B26C K9 Korea 1953

[browningautorifle]

Not a great landing

You provided the crew chief with the spares he needed...

Information

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[henry r]

Damn.

Please tell me you have written down your stories, i would like to read them and I'm sure many others would too.

[Cosine26]

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 All F51's had been withdrawn by that time.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

[browningautorifle]

FIGMO

Long time since I heard that one...

[Cosine26]

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.

[browningautorifle]

“I’m going to get your orders cancelled.”

Another self-important-pompous-self-righteous-inexperienced-a**hole in an officer's uniform... I met a few too.

[Cosine26]

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

[browningautorifle]

"reduced the aircraft to produce"

At least the gunner was able to just step out without messing his hair...

[gary]

Sir Thank You so much for the pictures and Thank You for your service

[Peter Laidler]

They don't bother you when you're at Sgt and WO rank BAR. But further down the food chain, when you're back on home turf after a long absence and it's all sort of new again..........

I recall getting a real roasting not long after returning to the UK after 3 years abroad, trolling around the bloody Far East and still only 22. I went off duty after being the Guard Commander with the duty vehicle keys in my pocket. I mean....., it's not as though we were short of Land Rovers to use until Monday morning, anyway. I got back in on Monday to be told to go to the HQ block to see the Orderly Sergeant WITH the keys I'd taken home by mistake. He berated me of course and I told him that I hadn't been back very long and this was my first duty in 3 years where we'd had keys. He didn't seem to understand the concept of no vehicle keys, but he saw that I had a strange (Australian) version of the 'wooly pulley' (the heavy pullover) on and through the small slit for the epaulettes he could see a small dark blue badge and a smaller yellow badge (Rising Sun) slightly showing through the other side. That made him a bit inquisitive and he asked what the xxxx I was wearing. So I told him that my stuff hadn't even caught up with me yet (after normal and active service leave etc etc) and that I'd had 3 years away, still had my old 'issued/Australian replacement' stuff. As for the missing keys. we never had keys for our vehicles or 'log books' (a sort of driver record book), just a turn switch and push button. I mean....., where were you going to bloody well go if you took the big Bedford or International?: And if you lost a key there, where would you get another? It seemed to go above his head a bit. But it turned out later that he was a nice bloke. He told the QM, Kindly old clothing QM arranged for me to be totally and fully re-equipped. Never queried the absence of any of the other stuff on my 1157 kit record sheet which was probably stuck in some QM's ledger in Enoggera. Still got the issue Omega wristwatch to this day and gave the Longines to my son!