Wednesday, March 14, 2007

More old photos and history...family of mine, here



Herbert, Albert (my Dad's Dad), and Edmund (a US army colonel)...all brothers to each other. New Orleans, approx. 1943.








My Mother, Marion, (right), with clarinet. I think this is 1940's. She would only live about another 20-ish years.








My uncle (from my Dad's side), Albert Jr., was a ball turret gunner on a B-17 bomber. That position was a most uncomfortable and very unforgiving job in the underbelly (and very exposed it was) of that big, reliable, but lumbering plane that flew unpressurized to 25,000+ ft. The cold, by the way, was often sub-zero. He was part of a crew that flew out of England in WWII to regularly trouble the Nazi regime. He, like so many brave soldiers, did not finish the war at his post. His aircraft was shot down over Poland, and he fell victim to terrible German WWII "hospitality". He did survive the war, and lived until the 1990's. The photo is NOT of him, but similar, I am certain.

My uncle Albert's own son, Albert III, was recently displaced by the terrible forces of hurricane Katrina. They are well, I understand.



A typical photo of a B-17 in flight. The supercharged engines allowed for high altitude flight. I have seen these planes fly to fight forest fires for years, here in my home of Southern California...though they were replaced a long while ago.

More to come... this is a great joy to me. I hope visitors enjoy.


--Dan

2 comments:

Nabonidus said...

This was quite a moving post for me. That pic of the ball turret.
My grandpa may've been in the tail firing for all we know! He was a tailgunner stationed in UK who did make it home afterWW2.
He was my hero and I miss him very much. I'm sorry you didn't get to know this person in your family that lost his life trying to protect the world from evil. :(

Nabonidus said...

Oops!He did live! lol
My eyes were so blurred over reading that, I missed the part that he did live until the 1990s. Jeez.
I guess it blew my mind that my grandpa and he may have really flown
together. Both stationed in UK. Both
gunner pilots.Stranger things have happened.