Brother Blackwell - A-36 Apache pilot

[SaparotRob]

Until drgondog set us straight, I thought the A-36 WAS the Apache.
Knowledgeable people still refer to the "Long Lance", "Whistling Death" and "Ground Hog" and we all know what they're talking about. A catchy name is applied at some point and it sticks. If someone calls a plane "Apache", we all have a good idea it's one of the earlier Allison powered Mustangs.
Not everyone has access to drgondog.

 

[drgondog]

Until drgondog set us straight, I thought the A-36 WAS the Apache.
Knowledgeable people still refer to the "Long Lance", "Whistling Death" and "Ground Hog" and we all know what they're talking about. A catchy name is applied at some point and it sticks. If someone calls a plane "Apache", we all have a good idea it's one of the earlier Allison powered Mustangs.
Not everyone has access to drgondog.

Tom Griffith does. Mustangtmg was a major assist on proofreading our Book.

 

[Schweik]

Ok I have a couple more tidbits from the saga of Brother Blackwell.

Here is his hat (leather flying helmet). From the narrative I don't know when he got it back, but apparently he did at some point. (I only really read the parts I already posted about flying the A-36)

 

[Schweik]

And here are four more pages from his memoir

 

[Mustangtmg]

I have an eccentric and very intelligent buddy who is something of a mad scientist who lives out in a very rough part of town, where he makes (to me) uncanny devices such as Tesla coils, hovercrafts, flame organs and other odd but impressive machines. My mad scientist friend knows I am a history buff, so to speak, and that I have an interest in WW2, so he occasionally passes on relics related to these subjects.

The most recent such historical relic was a collection of papers, a book, and a flying cap from a WW2 dive bomber or fighter bomber pilot who was a family friend that he knew as 'Brother Blackwell'. Apparently brother Blackwell, whose full name was Gilbert Alonzo Blackwell, either has no next of kin who are still around or they have lost touch. My friend ended up with his war memorabilia, which has temporarily been entrusted to me. We are going to look for family (I already tried but failed to find the daughter mentioned in the book) and failing that, donate it to a local museum which specializes in WW2 history.

In the meantime, I have taken photos of fifteen pages of the book, which cover his active career flying missions in the A-36a 'Apache' in Italy. During his flying career 'Brother Blackwell was awarded the DFC, the Air medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the Purple Heart with one Oak Leaf Cluster, the POW Medal, the American Campaign medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Medal with two bronze campaign stars, and the Individual Decoration of the Distinguished Unit Citation.

Aside from these fifteen pages, the rest of the book covers his training and early military experiences, and his captivity by the Germans after being shot down, (a brutal experience in which he lost his leg which he wounded while bailing out when he was shot down over enemy lines), and then some of his long and painful postwar recovery, along with a lot of military records. This was all compiled into a nicely bound hardback book of 167 pages.

These fifteen pages, fourteen of interview transcripts, which I thought would be of interest here are going to appear in the next five posts. A lot of this basically corroborates what I had already read about how the A-36 was used in Italy, but there are some interesting details as there always are with primary sources. Hopefully some people here may find this useful or interesting. The images are not super clear as they were taken with a phone, but are hopefully legible. Anyone with any questions feel free to ask.

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I have a question --- did the A-36 pilot to the best of your knowledge, on his own, ever use the name "Apache" for the A-36A Mustang in conversations or correspondence?

I'm VERY interested in everything related to the A-36A, and trying to establish - through actual research - just WHEN, WHERE and by WHOM the "Apache" name was first (mis)used as the "official name" for the A-36A.

I mean no disrespect to folks who call it "Apache," but that NEVER was its official name. The more I'm digging, the more I'm finding that it seemed to "crop up" in the 1970s.

Please get back to me on this.

Thank you.

Tom Griffith

 

[Schweik]

Hi, I think I answered this earlier in the thread. I do not know the answer but I don't recall Blackwell using the apparently very controversial term 'Apache' in his memoir, I think he just said A-36 and Mustang. I (unfortunately) used it for it's pop culture familiarity, since many people don't seem to know about the A-36 or Allison-engined Mustang types. Some people here are very familiar with the type but others are not.

I see it a bit like so many other types of WW2 military hardware which seemed to acquire names after the war. The US generally tended to use letters and numbers, when the names were around they were often not used in the field, or other nicknames were used.

I'm no kind of expert on the A-36 or any variant of Mustang and only wanted to share the story of this one specific pilot, who I also did not know, but did on behalf of a person who was a family friend of this guy. It was just a way to memorialize his service, and share the part of his memoir that I believed people here would find interesting.