Waist Gunner

My wife, Debbie, is also a collector, but she has a good excuse: She uses old photos, postcards, and other paper ephemera in her artwork. She is a printmaker who produces etchings, drawings, and monoprint collages that sometimes incorporate these items.  

Yesterday, Debbie gave me an interesting piece of WWII, "V-mail."  V-mail, short for Victory Mail, was used during the Second World War to save shipping space by transporting correspondence to and from soldiers stationed abroad on microfilm after they passed military censors.  Once it reached its destination, the film images were blown up to 60% of their original size and mailed to the intended recipient in small manila envelopes.

The V-mail letter was from T/Sgt Scott Hilliard of the 706th Bomb Squadron, dated December 23, 1943. It was written from England and addressed to his mother, Mrs. P. S. Hilliard, in Franklin, PA. The letter discusses missing Christmas at home, the possibility of Spam for Christmas dinner in England, an anticipated visit to London, and looking forward to the completion of his required twenty-five missions.

Standing L-R: Julian Dixon; Clarence Lien; John Peterson; W. Ray Walker; Warren McMillan; Scott Hilliard.    Kneeling L-R: Pilot O. W. "Pappy" Henderson; Robert Tannahill; Vere McCarty; E. Dale Howard   

http://www.446bg.com/crew_photos/crews22.htm#2

An internet search revealed several entries about Sgt. Hilliard, as well as the photo above.  The 706th Bomb Squadron was part of the 446th Bombardment Group, stationed at Flixton, England, from December 16, 1943, to April 25, 1945. So, Sgt. Hilliard's letter home was written shortly after he arrived at Flixton. He was a waist gunner on the B-24 Liberator, "Dinky Duck," piloted by O. W. "Pappy" Henderson.  There are several of Hilliard's photographs online that he took during missions from his position as a waist gunner.

B24-H. 41-29125 JU-D  Tar Heel Baby, over Portsmouth, D-Day plus 6

Photo by Scott Hilliard, 446BG  http://www.aviationmuseum.net/

  

June 15 Mission

Photo by Scott Hilliard, Waist Gunner  http://www.446bg.com

Below is a photo and a quote from an online article written in Swedish by Ingemar Melin about a June 20, 1944, bombing mission that included the 492nd Bomb Group and the 446th Bomb Group, including the 706th Squadron and Hilliard's plane.  The mission target was a German synthetic fuel plant in Politz, Poland.  The bombers were attacked by Messerschmitts above Rugen Island and suffered heavy casualties. 

https://www-forcedlandingcollection-se.translate.goog/USAAF/USAAF072-440620-flakhappy.html?_x_tr_sl=sv&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=op,sc

Politz Mission,  June 6,  1944.  Plumes of smoke from 5 B-24s shot down off the coast of Rugen.

Photo by Scott Hilliard, Waist Gunner "Dinky Duck" 706th Bomb Squadron

During the raid, Sgt. Hilliard took photographs from his waist gunner position, and he is quoted in the above article as saying, "The speed with which they had taken out an entire B-24 Squadron shocked me. I never saw any planes burn or slowly fall out of formation; they were simply missing from the sky. After a brief moment I caught my breath, I saw a number of plumes from the burning wreckage in the water below. I saw a couple of German motor boats driving around the smoldering wreckage. I picked up my K-20 camera and took some pictures of the columns of smoke."

The above article also tells the compelling story of another B-24 on that raid, "Flak Happy," piloted by 1st Lt. Nicholas B. Kehoe II of the 856th Bomb Squadron, 492nd Bomb Group. The bomber was severely hit and on fire when Kehoe instructed his crew to bail out, but he was not sure they got that warning as the plane was full of smoke. When the smoke cleared, Kehoe found himself the only one left on board.  He put the plane on autopilot and fought the flames.  

He eventually got the plane over the Swedish border and bailed out.  He was picked up by locals and turned over to the Swedish Army.  Of the other 10 crew members, eight were killed, and two were captured by the Germans.  

For more on this story, see:  http://www.492ndbombgroup.com/cgi-bin/pagepilot.cgi?page=showCrewPage&crewPage=613-Kehoe&crewTitle=Kehoe%20613&nav=c2c 

It is known that Sgt. Scott Hilliard's plane, B-24, Dinky Duck, serial no. 41-29142 survived the war, and the 706th and the 707th Bombardment Squadrons completed 60 missions without a loss.  

More information about the 446th Bombardment Group can be found at the Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Museum website:  http://www.aviationmuseum.net/  and at the 446th Bomb Group website: http://www.446bg.com/

I assume that if B-24 Dinky Duck survived the war, so did Sgt. Scott Hilliard, but I did not find any recent online references for him.  I hope he had many Christmas dinners at home. (See note below.)  If you have any more information about Sgt. Hilliard's life, please let us know. The V-mail to his mother is waiting for a family or museum home.


Additional Information 1/10/2012:

My friend Melody Kelly just emailed me details of a record for Scott Hilliard on Ancestry.com, revealing that Sgt. Hilliard died in Oxnard, California, in 2003 at age 82. That's a lot of Christmas dinners. Good for him.

"Hitler built a fortress around Europe, but he forgot to put a roof on it." — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Schuyler Nebraska Siblings

I recently found this beautiful real photo postcard of four women and a man posing for a photographer while sitting in a buckboard.

As you can see, they may be siblings; all five have very similar facial features, but there is no identifying information on the front or back of this card.  The postcard back has a "Velox" stamp block, and I would date the photograph to about 1908.   

A sign on the building behind the wagon says, "The Sun Press."  There is also lettering on the building at the upper right.  This lettering is blurred and hard to read, but the lower line clearly reads, "Opera House."  So, I had a few clues to use to identify the town. Unfortunately, searching for "The Sun Press" online did not pay off.  One "Sun" newspaper was found in Cleveland, but this photo didn't look like Cleveland.

Here are two scans of the details, blown up and manipulated in Photoshop to the best of my ability.  It took quite a bit of trial and error to decipher the name of the opera house, but it appeared to be J. Janecek, and that was the clue that opened things up.

I searched the internet again and found a reference to Julius Cahn's Theatrical Guide 1897, which listed Janecek Theatre, J. Janecek, mgr., in Schuyler, Colfax Co. Nebraska. The guide also listed the local newspapers as "Sun," "Quill," and "Herald."  In addition, Pettengill's Newspaper Directory and Advertisers' Handbook for 1878 lists the "Nebraska, Colfax Co. Schuyler Sun."

So, part of the mystery is solved.  But who are these handsome siblings?  How did their lives turn out?  If you can identify them or if you find another breadcrumb left on this trail, please let us know.  

See the additional comment below, courtesy of dmz.

Shall We Go?

I received an email sometime back referring to an article in the NY Times about Kurt Vonnegut by author and filmmaker Dinitia Smith. The article ends with a quote from "Requiem" by Vonnegut:

"When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.”
People did not like it here."

Another of my favorite thinkers, George Carlin, said that we shouldn't worry about saving the planet—the planet will be fine—it's the humans who are in trouble.

I hope we can occupy this wet little rock for much longer and in some sort of harmony with it, but it is beginning to look doubtful.  There is hope that the population growth rate is slowing, and perhaps there will be enough thinkers and doers to offset our waste and greed before it is too late.

If we don't survive, I hope the blue planet continues its journey without us and that other inhabitants enjoy it. However, I wonder if they will be able to create as we have. Will something as productive as Stephen Hawking's brain or as beautiful as a Leo Kottke guitar solo exist?