I have some wwii photos of some aircraft, vehicles and weapons I cannot identify. Need some assistance please.
Here are the pictures. Some of the unknown vehicles may be a little hard to see, but any input will be appreciated. http://www.grampatom.com/sunshop/html/Anti-Aircraft-Gun.html http://www.grampatom.com/sunshop/html/Bye-Bye-Blues.html http://www.grampatom.com/sunshop/html/Jungle-Fighting.html http://www.grampatom.com/sunshop/html/Surveying-the-Damage.html http://www.grampatom.com/sunshop/html/Tanks.html http://www.grampatom.com/sunshop/html/Tanks-in-Action.html http://www.grampatom.com/sunshop/html/Unknown-Aircraft.html
Welcome to the forums. The aircraft pictures I can help you with. The nose of Bye Bye Blues is a Douglas C-47. A famious cargo and passanger aircraft that is still used today around the world. Also know as a DC-3 The second aircraft is a Douglas O-47A They were made before WWII started and were supposed to be for observation of troop movements and artillery spotting but they were too slow for combat so they were used during the war as trainers and squadron hacks or sometimes coastal sub spotting. I think the USAF museum in Dayton has an example of both aircraft on display.
The tank in the jungle is a M3/M5 Stuart light tank. Greatly used by the allies on all fronts. Yours looks like the Pacific theater with the troops in the pie pan hats.
Thanks TA152. Really appreciate it. The photos are from Allied activity in New Guinea. I think the anti aircraft is Japanese, but I don't know for sure. Maybe the smaller tanks are as well. A lot of the pictures I have were taken by the Australian Dept. of Interior. The picture of the Douglas O-47A says it landed on Camp Roberts, California parade ground and had $50,000 cash in the cockpit. I would love to know more about that. I will check into the museum. I have a nephew who lives there. I have a couple more photos of nose art to put on. Will put the links on when I get them up.
One more I need help in identifying please http://www.grampatom.com/sunshop/html/Quitch---Nose-Art-WWII-Bomber.html
Thanks Martin Bull. The bombs on the side -- do you know if these were targets destroyed or number of flights? Any other info available?
Bombs were painted on for each successful mission flown ie not missions aborted. Whether actual targets were bombed is open to conjecture.... Unfortunately, 'Quitch' was relatively common as an aircraft name so I can find no more definite info for the moment about the aircraft in your photo. ( Risque, made-up names like this were common in the 40s, such as 'Miss Minookie', 'Frenesi', etc and this one was a shortened form of 'Queen Bitch' ).
Yes the aircraft is a B-25. The bombs are missions and the stars above most of the bombs have a meaning too but I can not recall what it is right now. A few bombs do not have the stars. Also looking below the cockpit window you see they shot down a plane and I can not tell for sure but maybe two ships were sunk by the aircraft. They painted over the bomb aimers window area in the Pacific due to the hot weather. Possiblily a 5th Air Force aircraft as they did lots of anti-shipping strikes in the Pacific.