Picture of the day

You would be surprised at the level of detail that was available from aerial photographs of the time.

For the simple reason that the negatives were huge compared to what we use today. It's one of the few technologies where the quality of the product has actually declined over time. Only large format view cameras produce comparable images today. 8x10 inches for example, versus the less than 2 inches of 35mm? No competition.

25 Feb 1945, Ardon R. Ives makes an emergency landing onboard the USS Lexington. Ives was killed in a dogfight on May 22 of the same yea

Drop tank burst?
 
Was there another gunner for the belly?

Just checked Wiki:

There were three crew members: pilot, turret gunner and radioman/bombardier/ventral gunner. One .30 caliber machine gun was mounted in the nose, a .50 caliber (12.7 mm) gun was mounted right next to the turret gunner's head in a rear-facing electrically powered turret, and a single .30 caliber hand-fired machine gun mounted ventrally (under the tail), which was used to defend against enemy fighters attacking from below and to the rear. This gun was fired by the radioman/bombardier while standing up and bending over in the belly of the tail section, though he usually sat on a folding bench facing forward to operate the radio and to sight in bombing runs. Later models of the TBF/TBM dispensed with the nose-mounted gun for one .50 caliber gun in each wing per pilots' requests for better forward firepower and increased strafing ability.
 
It was the success of the St Nazaire raid that led directly to Mountbatten's intention to stage the Dieppe raid.
Interesting...no wonder the Canadian vets of the Dieppe raid hated Mountbatten..I see the Nazaire raid netted the British force over 60% killed or captured. Heavy losses and quite the "success" !?! Why couldnt a raid by 617 Sqn not have accomplished the same thing? I read where destroying the drydock was intended to limit Tirpitz's scope of action....well 617 blew the bottom out of Tirpitz which certainly addressed that concern. Sounds like a pretty typical Mountbatten debacle with a little 'lipstick' added to bolster his sagging reputation!
 
Interesting...no wonder the Canadian vets of the Dieppe raid hated Mountbatten..I see the Nazaire raid netted the British force over 60% killed or captured. Heavy losses and quite the "success" !?! Why couldnt a raid by 617 Sqn not have accomplished the same thing? I read where destroying the drydock was intended to limit Tirpitz's scope of action....well 617 blew the bottom out of Tirpitz which certainly addressed that concern. Sounds like a pretty typical Mountbatten debacle with a little 'lipstick' added to bolster his sagging reputation!

Were the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs available then? I don't believe they were. Neither were Barnes Wallis' "bouncing bombs", which probably would not have worked anyway, due to the low height of the lock gates.

Besides, inter-service rivalry and personal ambition often plays as much part as necessity and practicality in who conducts operations and how.
 
Were the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs available then? I don't believe they were. Neither were Barnes Wallis' "bouncing bombs", which probably would not have worked anyway, due to the low height of the lock gates.

Besides, inter-service rivalry and personal ambition often plays as much part as necessity and practicality in who conducts operations and how.
true enough...and there is no question as to the bravery and actions of the men involved in the raid! But the risks from so-called 'Pocket' battleships like Tirpitz were no where near the threat to the war effort and critical supply lines than the U-Boats were. And despite non stop efforts to disable the various 'U-Boat pens' they remained mostly operational throughout the war. I thought Mountbatten was a tiresome individual who managed to screw up everything he touched but whose reputation was protected by his 'royal' mantle.

(to add: and apparently the IRA agreed!)
 
The so called " Pocket Battleships ", where the ships like the, " panzerschiffs ", KMS Admiral Scheer ", KMS Deutschland, and KMS Admiral Graf Spee.

The raid on Dieppe was on put partially to convince Stalin that a second front was not practical at that time.

Stalin and the various communist parties were calling for a second front to ease the pressure on Russia starting in 1941.

http://spartacus-educational.com/RUSsecond.htm
 
Interesting...no wonder the Canadian vets of the Dieppe raid hated Mountbatten..I see the Nazaire raid netted the British force over 60% killed or captured. Heavy losses and quite the "success" !?! Why couldnt a raid by 617 Sqn not have accomplished the same thing? I read where destroying the drydock was intended to limit Tirpitz's scope of action....well 617 blew the bottom out of Tirpitz which certainly addressed that concern. Sounds like a pretty typical Mountbatten debacle with a little 'lipstick' added to bolster his sagging reputation!

And the really sad part about it was the raid was unnecessary. They were trying to destroy the drydock to limit the possible operations of the Tirpitz. Except she was never planned to go anywhere near St Nazaire. By this time the Germans had basically decided to keep her in Norway. Of course 20-20 hindsight is always very easy. By the way 617 and the big bombs didn't exist yet nor did the bombers have the capacity for such heavy bombs. Wasn't really until 44 they could do this and it took a couple of attempts before they succeeded and even then they had a lot of luck actually hitting the Tirpitz. Plus incredible bravery and skill. Over 1000 miles from home, no fighter cover, daylight, good weather, with a lot of the bombers protective guns discarded to save weight. Against very heavy AA defenses, flying absolutely straight and level while hell was thrown at them. Just read book on the British attempts on the Tirpitz, most of them with limited hope of success. A lot of very brave men died trying to put that ship out of action. They finally succeeded but the cost was enormous.
 
true enough...and there is no question as to the bravery and actions of the men involved in the raid! But the risks from so-called 'Pocket' battleships like Tirpitz were no where near the threat to the war effort and critical supply lines than the U-Boats were. And despite non stop efforts to disable the various 'U-Boat pens' they remained mostly operational throughout the war. I thought Mountbatten was a tiresome individual who managed to screw up everything he touched but whose reputation was protected by his 'royal' mantle.

(to add: and apparently the IRA agreed!)

Tirpitz wasn't a Pocket Battleship. She was a full out battleship more or less as good as the best the British had. The presence of Tirpitz required the Royal Navy to keep two battleships plus numerous cruisers and destroyers available in the far north Atlantic to counter the threat of her. These ships were sorely needed elsewhere. The Tirpitz threatened the vital Russian convoys. While she never really did anything she sure tied up a lot of British resources.
 
The so called " Pocket Battleships ", where the ships like the, " panzerschiffs ", KMS Admiral Scheer ", KMS Deutschland, and KMS Admiral Graf Spee.

The raid on Dieppe was on put partially to convince Stalin that a second front was not practical at that time.

Stalin and the various communist parties were calling for a second front to ease the pressure on Russia starting in 1941.

http://spartacus-educational.com/RUSsecond.htm

In fact General Marshall and large part of the US high command were also enthusiasts for a "second front" in 1943 and even in some cases in 1942, until Dill and other British leaders talked some sense into them. Defies all logic, but then so did the very popular delusion that Uncle Joe was some kind of genial closet democrat.
 
Been a while.

Here's the GIB in an ME110. Doesn't he look happy?

glb4je754tpy.jpg


Apparently, that's Unteroffizier Gerhardt Sarodnik.

http://www.jagdgeschwader5und7.de/uffz-gerhard-sarodnik/

He made it through the war and died an old man. Not bad for a 110 crewman.
 
Operation Chariot, the St Nazaire Raid, was carried out on the 28 March 1942.

The Channel Dash by the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau was on the 11th to 13th of February, 1942.

The object of the raid was to deny the Germans a repair facility for large ships on the Atlantic coast.

Scharnhorst and Gneisenau operated together for much of the early portion of World War II, including sorties into the Atlantic to raid British merchant shipping. During her first operation, Scharnhorst sank the auxiliary cruiser HMS Rawalpindi in a short engagement (November 1939). Scharnhorst and Gneisenau participated in Operation Weserübung (April–June 1940), the German invasion of Norway. During operations off Norway, the two ships engaged the battlecruiser HMS Renown and sank the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious as well as her escort destroyers Acasta and Ardent. In that engagement Scharnhorst achieved one of the longest-range naval gunfire hits in history.
 
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