretty good plane, long range, loitering ability, it could carry an APC or 62 pAratroopers. A bunch of hem were converted to gunships during the VietNam war where they supplemented the AC-47 and AC-130. The Boxcars carried heavier guns than Puff did, 4 x .30 miniguns and 2 x 20mm vulcans, but nothing as heavy as the AC-130

Attachment 4918

When Ike got elected he put Charlie Wilson, ex-President of GM, in as Secretary of Defense. Within a couple months' Kaiser's contract for the C-119 got yanked and Kaiser went into a death spiral. The plant closed n 1955 and got picked up for a song by -- you guessed it! -- GM. Mom gave it up, dad got a job in Ohio and we moved out of the projects at Willow Run for good.

jn

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