The Smithsonian Remembers - World War 2

[kscarbel2]

 

[kscarbel2]

 

[kscarbel2]

 

[kscarbel2]

 

[kscarbel2]

The movie, Das Boot, is a must-have in your video librairy.

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[steelman]

• The Mustang incorporated a new shape wing, called a laminar flow design wing.  The shape was such that the air moving over it stayed in a laminar flow state (smoothly flowing), as opposed to turbulent flow (erratic and mixing).  This allows for a better flight characteristics, chief among them being less drag.

[41chevy]

Think of the everyday things we use today that came from WWII Tech. Surgical procedures from wound treatment to transplants and drugs. Jets and high speed flight. Rockets and Space travel, Space Shuttle included. Computer, Television, Radio, Sonar and Radar advances.Stealth technology, Food preservation. Atomic energy. Naval advances in everything from fabrication to design. Women accepted in to the work force.  Even your PDF uses WWII based technology.  Pretty amazing when you really think of it.      Paul

[kscarbel2]

A long time ago, someone I respected in his knowledge of WW2 fighter aircraft asked me what I thought the best "piston engine" fighter of the war was. Though the P-51 with its superb (Packard-built) British Rolls Royce "Merlin" engine and Hawker Fury/Sea Fury were in the top 5, I without hesitation said........"The Vought F4U Corsair".

[41chevy]

1 hour ago, kscarbel2 said:

A long time ago, someone I respected in his knowledge of WW2 fighter aircraft asked me what I thought the best "piston engine" fighter of the war was. Though the P-51 with its superb (Packard-built) British Rolls Royce "Merlin" engine and Hawker Fury/Sea Fury were in the top 5, I without hesitation said........"The Vought F4U Corsair".

Whistling Death and the Jug are both at the top with the Hellcat a close second by it's ability to take severe damage and most times get home.    Paul

[grayhair]

Agree, the F4U was/is an awesome machine.  The Sea Fury was no slug either.  Used extensively in the Korean War.  18 cylinder radial powered, 2 rows of 9 cylinders

Edited July 23, 2016 by grayhair

[41chevy]

Corsair was used along with the WWII  T-28B, A26, P-61, C-47, C-46, C-119, a few P-47 (D?), DeHavilland C-7B ,by our clandestine CIA Air Force in Udorn Royal Thai Air Base. Thai markings with U.S. pilots and ground crews.

The thing most interesting on the P-47 is it was built in an upper and lower half and assembled after the Turbo-Supercharger assembly filled the lower fuselage.

[kscarbel2]

22 hours ago, 41chevy said:

Whistling Death and the Jug are both at the top with the Hellcat a close second by it's ability to take severe damage and most times get home.    Paul

As flying machines, the Wildcat was horrible and the Hellcat still didn't compare with the Zero. The Bearcat was the Zero's equal, but like the Fury and Sea Fury, they didn't enter the picture until the end of the war.

Unlike the Thunderbolt, an ungainly lump with big engine, the Corsair had a proportional balance of all the necessary attributes. Had it be used in the European theater of war, I'm confident it could have taken on Germany's best, the Kurt Tank-designed Focke-Wulf TA-152 (Tank went on to make his late war jet designs a reality after the war, first in the Nazi enclave of Argentina, and than India).

 

 

[41chevy]

But remember the Wildcat was a mid 1930's design for the replacement for the F3-F and up to than we had no real knowledge of the Zero. Hellcat wasn't the Zero's equal and the basic theory by Leroy Grumman was the ability to increase the air wing with in the existing carriers until the second generation long deck Essex class were on line and the ability for cargo ships to increase the amount shipped. The Fury, Sea Fury, Bearcat and the Skyraider were to late for combat operations in WWII.       Paul

 

[kscarbel2]

Rare photograph Paul.

A captured Focke-Wulf 190A-5 (WkNr. 150 051) undergoing comparison testing during the war at NAS Patuxent River (down the river from the Glenn L. Martin plant).

Not every day you see a 190 with a U.S. Navy tri-color paint scheme.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Captured_Focke-Wulf_Fw_190_in_flight_near_NAS_Patuxent_River_in_1944.jpg

 

[41chevy]

 USAAF in German Markings.

ME262 in O.D. and Grey.

 

[kscarbel2]

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[kscarbel2]

Lost Tapes: Pearl Harbor

Take an unprecedented look at the attack on Pearl Harbor entirely through news reports, public statements, recently declassified documents, and footage recorded in the days before, during, and after the event that shook the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3oRGVKAeKQ

[gxbxc]

I seem to remember that the Zero was a Howard Hughes design that the the us military rejected , and the Jap's either bough .copied or stole.

[kscarbel2]

This Smithsonian video on Pearl Harbor is extremely well done. A lot of "never before seen" footage.

[kscarbel2]

2 hours ago, gxbxc said:

I seem to remember that the Zero was a Howard Hughes design that the the us military rejected , and the Jap's either bough .copied or stole.

I never heard of a connection between Hughes and the A6M. It resembles the Gloster F.5/34.

It has been claimed that the Zero's design showed a clear influence from British and American fighter aircraft and components exported to Japan in the 1930s, and in particular on the American side, the Vought V-143 fighter. Chance Vought had sold the prototype for this aircraft and its plans to Japan in 1937.

Eugene Wilson, president of Vought, claimed that when shown a captured Zero in 1943, he found that "There on the floor was the Vought V 142 [sic] or just the spitting image of it, Japanese-made", while the "power-plant installation was distinctly Chance Vought, the wheel stowage into the wing roots came from Northrop, and the Japanese designers had even copied the Navy inspection stamp from Pratt & Whitney type parts." While the sale of the V-143 was fully legal, Wilson later acknowledged the conflicts of interest that can arise whenever military technology is exported. Counterclaims maintain that there was no significant relationship between the V-143 (which was an unsuccessful design that had been rejected by the U.S. Army Air Corps and several export customers) and the Zero, with only a superficial similarity in layout.

The Zero resembled the 1937 British Gloster F.5/34. Performance of the Gloster F.5/34 was comparable to that of early model Zeros, with its dimensions and appearance remarkably close to the Zero. Gloster had a relationship with the Japanese between the wars, with Nakajima building the carrier-based plane, the Gloster Gambet, under license. However allegations about the Zero being a copy have been discredited by some authors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_A6M_Zero

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[BC Mack]

Douglas sold their prototype DC-4E airliner to Japan prior to WW2... it was then used by Japan as a basis for a bomber...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-4E

"The Douglas DC-4E was an American experimental airliner that was developed before World War II. The DC-4E never entered production, but its failure resulted in an entirely new design, the DC-4/C-54, which proved very successful. Many DC-4E design features found their way into the Japanese Nakajima G5N bomber."

BC Mack

[kscarbel2]

 

[kscarbel2]

I never knew that Tinian, at least at one time, was the world's largest military airbase.

https://www.atomicheritage.org/location/tinian-island

So is that tractor a Federal model 94x43.....or an Autocar U-7144-T ?

The Federal grille was rounded, the Autocar grille flat.

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[Mack Technician]

No hardhats, no high vis, no steel tips, no safety glasses, no load tethering, open service pit without a barrier, spraying without respirator and laying under an unsecured suspended load....... how did any survive?