Recent content by Dana Bell

There was never an order to remove the "U. S. ARMY" markings, only two orders to end the application of the markings. (One for camouflaged aircraft, and a subsequent order for uncamouflaged planes.) Any aircraft surviving from before the order could carry the markings a long while. Cheers, Dana

Don didn't actually get credit for the Oscar until well after the war, and even then not "officially." (It's possible the Oscar was added to the USAF's victory list after Don and I discussed this back in the 1980s - it hasn't come up since then, and Don's no longer with us.) Anyway, he'd...

One other not on Blue Streak's unusual camouflage scheme - the undersides were Deep Sky Blue instead of Neutral Gray. She was one of the B-24s planned for Britain but diverted to HalPro for a second raid (after Doolittle's mission) against Japan. Diverted to the Middle East, the aircraft never...

A favorite photo with some hidden history. Three TBDs at the stern wear experimental camouflages. All have been overpainted with dull aluminum with Dark Green upper surfaces. One aircraft has a heavy dull aluminum blotching on the green, one a light blotching, and one no blotching at all. If...

Nah, it's from and original 4x5 Kodachrome transparency... Cheers, Dana

Sorry to ask, but was that last series a case of "tit for tat?" Dana

Book: History of Aviation by Aaron Speys... Cheers, Dana

Saturday, 4 July, Virginia... Cheers, Dana

The 1940 movie Flight Command featured a Navy squadron called the "Fightin' Hell Cats" with an appropriate insignia on their Grumman biplanes. After the film was finished, the real Navy squadron petitioned to keep the fake marking as their own, but was turned down by BuAer. Anyhow, Grumman had...

I ran down that photo back in the 1970s - those are actually all Army Air Forces aircraft at the Tucson Mod Center. The white ones are wearing one of the Army's anti-sub schemes of OD and white, a scheme applied in spring 1943. By autumn the Army was able to pass the ASW mission to the Navy...

Actually, Doolittle was in England as head of the Eighth AF; the photo was from 6 July 1944. Cheers, Dana

The US Navy developed a rubber paint to prevent retracted black tires from disrupting the effect of undersurface camouflage. It browned with age and wore poorly, so it was very rarely used. Cheers, Dana

Hi Skywalker, VT-5 suffered no combat losses during the missions against the Japanese, but once they were back on Yorktown they were subject to the same exhaustion as the rest of the crew on the combat-damaged carrier. It seemed wiser to rest weary, stressed crews, replacing them with fresh...

Hi Skywalker, It wasn't just the planes - the Yorktown crews were roughed up by the actions during the Battle of the Coral Sea. Saratoga's crews, including VT-3, had seen minimal action at that time, and were pretty fresh, so they were among the units before heading to Midway. Cheers, Dana

Basically Flash Dance with F-14s - what's not to love! Cheers, Dana