Sometimes in looking through and scanning old photos from my late friend Dick Kamm, some of the more interesting things are in the background. This pic is from an air show at some base in France in 1949 or 1950.
The subject of the photo is a Mauboussin monoplane, a 2-seat light sport plane whose production started before World War II and resumed after the war. A little over 100 were built in total. Dick was a crew chief for one of the pilots on the USAF Skyblazers display team and would get to travel to shows and take pictures of odd planes like this. You can see some of the Skyblazer F-80s in the background at extreme left, under the nose of the C-47.
Ah, yes, the C-47. This is where the background gets interesting. 42-100895 is a documented D-Day veteran. According to the
D-Day Overlord Encyclopedia site, it flew with the 437th Troop Carrier Group from Ramsbury and towed Horsa glider DP671 to Normandy, filled with 82nd Airborne troops, during the third (evening) wave of June 6, with a drop time of 21:10. By the time of this photo, it was resident at the Furstenfeldbruck base in Bavaria, also the home of the Skyblazers. Probably it toured in support of the Skyblazers team, which means it was likely Dick's ride to this air base.
And then, what's going on in the background over the rear fuselage of the Mauboussin? I enlarged the scan to find out.
Okay, nothing much. Just a line of French Air Force Halifax bombers, still wearing their wartime camouflage.
Now, I like to think I appreciate obscure French light sport planes as much as anybody, but I kind of wish Dick had been interested enough in the Halifaxes to stroll over there and get some good color slides of them. Usually he was pretty good about snapping shots of leftover wartime birds at bases he visited. Sadly, not this time.
August