Questions for an American WWII Dive Bomber?

Ganderite said:
here is what I would ask.

How did they navigate over water?

Would their ship turn on a homing beacon? (I doubt that.)

How steeply would they dive?

Always same angle?

How did they aim the bomb(s)?

How accuretly could they aim?

How did they aim at moving target?
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Good questions!:)

I'll try to work them into the conversation too.
 
sunray said:
"...Brush up on my WW2 American dive bombers..." Your public library. This'll help though. http://www.daveswarbirds.com/usplanes/american.htm
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LOL! I found that one too the other night when I was trying to find examples of the different aircraft he might have served in. I'm not sure if he was indeed the pilot, but I will know when I talk to him.

I get the sense he was from what my mother has told me.
 
carbonrod said:
I'd ask all kinds of technical questions like Ganderite mentions to keep it impersonal. If he opens up at all, I would ask something emotional:

If he was a front seater, ask him about the first time he pushed over and all he saw was red, then blue/brown. If he was a rear gunner ask him about the first time the guy in front of him pushed over, and all he saw was red, then blue.

and hope that he had a little to say about the experience. I read as much as I can about ww2 on aircraft, and how they were used, but there is little that describes what the wetware experienced.

If he opens up, just listen. The last WW2 vet that told me a little about his experience stopped himself about 10 min in. Almost cried. Then smiled and said "I had a good war". I can't even begin to imagine what he meant, but I will never forget it. After that, we spent about another hour talking about his kids.
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Yeah, I don't want to ask him anything upsetting. More or less I just want to ask a general question and let him fill in the details as he sees fit.

What do the colour changes denote?

Do they all see red due to blood rushing into their head and eyes from the G-forces, and then blue for the sky or sea and brown for the land?
 
H4831 said:
MapleSugar said, "I had no idea of his accomplishments until I read his obituary."

This is the most frustrating thing a person can imagine! I used to gather what information I could get on the old Yukon Telegraph Line, the single wire, with batteries and operators in cabins every 30 miles, that stretched from southern BC to the Yukon, in gold rush days of 1900 and beyond. Very little was ever written about this line and true information is hard to come by. Was good friends with a retired telephone operator, but never asked him anything about it. His obituary stated he had been an operator at a remote spot on the Yukon Telegraph Line, for several years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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That is too bad, I'll be he could have filled in any blanks you may have.

Working in various industries, I've learned a lot by listening to the older fellows and their life stories. Some of them are rather interesting as they have accumulated a lot of experience. I tended to avoid all the guys my age or younger that seemed to think they knew it all. You don't learn anything when you don't listen to somebody who helped write the book on the subject you are trying to understand.

Most vets or ex-cops I've met don't talk much about their unpleasant experiences. I think they just want to forget about them, or file them away somewhere they can visit alone and sort out. If they tell me anything, it is usually after I’ve known them for awhile and they felt like talking about something that bothered them. An ex-RCMP detective I worked with was deeply troubled by some of the homicide victims he saw. It was a shame, because he is a really great man and I think it led to him having a serious drinking problem.

I was doing a pistol qualification for Brinks about 18 years ago at the Kelowna range, and this old guy noticed us in our uniforms and wandered over and started talking to us. We were done shooting for the day, and were just sitting around talking about hunting rifles and our choice of calibers......or something along those lines. I was in my early 20's and obviously the youngest person there. The old man kept interrupting and stating, "Meh, I just shoot targets now, I don't hunt anything anymore......I killed enough people during the war." When he said this, I could see him looking out of the corner of his eye at me, as if he were wishing I would press him for more information about all the people he claimed to have killed during the war. He did it several times before he finally left, every time with the almost imperceptible sideways look at me to see if I would take the bait.

I was thinking he was full of it and wasn’t interested in hearing what he had to say. One of my partners at the time told me of making the mistake once of asking his uncle (who had seen a lot of front line combat) about the war. He said his uncle got all quiet then kind of mad and stated, “The only people who want to talk about the war now and how great it was, are the same people who were hiding under their desks when the bombs were falling.” My partner said that was the first and last time he ever asked any vet about their wartime experience.

I’m really only planning on calling this gentleman I hardly know, because my Mom mentioned I would be interested in hearing what he had to say, and he agreed.
 
my grandfather was a sherman gunner...

he hated mutton too. He used to say "mutton for breakfast mutton for lunch mutton for dinner nothing but g*damn mutton. I miss him a lot.
 
I think we need a biographies section in this forum.

It seems we all have an ancestor or friend that has had an interesting life that is worthy of noting.

We could have it broken down into sub-sections like; military, police, firefighting, etc.

Some may be brief as available history may be sparse, but I think we could compile some interesting life stories. Or at the very least, have a place to honour and remember our loved ones.
 
Step No. 1 - the most important one of all: Thank him for his service in preserving our freedom! That will definitely blow him away and unlock the door.
 
MapleSugar said:
Yeah, I don't want to ask him anything upsetting. More or less I just want to ask a general question and let him fill in the details as he sees fit.

What do the colour changes denote?

Do they all see red due to blood rushing into their head and eyes from the G-forces, and then blue for the sky or sea and brown for the land?
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That is what I have read, but I'd like to hear it first hand. Has to make the G's I can pull in a Decathlon seem like a relaxing hot tub.
 
carbonrod said:
That is what I have read, but I'd like to hear it first hand. Has to make the G's I can pull in a Decathlon seem like a relaxing hot tub.
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I'll make sure I ask him for you.:)

I had a helicopter pilot give me the ride of a life in a 500 once.

He got the bumblebee humming really good, then he pulled straight up on the stick before he rolled over sideways and dropped straight down.

It was a rush! I love those little helicopters.:D
 
mg4201 said:
he hated mutton too. He used to say "mutton for breakfast mutton for lunch mutton for dinner nothing but g*damn mutton. I miss him a lot.
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It sounds like he was in the same tank with my grandfather (he was a driver on a Sherman!!) Ohhhh, did he ever HATE mutton!!!

As for the OP, why don't you ask him about his first flight in a Yellow Peril? (Navy basic flight training aircraft) Or his training at Pensacola?
 
I think the colors the writer referred to are the markings on the airspeed indicator. Aircraft are limited on high speed. Push the nose down and speed builds rapidly. At a certain speed, if the control column is pulled back, the wings can be pulled off. Military aircraft are strongly built and this dangerous speed will be a way above cruising speed.
A Cessna, on the other hand, is a sleek built, civilian aircraft. With the nose down they build up speed very rapidly and quickly get to the danger zone, which is maybe only 140% of cruising speed. The air speed indicators of aircraft are color coded. At the danger level they are painted red. A short space below the red area, they are painted yellow.
 
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