Warbird Information Exchange

P-40N-5 #40 8th FS 49th FG New Guinea 1943

P-39D 15th FG Hawaii 1942

P-40Bs 15th FG 1942

B-25D Thumper 345th BG

P-47Ds 348th FG NG 1943

P-39Ls 40th FS Tsili Tsili 1943

C-47A unloading a Dobodura 1943

PSP experts in action

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Don't touch my junk!!

Cool Color Pics! Only too true, not many color pics out of the Pacific. Just what is a Dobodura? An origami dodge truck? And why load or unload it into an aircraft with NO TAIL!?!? Inquiring minds want to know. They loose a bet?

That fuselage was used to practice and train how to load a C-47. Notice the large letters on the fuselage on the left of the photo. Good use of an obviously damaged Dakota.
Great shots Jack.
Thanks.
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

This is a collection of 190 colors slides taken by a US Army EO surverying
airfields in the SP/SWP/CP in 1942-43.

I believe this is Munda Point on New Georgia

P-38Fs 39th FS P-39s 41st FS Tsili Tsili

B-24D

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Don't touch my junk!!

That is Munda - still in use.

Still P-39s in various states of disrepair at Tsili Tsili in 1971 and the strip was still in use.

PSP was still common throughout the Solomons and PNG - was called Marsden Matting.

Great stuff as always, Jack!

Tsili Tsili...that's gotta be one of the sillies...er, funniest names ever! Sounds like something from McHale's Navy.

SN

Tsili Tsili was built in a few weeks and was kept very secret from the Japanese...it was a mini 'Hump' operation with everything,when it was opened, being flown in by C-47s...

Just a question: I don't know the name for this equipement: the part to build runway and road very quikly: piece of metal assembled like "patchwork", with holes in them ??

A part of my familly is from Normandy, and lots of them were abandoned by the Engineer troops and you find lot of them today in farms used to building fence, etc.

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Sorry for my bad English:-(

Wow! Cool stuff. Jack, how common was color film in WWII?

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

The runway steel matting is commonly called PSP (Pierced Steel Planking) or Marsden Matting. Very useful stuff.

Here is an article with more info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsden_Matting

Fantastic pics. This is why I love the WIX so much. For those interested in the C-47 unloading shot the truck they are unloading was known as the 'air portable' cckw cargo truck, 2.5 ton. They modified them at the factory with a break in the frame behind the cab so it could be broken down in half for shipping inside a Dakota.

Here's a pic of 4Y at Dobo, where the 3rd Attack Group was based. By war's end, Dobodura had between 12-15 separate airstrips.

Thanks

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Sorry for my bad English:-(

Here's a PSP story for you courtesy my friend Cy Gladen of the 44th FS.
"I hated flying off PSP for one simple reason. Those f*cking crabs!!! During their mating season large crabs would coming out of the jungle and hundreds perhaps thousand went across the runway at Ftr 2 airstrip on the canal. A large percentage were hit while a/c were landing or taking off. Hitting one of these suckers was like hitting a big rock!! Even worse the PSP became terribly slick with the juices of smashed crabs. It was common place to see a/c sliding off the runway and even the crashes happening because the pureed crabs. Maybe worse was the stink the rotting crabs corpses gave off. Combined with rotting vegitation and rotting corpses of a Japanese soldiers made it all the more special. 50 years later I can still smell the distinct odor of Guadalcanal!"

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Don't touch my junk!!

One of the four "Shooters" on Operation Vengeance, the Kill Yamamoto mission, blew a tire on takeoff roll because of a bad piece of PSP and didn't go on the mission. IIRC, groundcrew just loved walking the thousands of feet of PSP with a sledgehammer smacking down edges and spiking them occasionally trying to get them to stay put. Imagine the forces of a loaded heavy rolling out would exert. It is amazing the stuff worked as well as it did.