"BOND-STANGS' ...

[Mark Allen M]

Americans, during WWII, were urged by their federal government to buy war bonds. In turn, the money raised by the sale of those bonds would buy food, guns, planes and tanks to support the war effort. Many Cities, towns, schools, organizations, businesses and individuals who purchased war bonds would sometimes have the opportunity to have their names listed on an individual aircraft. Below are a few photos of Mustangs I have collected over the years.


P-51D Mustang named after Frederick's Civic Club MD


P-51C Mustang named Charleston, Missouri's Fighting Blue Jay


P-51D Mustang 325th Fighter Group 15th AF Crashed in Yugoslavia


P-51 Mustang named Elwood Avenger after the only mainland shelling to occur on the US West Coast by a Japanese Sub. This occured off Elwood Beach CA (my neck of the woods)










P-51D-5-NA 'The Spirit of Tech High - Indianapolis'


Spirit of Richmond WWII P-51 Mustang fighter plane purchased by Richmond citizens through U.S. war bonds.

[JohnTerrell]

Thank you for posting these, Mark!

Another that comes to mind is the war bond presentation aircraft, P-51D-5-NA 44-13471 "The Comet", which was sponsored by the Hackensack High School in New Jersey, whose athletics team are known as "The Comets". http://www.americanairmuseum.com/aircraft/22040

The aircraft was presented to Capt. Evan M. Johnson of the 505th FS, 339th FG, on July 8, 1944, as he was the unit's leading ace at the time. It has been a while since I had done some research on this particular aircraft, but I recall it was on that very same day that a bunch of press were gathered at Fowlmere, for the official presentation, that the wing came off the aircraft while Johnson was wringing the aircraft out for the press and mock-dogfighting with a P-47. Fortunately Johnson was able to parachute to safety. Wing failures were a real serious problem with the early P-51D-5-NA's, which resulted in the deaths of at least a few pilots I'm aware of, before the root of the problem was found in the early landing gear uplocks and was resolved.

[Dan K]

So, how many of the photos Mark posted are of the same plane just bearing a repainted name?

[Chris Brame]

P-51 Mustang named Elwood Avenger after the only mainland shelling to occur on the US West Coast by a Japanese Sub. This occurred off Elwood Beach CA (my neck of the woods)

42-103644 appears to have stayed stateside, based at Venice, FL AAF where it suffered a Category 3 accident (ground collision) with sister ship 42-103643 on March 24, 1945 per AAIR. Baugher lists its fate as "to reclamation/scrap at MacDill AAF, FL May 24, 1946".
Probably parked nearby when the picture was taken was its other sister ship, 42-103645. which is now the CAF's Tuskegee Airmen.

[Lon Moer]

So, how many of the photos Mark posted are of the same plane just bearing a repainted name?

The pictures of the "D" with no dorsal fin sure are suspicious.

[Forgotten Field]

Thanks for posting this. "Bond Purchase" Airplanes and equipment are some of my favorites. Here are a few bits from my personal interests perspectives-

1. "The Fighting Falcon" was a Gibson Refrigerator CG-4A that carried the Assistant Division Commander of the 101st Airborne Division into combat. It was purchased by Greenville, Michigan Public Schools and was the first CG-4A in the formation to Normandy on D-Day. There's much more to the story if you haven't heard of it:

http://www.thefightingfalcon.com/history.php

2. Just last year, a photo of a Stinson Division, Consolidated Vultee L-5 showed up on ebay. It was purchased by an all- female American Legion Post, the Ragan Lide Post, of Detroit Michigan through war bond subscriptions, and named after the post.

3. 2-3 years ago, a group of documents showed up on ebay related to Tomous J. Mouse. Tomous J. Mouse was Stinson's cartoon mascot for Michigan and Ohio schoolchildren who participated in the war bond stamp program. War bond stamps were fractional pieces of bonds which anybody (not just kids) could buy, paste into a book, and when enough were purchased, could be turned into a whole war bond. Kids collected scrap, bottles, and anything else of value to buy these stamps, and school programs would form drives to purchase aircraft, trucks, and other pieces of equipment using the bonds bought collectively by the kids. Similar programs were done with other corporations throughout the US.

4. I no longer own it, but at one point I had a Dodge WC-53 Carryall which was purchased by a war bond drive. One of the hallmarks of these vehicles was a stencil on the dash board telling whoever was driving the cost of the vehicle and who purchased it. The cost was on the dash, but the purchaser's ID was gone. I suspect this was done for security purposes, but have no firm evidence of this, just a suspicion due to the fact that other vehicles have shown up like this.

[p51]

P-51 Mustang named Elwood Avenger after the only mainland shelling to occur on the US West Coast by a Japanese Sub. This occured off Elwood Beach CA (my neck of the woods).

That was not the only place that happened. On 21 June 1942, I25 surfaced at the mouth of the Columbia river near Astoria Oregon and shelled the area, while under the guns at Fort Stevens. The soldiers didn't react fast enough to engage the sub and its captain had no idea they had come close to a coast artillery emplacement at the time until after the war.

[CoastieJohn]

P-51 Mustang named Elwood Avenger after the only mainland shelling to occur on the US West Coast by a Japanese Sub. This occured off Elwood Beach CA (my neck of the woods).

That was not the only place that happened. On 21 June 1942, I25 surfaced at the mouth of the Columbia river near Astoria Oregon and shelled the area, while under the guns at Fort Stevens. The soldiers didn't react fast enough to engage the sub and its captain had no idea they had come close to a coast artillery emplacement at the time until after the war.

I did a little checking around on that. I found an article dated 6/26/1942 saying 24 hours earlier (6/20/1942) to the Astoria shelling, a Japanese sub also fired on Estevan Point, Vancouver Island. Never knew all of that.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid= ... 10,1044319