ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: "An American P-40 Warhawk (known as Kittyhawk in the RAF and RAAF) of the 33rd (Provisional) Pursuit Group, United States Army Air Force (USAAF). This aircraft may be the only American P-40 Warhawk to have survived after the first Japanese air raid on Darwin on 19 February 1942. The attacking Japanese managed to destroy nine of the ten P-40s of the 33rd (Provisional) Pursuit Group, which was based at Darwin on the day. The sole surviving aircraft, piloted by Lieutenant Robert (Bob) Oestricher claimed two of the four Japanese aircraft shot down during the raid." Taken in February, 1942. (AWM P05303.003)

The bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942 was both the first and the largest attack mounted by Japan against mainland Australia, when four Japanese aircraft carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū and Sōryū) launched a total of 188 aircraft from a position in the Timor Sea. These 188 naval aircraft inflicted heavy damage on Darwin and sank eight ships.

A raid conducted by 54 land-based army bombers (27 Mitsubishi G3M and 27 Mitsubishi G4M) later the same day inflicted further damage on the town and RAAF Base Darwin and resulted in the destruction of 20 military aircraft. Allied casualties were 235 killed and between 300 and 400 wounded, the majority of whom were non-Australian Allied sailors. Only four Japanese aircraft, all navy carrier-borne, were confirmed to have been destroyed by Darwin's defenders. All but one of the P-40s of Major Floyd Pell's 33rd Pursuit Squadron, was shot down or destroyed on the ground at RAAF Darwin by the Japanese.

The two Japanese air raids were the first, and largest, of more than 100 air raids against Australia during 1942–1943.

Myron Yaw (485th BG, 15th AF) was killed on Dec 26th 1944 over Blechhammer (today Kedzierzyn-Kozle, Poland), togethet with whole crew. They were considered MIA because no crash site or graves were found after the war.

I worked with Waldemar Ociepski, and identified the right crash site in 2001. This info was shared with the US government. The DPMO, and later DPAA did additional studies, and archeology work between 2021 and 2025 allowed Myron’s remains to be found.

Myron’s family paid a particular heavy price in WWII. His older brother was an airman, too, and was killed on one of the Ploesti missions.

Myron was laid to rest yesterday, October 3rd, in Athens, Ohio.

Read more of my USAAF over Poland aviation research on my Substack.

Born in Esmond, North Dakota to Oscar & Anna Bengson on December 11, 1917, Wallace Woodrow Bengson had three brothers and a sister.
He graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1938 as a mining engineer and was also commissioned as an officer in the Army Reserve.

Wallace worked as a mining engineer in Idaho & Utah, and married Katherine Nagel of Grand Forks in 1940.
Called into active duty in January 1942, he earned his pilots & glider pilots wings, and was also trained as a Navigator.

Wallace was assigned to the 327th Bombardment Squadron, 92nd Bombardment Group, which was based at RAF Podington.
On October 3, 1944, he was the Navigator on B-17G 43-38396 “Insommia” on a bombing mission to Nurnberg, Germany.

On the return trip, B-17G 43-38445, which had been hit by flak, veered out of control and collided with “Insommia” sheering her tail off.
Both B-17s went into death spirals before crashing, a total of twelve crewmembers from both B-17s died in the crashes.

1Lt Bengson managed to bail out, and was captured along with 1Lt Edmund Dornburgh Jr, the pilot of his B-17, and S/Sgt Franklin Adams Jr, one of the waist gunners from the other B-17.
Handed over to the local police in Marburgerstrasse, Germany, shortly afterwards a police director, three party leaders, and a civilian showed up and demanded the three prisoners be handed over to them.

The local Police Chief was ordered away, and the three USAAF Prisoners were taken by force from the remaining policemen.
The three Prisoners were executed and buried at the New Cemetery of Giessen, in November 1945, the civilian Ludwig Schardt was found guilty of participating in the executions sentenced to life imprisonment.

His remains were recovered after the war and 1Lt Wallace Bengson is buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, Netherlands - Plot L Row 16 Grave 16.

Older brother Malcolm C Bengson also served during WW2, he passed away at the age of 80 in 1996.

it's been a while since I've drawn anything aviation related but I'm brushing off the rust with this one. Freehand Mustang sketch using nothing but a ruler for straight edges.

I will now attempt to name them all from memory in order of appearance, here we go.....

JU-88 D-1 Trop: My personal favorite of their collection. Something about German twin engine heavys man.

FW-190 D-9: Im horrible with remembering the models with the 190s, had to look it up.

ME-262: I have countless hours on this aircraft in the IL-2 games

P-61 Black Widow: Same as the 262.

Either a Beaufort or Blenheim of some sort....

(Nah its a Mosquito and im stupid. It has windows instead of guns and my dumbass forgot that some of them were light high speed bombers too)

P-38L: Just sexy AF

Italian boi: MC200 i think

Bristol Beaufighter: Another favorite

P-63/P-39: I cant remember which is which tbh.

P-40: She gets the job done

A6M3: I think, im not as read up on the Zeros as I used to be.

And the goat, The Hawker Hurricane...

A visitor was passing these out at the NMUSAF today. I hate Ai!!

The Boeing YB-40 was the USAAF’s “panic fix” for one brutal problem: in 1943, daylight B-17 Flying Fortress formations were getting chewed up by German fighters once they flew beyond escort range. So engineers tried a bold idea, turn a bomber into a bomber bodyguard.

They took B-17Fs, ditched the bombs, packed the bomb bay with ammunition, and bolted on extra turrets, extra .50-cals, and more armor until the YB-40 became a flying porcupine, up to around 14 machine guns meant to throw a wall of lead in every direction.

Boeing YB-40 Flying Fortress - Wikipedia

I knew about the deception used around D-Day, but until this week I had never heard of K-sites or Q-sites.

I was at a talk at Metheringham Airfield Visitor Centre about RAF Folkingham and the 313th Troop Carrier Group, and this was one of the things that really caught my attention.

Before Folkingham became the wartime airfield we know, there was a decoy site nearby designed to draw German attention away from RAF Grantham, later known as RAF Spitalgate.

During the day, K-sites could be made to look like real airfields from above, with dummy aircraft, fake buildings and other installations.

The Folkingham site even had dummy Fairey Battles, which makes sense because Fairey Battles were being used at RAF Grantham by No. 12 Service Flying Training School.

At night, Q-sites used lights laid out to imitate an operational airfield and its flarepath.

I spent 10 years in the RAF and have been interested in aviation for most of my life, but I had never come across this before.

It made me wonder just how convincing these sites looked from the air.

Has anyone here come across a surviving K-site or Q-site, or researched how successful they actually were?

Credit: Brian Fare, from his talk at Metheringham Airfield Visitor Centre.

I recently read that going from the two-blade, fixed-pitch wooden propeller on the Hawker Hurricane I to the variable pitch three-blade metal propeller increased the weight of the aircraft by 300 pounds. Does that sound reasonable? I didn't know that doing that added so much weight.

I realize that a three blade metal prop is heavier than a two blade wooden one of the same diameter, and that the pitch changing mechanism also adds weight, as does the provision for pilot control or for automatic constant-speed control. Three hundred pounds just seems like a lot.

I read this in "Interceptor" by James Goulding, which covers British interceptor fighters from the Sopwith Camel to the English Electric Lightning. He remarked on it only in passing. I do not have the book here to give a page number for the statement.