Cal (Cosine26),
That last picture says, "I had a rough day at the office."
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For henry r
Stories? It all happened log long ago, far far away, and in a long Forgotten war.
For BAR:
We pretty well "reduced the aircraft to produce" as the Brits say. There weren't many usable spare parts. See the picture of the rear of the aircraft in the salvage yard below. The aircraft broke into three major pieces and several minor pieces. Besides we were at a USMC air station about fifty miles from our USAF AFB.
Imgur: The magic of the Internet
FIFTY One and DONE
FIGMO after returning from a mission to the Yalu.
The tour of duty was Fifty but an odd series of circumstances caused me to fly 51. The June offensive was in full swing when my crew took off on a CAS (Close Air Support) mission at 0330 one June night. We executed the mission and returned to base. When we returned, there was another aircraft ready for action but without a crew , so we were "volunteered" to do a "turn around" mission. By this time it was beginning to get daylight as daylight approached early at those latitudes. Daylight was approaching and daylight CAS was particularly dangerous for prop driven aircraft. All F51's had been withdrawn by that time. Jets did much better. The F86 F/B's were OK but the F84's were losing about one a day average. We made the mission and encountered some ground fire, We had turned to withdraw, when we were hit in the right wing and all three of the 50 cal MG's were destroyed. ( I still have piece of the top part of one .) Times were chaotic during this final phase and my crew never received credit for the first mission so I ended up flying Fifty One.
https://i.imgur.com/aU2Ue4a.png
END OF THREAD
I really only used the term one time in ernest. As I sat at the flight terminal with my baggage in my worn khaki’s (that had seen too many trips to the Korean laundry) and my worn garrison hat (which I had since ROTC days), this dandy Captain, the flight surgeon, in a nice new gabardine uniform replete with his campaign ribbons (freshly purchased in the Tokyo PX) came up and said,” I’d like a couple of hours of your time to discuss your crash.”
My reply was, “ You see that C-46 parked out there. That’s my ride home. When they call my name, I’m going to board that airplane and leave. Ask all the questions you want until that time.”
His first question was “ Did you use the ejection seat?” I asked him, “ HAVE YOU EVER LOOKED AT A B-26?” He said “No.” I said, “ Look you’re wasting my time and your time. I’m a FIGMO navigator and if you don’t understand that term go talk to a combat crew.”
He said, “I’m going to get your orders cancelled.” and departed in the direction of Wing HQ. About that time they called our names for loading so I boarded the C-46 and left for Tachikawa, the “repple depple”. I suppose that he could have called me back, but the truce came of 27 July, so I could not go back in country.
Sir Thank You so much for the pictures and Thank You for your service