I happened upon this picture while surfing the webz this morning. Needless to say I did a little digging and found some more info.....
Here is a link to the website BOMBER.COM
Link to ROADSIDE AMERICA
Here is a PBS type story I found:
Bing Satellite Image of the address
13515 SE McLoughlin, Milwaukie, Oregon
Neat and posted.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the article and video. Hubby's uncle was a tail gunner on the B17's during WWII. He made several bombing raids over factories in Germany. He never liked to talk about the war or the gore - said the bombing was just something that needed to be done to stop Hitler. He is gone now and like a lot of these men, their stories are lost forever.
ReplyDeleteThe gentleman that lives across the street from me was a B-17 pilot. Flew his last mission on the day I was born - VE day 1945.
ReplyDeleteMother in law was a WASP in WW II.. Brock did a post about her a few weeks ago. Dad (RIP) was in the Naval Air Transport Service, NATS. Thanks for the post, I will show it to my neighbor.
Terry
Fla.
Must you insist on posting things from my hometown?
ReplyDeleteI'm homesick enough as it is in exile here in Floriduh. ;-)
My father was a B-17 pilot, flew out of Eye, England. He and his whole crew made it with no major injuries, only lost one plane, which he had to land on a metal fighter airstrip in Belgium on the way back from a raid in Germany after losing two engines. The Belgians dressed the crew in Belgian uniforms and smuggled them out of the country. He flew several missions after the end of the war, bringing food to the Belgian people ("chowhound" run) and once to Yugoslavia to pick up a load of French POWs who had been used there as slave labor by the Nazis. He was picked for that flight because he spoke French.
ReplyDeleteHe never talked about the war, either, but several years ago I connected with three of his crew who were still alive (he died in '73) who told me these stories and more. I found the 490th Bomber web site, and got a large folder with the names of many of the crews in the old Army Air Corps Eight Air Force, along with copies of many of the missions he flew.
For those who are interested, there is a museum in Southern Georgia called the Mighty Eighth which maintains files, documents, and digital info on the Eight Air Force as well as a B-17 they are restoring, and many exhibits on the aircraft and crews who flew them. If you are ever in the Savannah, GA area, it is well worth a visit. I stopped there the last time my wife and I drove through that part of the country. http://mightyeighth.org
ReplyDeletethis is just down the street from where I do my grocery shopping. Funny how you no longer see things that you always "see" when you drive past. You just get so used to seeing it, knowing it is there, you don't even see it anymore. Somewhere in this thinking is the fear that that is what the government is doing to us about, well, everything.