From here.

https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/blog/author-guest-post-andy-long/

I mean, where else can you see a B-17 basically being made from scratch.

This was my second trip, and I absolutely loved it. I really enjoy getting to talk to the volunteers. They love talking about the build process. Once they see your interest, they keep saying "here, let me show you this." Very nice bunch. It doesn't take long that they're joking with you like they do the other volunteers.

If you're anywhere close, make the trip.

Martin James Mullane was born on March 21, 1917 in Alliance, Nebraska, his mother was Willa Mae Brumbaugh, he had one brother and grew up with stepfather Christian Ludy.
He also had two younger half-sisters and was married to Blanch Mullane.

Martin enlisted in the USAAF, and after flight school became a B-24 pilot with the 704th Bomber Squadron, 446th Bomb Group based at RAF Bungay.
On October 19, 1944, he was the pilot of B-24J 42-50681 “Slightly Dangerous” on a bombing mission to Mainz, Germany.

After dropping their bombs, they were hit by flak and fell out of formation with an engine out, all of the crewmembers bailed out to be taken prisoner except for Martin who stayed at the controls.
The Germans found his body in the wreckage of the B-24 and buried him.

Postwar the remains of 1Lt Martin Mullane were recovered from Germany and reburied at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, Netherlands - Plot F Row 5 Grave 3.

Flown during World War II by Lt. Harrison B. "Bud" Tordoff with the 352nd Fighter Squadron, 353rd Fighter Group, 8th Air Force (based in Raydon, England).

ORIGINAL CAPTION PHOTO 1: "The tired crew of a Consolidated B-24 of the 8th Air Force just returned from a mission over Germany. England." (NARA 342-C-K-002388_001)

ORIGINAL CAPTION PHOTO 2: "Capt. Howard Slaton, pilot, and his crew leave their Consolidated B-24 at a base somewhere in England after a mission over Berlin." (NARA 342-C-K-002389_001)

Second attempt!*

The story of the Seilbombe is extremely niche and I can't imagine many will care. But here it is anyway. Hard to know when to stop scribbling. All that I have on it at least. Hopefully I got all this right.

Seilbombe was developed and intended to be used if the invasion of Britain had occurred. No invasion happened of course and the device never went to war. Except that is not quite true. Parts of the Seilbombe were installed in planes that overflew Britain. And one such equipped aircraft fell into the hands of the British.

What in fact had happened was that the cockpit control unit was installed in some Bf 110's in preparation for the invasion. They were ordered to be removed. But wouldn't you know it one such installation was overlooked. And it just so happened that this airplane unfortunately for the Germans fell into British hands.

The aircraft was Bf 110 II./EKG210 S9+DH. Piloted on September 27 1940 by Martin Lutz, Staffelkapitän of I./EKG210. What had happened was that he had pranged his usual aircraft (which was S9+AH) and he was flying S9+DH instead. The one that had the Seilbombe control panel still installed. His bordfunker was Uffz. Anton Schön. And they were both killed that day during a raid against the the Parnall Aircraft Factory at Yate, near Bristol. They were shot down by Flight Lieutenant A. Rook in a Hurricane of 504 Squadron.

The wreckage of this Messerschmitt 110 of Erprobungsgruppe 210 shot down was of course examined by the British technical intelligence people. Although only the cockpit mounted control panel was recovered, it provided sufficient information to work out what its purpose was. The rest of the story was provided by a POW from the unit who spilled the proverbial beans.

RAF Intelligence summarised what he told them: “According to this prisoner’s belief, the Seilbombe consists of a line let down, like a trailing aerial, for about 220 feet with a weight at the end. By means of this wire, high tension cables can be short-circuited and there is a weak link which will break if there is any strain.” The purpose was to disrupt Britain’s electricity supplies through the National Grid, the device intended for deployment during the proposed invasion of Britain. The cables were said to have had a sharp leading edge and the weight to be shaped like a small bomb. From the cockpit control panel, it was clear that 20 separate Seilbombe cables could be deployed on a single sortie – presumably against 20 different pylon lines. Again, since the invasion didn’t happen, the Seilbombe was never employed. Neither was it deployed in any other theatre of war.

That was from Iron Cross Magazine issue #4 (2020). Page 31.

Those flights were intended to be conducted quite low and at night. The Germans had quite rightly concluded that to fly that mission during the day would be suicidal. For surely the RAF would bag such an airplane flying low during the day. So they settled on the night mission profile as it was only extremely dangerous. That being slightly more preferable to suicidal.

The story of the Seilbomb does not quite end there. Once a device is developed people tend to want to find a use for it. "We have this hammer. So lets go looking for some nails." That sort of thing.

During the invasion of the USSR plans had been made to use it against the electricity grid in the Moscow vicinity. Recon planes flew about to find likely areas for such a mission to be flown. However, as in the case against Britain in 1940 it was never used in this theatre either. There is some evidence that the reason it was not used was over concerns that the idea would be turned against them. So they wanted to develop a countermeasure before they used it, which they never did. So they never used the Seilbombe. The time to develop such a countermeasure would have meant that they were not close to Moscow. They had lost their chance to strike while the iron was hot.

I think that is the entire story. At least what is known. It is scattered about in crumbs here and there. The two best sources are I suppose this book.

Bombsights over England. In the third appendix three are a few pages on the device.

And an article Target England! On page 26. In the magazine Iron Cross Issue #4. (2020).

Both the book and the article are written by the same man. John J. Vasco.

There are a few more mentions of the device in a few other books. But they are just a few sentences or a paragraph at the most. As for more crumbs if one Googles Seilbombe and then reads the twenty or so hits that should give one the story.

*With any luck there are not too many mistakes this time. If there are, this time I/we live with them.

If only I could recruit a proof reader. : )

There are are a ton of mass-produced well known aircraft (B-17, P-51, ME-109) and then their are your prototypes and specialty use aircraft, but I was thinking today about aircraft that fell into obscurity despite being produced in fairly large numbers.

My vote is for the P-63 Kingcobra, direct successor to the mostly-maligned and shipped to the Soviets Bell P-39, there were 3,303 P-63s built. Which is a fairly significant number for a plane that is unknown to non-enthusiasts.

It was the crews second mission to the target area that day. MACR 6454 1st Lt. Murry B. Wiginton,Jr. - Pilot (KIA) 2nd Lt. William E. Wigginton - CoPilot (KIA) PFC Norford G. Meador - Togglier (KIA) Sgt. Ernest D. Casey - Engineer/Gunner (KIA) S/Sgt. Wesley B. Hoffman - Radio Operator/Gunner (KIA) S/Sgt. Philip A. Iannotta - Tail Gunner (KIA)

In 1942 one G.50bis was converted to a special configuration intended to fullfil armed reconnaisance roles for the air group of the aircraft carrier Aquila, then under construction. The Re.2001 was the designated fighter. For this role, the G.50 was given larger fuel tanks, 4 machine guns and a landing hook. As the carrier was not finished before the armistice, the project was dropped. The Aquila stayed under german control until the end of the war and was later scrapped.

Info on this bird is scarce, sorry if it's not accurate.

“Yippee” was the 5,000th P-38 Lightning

We made a video about the Me262 which features a Jumo004 in our museum and the flying replica of the FlugMuseum Messerschmitt. Video in comments.

While the DPAA makes good progress on the Lindell crew lost on Dec 26th 1944 (with recent reburial of Myron Yaw, and upcoming ceremony for Avery Gilliland), there are more airmen who died over Blechhammer and are still unaccounted for.

On October 13th, 1944, 2nd Lt Meyer’s crew of 455th BG was shot down, and the wreck fell into the forest between Blechhammer North and Blechhammer South. There were only two survivors, and 8 men died. Four were recovered and identified after the war, but the burial sites of 2nd Lt. Meyer, F/O Fajans, F/O Bray, Cpl. Bartholow were never found. They are still unaccounted for.

The local Blechhammer 44 Association remembers the crew in their museum. Here is their post published earlier this week, on the anniversary of this tragedy.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Gydq3aN5v/?mibextid=wwXIfr

You will find more stories of American airmen over Poland in WWII on my Substack:

https://open.substack.com/pub/sserwatka