Old Photos: American Soldiers Observing Eruption of Mount Vesuvius 1944

http://3r8md7174doo44lgpk3kou79-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/OldPics-AmericanSoldiersObservingEruptionofVesuvius1944-550.jpg ^

[laplata]

Thanks.

[21twelve]

Seeing the rear flaps burnt away sent me to google:

“From the outset of the war, the North American B-25 Mitchell medium ... Flight control surfaces, exclusive of wing flaps, are heavily doped-fabric covered members. .”

[IndispensableDestiny]

Soldier in front: "Do you think we used too much?"

Soldier behind him: "Nah, that's just about right."

[zeestephen]

A couple weeks ago someone posted about the nighttime glow coming from Mt. Etna, which you can see offshore in the Strait of Messina, about 250 miles southeast of Vesuvius.

A bunch of U.S. Navy guys commented on seeing that.

My step-brother flew off the Eisenhower and told me stories about Mt. Etna all the way back in the 1970s!

[GreyFriar]

Vesuvius wiped out an entire B-25 bomber group, the eruption and fallout destroyed all 80 aircraft.

Many additional photos of the B-25s and the eruption and the diary of a USAAF witness:

http://www.warwingsart.com/12thAirForce/Vesuvius.html

Newsreel of the eruption: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/435934438903070869/

[Lorianne]

Wow, I did not know that.
Thanks for posting

[PAR35]

I’m not fully convinced that that is a B-25. The wings inboard from the engines don’t look quite right, and it’s sitting like it’s a taildragger instead of a tricycle. On the other hand, the tail and the rear gunner position do look right, as do the engines.

[laplata]

Thank you.

[T-Bird45]

This thread and your photos are going to make me go see if there may be some of this among my dad’s old photos. It’s been forever since I looked at them but I know he was in this area with the Army Air Corps after coming over from North Africa.

[PAR35]

I’ll correct myself after seeing them with the nose wheels up in the air.

http://www.warwingsart.com/12thAirForce/12thAF038.jpg

[kiryandil]

It read, Don’t startle him Joe, its almost full”.

LOL! That was one of the better ones! 😀

https://www.stripes.com/polopoly_fs/1.255910.1386193679!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_900/image.jpg

Back during the impeachment wars in 1998, I posted "Fresh, spirited American troops, flushed with victory, are bringing in thousands of hungry, ragged, battle-weary prisoners. (News item)" to Jim Robinson when we were kicking the Clintonites' collective @sses a month or two after the Drudge bomb.

He liked it. We were all pretty beat just about then...

http://www.awon.org/willie/wj9.JPG

[elcid1970]

Mauldin always was about provoking class warfare between enlisted soldiers and officers.

Ernie Pyle he wasn’t. Pyle saluted all ranks in the combat theaters.

After WWII Mauldin boasted that he did so depict a general officer favorably in one of his cartoons. It was retired Gen. Omar Bradley as the civilian head of the VA. Whoop ti doo.

[zot]

Wow! Thanks for the ping and the post.

[DuncanWaring]

[EC Washington]

My Dad was also there - he took pictures and sent them home. I remember looking at them when I was a kid. I searched the old house everywhere and can’t find them.

[doorgunner69]

Yeah, had that book as a kid. Dad did not relate, he was Pacific war.

Think my favorite is Willie and Joe sitting up in their sleeping bags, one of them shining a flashlight on a big rat, the other one with a .45 in the rat's face.

"Aim between th' eyes Joe, sometimes they charge when wounded"

[Parley Baer]

“I’m guessing you are referring to the review view of the vehicle in the center as the “former German car.” It is a US Army Dodge WC-56 or WC-57, series 4x4, 3/4 ton, Command Car. See this Wikipedia article and photographs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_WC_series";

It could well be. From the rear it just reminded me of one of those VW type vehicles the Germans drove.

[The Westerner]

Thank you! Patton—what a Man!

[doorgunner69]

[MuttTheHoople]

In the folks 1st home after the war in 1945 he painted a mural size of a Mauldin page on the cellar wall, 6 feet high at the bottom of the stairs. It read, Don’t startle him Joe, its almost full”.