the mad world of crazy aircraft found in Major Howdy Bixby’s Album of Forgotten Warbirds on Dean's Garage.com

from Bruce McCall’s 1982 book, Zany Afternoons, presents a collection of brief articles about an imaginary society from the 1920s to the 1950s, often populated by uber-wealthy and spoiled sophisticates who enjoyed such diversions as autogiro jousts, wing dining, zeppelin shoots, and tank polo

found on http://deansgarage.com/2011/bixbys-warbirds/

to buy yourself a copy http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0394735048/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

B-17 bomber aircraft had a unique collision in air, and were stuck in a piggyback arrangement while forced to decend due to engine fire in the bottom bomber, here is the story

Originally published August 12, 2003

by Ralph Kenney Bennett

Found on http://skylighters.blogspot.com/ feb 2009 post

Captain Glenn Rojohn of the 8th Air Force's 100th Bomb Group was flying his B-17G Flying Fortress bomber on a raid over Hamburg. His formation had braved heavy flak to drop their bombs, then turned 180 degrees to head out over the North Sea.

They had finally turned northwest, headed back to England, when they were jumped by German fighters at 22,000 feet. The Messerschmitt Me-109s pressed their attack so closely that Capt. Rojohn could see the faces of the German pilots.

He and other pilots fought to remain in formation so they could use each other's guns to defend the group. Rojohn saw a B-17 ahead of him burst into flames and slide sickeningly toward the earth. He gunned his ship forward to fill in the gap.

He felt a huge impact. The big bomber shuddered, felt suddenly very heavy and began losing altitude. Rojohn grasped almost immediately that he had collided with another plane. A B-17 below him, piloted by Lt. William G. McNab, had slammed the top of its fuselage into the bottom of Rojohn's. The top turret gun of McNab's plane was now locked in the belly of Rojohn's plane and the ball turret in the belly of Rojohn's had smashed through the top of McNab's. The two bombers were almost perfectly aligned — the tail of the lower plane was slightly to the left of Rojohn's tailpiece. They were stuck together, as a crewman later recalled, "like mating dragonflies."

Three of the engines on the bottom plane were still running, as were all four of Rojohn's. The fourth engine on the lower bomber was on fire and the flames were spreading to the rest of the aircraft. The two were losing altitude quickly. Rojohn tried several times to gun his engines and break free of the other plane. The two were inextricably locked together. Fearing a fire, Rojohn cut his engines and rang the bailout bell. For his crew to have any chance of parachuting, he had to keep the plane under control somehow.

The ball turret, hanging below the belly of the B-17, was considered by many to be a death-trap — the worst station on the bomber. In this case, both ball turrets figured in a swift and terrible drama of life and death. Staff Sgt. Edward L. Woodall, Jr., in the ball turret of the lower bomber had felt the impact of the collision above him and saw shards of metal drop past him. Worse, he realized both electrical and hydraulic power was gone.

Remembering escape drills, he grabbed the hand-crank, released the clutch, and cranked the turret and its guns until they were straight down, then turned and climbed out the back of the turret up into the fuselage.

Once inside the plane's belly Woodall saw a chilling sight — the ball turret of the other bomber protruding through the top of the fuselage. In that turret, hopelessly trapped, was Staff Sgt. Joseph Russo. Several crew-members of Rojohn's plane tried frantically to crank Russo's turret around so he could escape, but, jammed into the fuselage of the lower plane, it would not budge. Perhaps unaware that his voice was going out over the intercom of his plane, Sgt. Russo began reciting his Hail Marys.

Up in the cockpit, Capt. Rojohn and his co-pilot, 2nd Lt. William G. Leek, Jr., had propped their feet against the instrument panel so they could pull back on their controls with all their strength, trying to prevent their plane from going into a spinning dive that would prevent the crew from jumping out.

Capt. Rojohn motion left and the two managed to wheel the huge, collision-born hybrid of a plane back toward the German coast. Leek felt like he was intruding on Sgt. Russo as his prayers crackled over the radio, so he pulled off his flying helmet with its earphones.

Rojohn, immediately grasping that crew could not exit from the bottom of his plane, ordered his top turret gunner and his radio operator, Tech Sgts. Orville Elkin and Edward G. Neuhaus, to make their way to the back of the fuselage and out the waist door on the left behind the wing.

Then he got his navigator, 2nd Lt. Robert Washington, and his bombardier, Sgt. James Shirley, to follow them. As Rojohn and Leek somehow held the plane steady, these four men, as well as waist gunner, Sgt. Roy Little, and tail gunner, Staff Sgt. Francis Chase, were able to bail out.

Now the plane locked below them was aflame. Fire poured over Rojohn's left wing. He could feel the heat from the plane below and hear the sound of .50-caliber machine gun ammunition "cooking off" in the flames.

Capt. Rojohn ordered Lt. Leek to bail out. Leek knew that without him helping keep the controls back, the plane would drop in a flaming spiral and the centrifugal force would prevent Rojohn from bailing out. He refused the order.

Meanwhile, German soldiers and civilians on the ground that afternoon looked up in wonder. Some of them thought they were seeing a new Allied secret weapon — a strange eight-engined double bomber. But anti-aircraft gunners on the North Sea coastal island of Wangerooge had seen the collision. A German battery captain wrote in his logbook at 12:47 p.m.:

"Two fortresses collided in a formation in the NE. The planes flew hooked together and flew 20 miles south. The two planes were unable to fight anymore. The crash could be awaited, so I stopped the firing at these two planes."

Suspended in his parachute in the cold December sky, Bob Washington watched with deadly fascination as the mated bombers, trailing black smoke, fell to earth about three miles away, their downward trip ending in an ugly boiling blossom of fire.

In the cockpit Rojohn and Leek held grimly to the controls trying to ride a falling rock. Leek tersely recalled, "The ground came up faster and faster. Praying was allowed. We gave it one last effort and slammed into the ground."

The McNab plane on the bottom exploded, vaulting the other B-17 upward and forward. It slammed back to the ground, sliding along until its left wing slammed through a wooden building and the smoldering mess of metal came to a stop.

Rojohn and Leek were still seated in their cockpit. The nose of the plane was relatively intact, but everything from the B-17 massive wings back was destroyed. They looked at each other incredulously. Neither was badly injured.

Movies have nothing on reality. Still perhaps in shock, Leek crawled out through a huge hole behind the cockpit, felt for the familiar pack in his uniform pocket, and pulled out a cigarette. He placed it in his mouth and was about to light it. Then he noticed a young German soldier pointing a rifle at him. The soldier looked scared and annoyed.

He grabbed the cigarette out of Leek's mouth and pointed down to the gasoline pouring out over the wing from a ruptured fuel tank.

Two of the six men who parachuted from Rojohn's plane did not survive the jump. But the other four and, amazingly, four men from the other bomber, including ball turret gunner Woodall, survived. All were taken prisoner. Several of them were interrogated at length by the Germans until they were satisfied that what had crashed was not a new American secret weapon.

Rojohn, typically, didn't talk much about the Distinguished Flying Cross he'd earned that day. Of Leek, he said, "In all fairness to my co-pilot, he's the reason I'm alive today."

Like so many veterans, Rojohn got unsentimentally back to life after the war, marrying and raising a son and daughter. For many years, though, he tried to link back up with Leek, going through government records to try to track him down. It took him 40 years, but in 1986, he found a phone number for Leeks' mother, in Washington State.

A year later, the two were reunited at a reunion of the 100th Bomb Group in Long Beach, California. Bill Leek died the following year.

Glenn Rojohn was the last survivor of the remarkable piggyback flight. He was like thousands upon thousands of men, soda jerks and lumberjacks, teachers and dentists, students and lawyers and service station attendants and store clerks and farm boys, who — in the prime of their lives — went to war.

Let us be thankful for such men. Stories like this go in my "Hero" label, and if you get fired up by these stories, read about uncle Bob, the Corsair pilot http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/02/uncle-bob-corsair-pilot-heroes-dont.html because heroes didn't always die in combat, some tragically died in training missions

Nobody messes with King Kong

Howitzer, 1946 is the label on the photo. Found on the HAMB

Harley Davidson buried for 48 years in Belgium, dug out by the grandson

Wow, I'd freak out to find a Harley... and the buried treasure aspect. Wouldn't that make your year !?!?

Found on http://motorcycle-74.blogspot.com/

Digging for the story on the internet was finally successful, the story briefly was that a small town young guy has a new Harley shipped to him in Belgium. Eventually he crashed on it, put it in the backyard, had a family, and in 1961 his young daughter was paying on it, fell, and it made the guy so mad he buried it. So the man dug up an old well and dumped the bike into it.

Just recently in Oct 2009 the story made it into the news http://www.editiepajot.be/regios/15/articles/9032 after months of trying to talk the (now Old man) reluctant grandad into allowing an excavation, and a bottle of gin to lubricate the deal, he got some buddies to help shovel... and unearthed it after 48 years of a dirt nap

Rare duece type 18 with a custom coach-built cabriolet body

The car varies from the American-made convertible sedan styles; the top has no side rails to slide on.

The car was originally purchased by a high-profile German official. In 1938 or 1939, the car was hidden, actually walled up in a basement in Austria, to prevent military confiscation. In 1947, the car was shipped to England. It arrived stateside in 1964, as the possession of a Wisconsin antique dealer. From there, it was sold to the current owner in Jacksonville.

The bodywork is from Deutsch of Koln, the chassis assembled by the Ford Werks A.G. Koln. Unusual features abound such as an underhood siren, dual flag shafts, a Bosch driving light and spotlight, and trafficators. This is the only known example by this coachbuilder and one of five German-built convertibles known.

Former Staff Car for the Third Reich. Owner was a non-Nazi and hid the car from confiscation by the German Army.

The car has all of its original parts, with the exception of the engine (now correct) that was lost during long ago restoration. There are currently only seven of this body type known in the World.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=397594&page=61

WW2 was instrumental in changing the American culture in so many ways, but did you ever hear of car bumpers being donated to the scrap drives?

Rita Hayworth did her part... so if you come across her big old car with no bumpers, now you'll know what happened to them.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/08/28/Worldwarii/War_changes_fashion.shtml

For an example of immense largese in donating to the scrap drives, read about Panmsy Yount's 1933 Duesenberg Model J Judkins Berline that was turned over to the war effort for it's use as metal for armor plate, or whatever they did with all that steel http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2008/08/ive-posted-before-about-ww2-scrap.html

Rita was so good looking, the richest man in the world Prince Ali Khan gave her a Ghia bodied 1953 Cadillac series 62

WWII German barricade made from TP2 & TP4 locomotives; Baltic Sea shores

A real unusual and perhaps desperate need for steam locomotives during WW2 via:

http://melisaki.tumblr.com/

WW2 railgun, effing huge!

Don't recall where I got this from

Roar! 1943 Studebaker Weasel

Via: http://www.autogallery.org.ru/k/s/43studWeasel1_MVS.jpg for one that made it through the war and came though ok, http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/08/1944-studebaker-weasel.html

Cool nose art! P40 called Old Red

Wow. That is bitchin... apropos too
Via: http://zelastchancegaragedu78.blogspot.com/

1944 Studebaker Weasel

For a brochure: http://202.63.50.228/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=2114&g2_GALLERYSID=7ba8d706a5715abc56cd8f2bf2ae30cc

World War 2 had a lot of effect on Americans who weren't fighting oversea, and were dealing with rationing of gas and tires

For another WW2 effect on the civilians and their automobiles: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/04/1930-model-happened-across-while.html

Oradour Sur Glane, France

Henry lives nearby, and emailed me the story about Oradour.

The German army rounded up all the villagers on suspicion of collaborating with the resistance during WW2 and placed all the women and children in the church, and the menfolk in various buildings around the village. At the church, soldiers brought in a box containing some sort of explosive device and detonated it amidst the terrified women and children. The SS then started firing their machine guns into the church through the doors and windows and also threw in hand grenades to murder the women and children.

They shot the men in the legs before setting fire to the entire village, the church included, thus burning alive some 600 people. The whole village was completely destroyed and only a handful of people escaped.

The village was designated a memorial site and left exactly as it was on the day of the attrocity,and remains so to this day. Hence all the contents of the village including all the vehicles remain in situ where they were burned.

That is the saddest thing you'll learn all week.

http://www.oradour.info/

http://www.secondworldwar.co.uk/ora_tour/oradour.html