Warbird Information Exchange

Shelldrake

If you think Invader 26 is bad, try 'Jungle Bob' !
I dont want to say much more than that, dont think this is the time or place

Lightning

Lightning

I know all there is to know about Jungle Bob, his friends etc
dealt with his type many times and always with the same result.


SD

Hey Shelldrake,
Your absoloutely right P-40E-1 41-35954 "Texas Longhorn", or the remains of it, still lie in the Ocean North East of Bay Rock, off Townsville. To the best of my knowledge it has never been dived, but is known to the prawn trawler skippers who try to avoid it to protect their nets. Having said that, they had to hook it up several times before the co-ordinates were shared amongst the fleet(many years ago now, 1970's) I'm not aware of anyone having recovered anything off of it.
I thought Rob was involved in the restoration of the 49th veteran P-40E 41-25178 "Spoddessape" which was recovered from it's wartime crashsite some years ago now.

Allways good to see money being spent on warbirds.

_________________
"If that's a goddamn 'Jug' in front of me, you sure as hell better wiggle your wings." 80FS/8FG Cape Gloucester, December 1943. And the entire 41st Fighter Squadron rocked their wings.

ALWAYS LOOKING FOR P-38 PARTS

I am confused about Texas Longhorn(s)
An internet search brings up multiple reference to various scale models of P40E Texas Longhorn. However the text associated with the various models tells contradictory stories as though there was more than one plane with the same name. (or there is a lot of misinformation)

Corgi’s text implies the plane was lost in combat defending Darwin
"Whispering John" Landers claimed four kills with the P-40 during the 49th FG's epic defense of Darwin in northern Australia in mid-1942. He "made ace" in this aircraft which was assigned to his senior flight leader, Capt. "Bitchin" Ben Irvin) on December 26, 1942, when he downed two of six Ki-43 "Oscar" fighters. Landers had to bail out of the P-40 moments later when his fighter was shot up by the remaining Oscars." After completing his combat tour in the Pacific, Landers went on to achieve greater fame as the commander of several Eighth Air Force fighter groups. He finished he war with 14.5 confirmed aerial and 20 strafing victories.

GMP Precision text has the plane crashing in New Guinea
Texas Longhorn, P-40E (RAF serial ET 600), was assigned to the 9th Fighter Squadron of the 49th Fighter Group. This aircraft is seen at Rogers Airfield, also known as 30-mile, west of Port Moresby in 1943. This aircraft was lost on 12 May 1943 in New Guinea in a non-combat loss (US Army photo).After finishing a tour with the US 9th Fighter Squadron, Landers went on to fly in the ETO where he eventually commanded the 78th Fighter Group of the Eighth Air Force.

On WIX 42-2195 states
P-40E-1 41-35954 "Texas Longhorn", or the remains of it, still lie in the Ocean North East of Bay Rock, off Townsville.

Can anyone clarify?

_________________
Chris Mellor

Yes. It was lost on a non-combat flight(training actually) on May 12th, 1943. However it was operating out of Garbutt Field, Townsville, Australia at the time, not New Guinea. I'll have to research the Darwin loss and get back to you on that one.

_________________
"If that's a goddamn 'Jug' in front of me, you sure as hell better wiggle your wings." 80FS/8FG Cape Gloucester, December 1943. And the entire 41st Fighter Squadron rocked their wings.

ALWAYS LOOKING FOR P-38 PARTS

I cannot find any mention in online bios of John Landers having been shot down off Darwin though there are numerous references that include the following.
"He evaded capture in December 1942 after being shot down and bailing out of his fighter plane near Dobodura, New Guinea."
Maybe Corgi is gilding the lily.

Digressing, there also seems to be a question as to what his P38 was called.

_________________
Chris Mellor

Hi gents

May I just clear a couple of things up here, as there is a disconnect in the history of the Aircraft Landers flew. Landers flew at least three different aircraft coded #81 whilst with 9FS

His first aircraft #81 was named Skeeter. This aircraft was a P-40E, and after an accident at Adelaide River, the aircraft was repaired and later given to the RAAF via the 5FC Pool.

His second aircraft was a early P-40E-1, again was coded #81, and it is possible that this was named "Texas Longhorn", this aircraft was the one transferred to Bill Irving and renumbered #75. This aircraft was scrapped in PNG Dec 1942. I believe it is this aircraft that the Cowl that was seen came from.

His final aircraft as far as is know was certainly named "Texas Longhorn" and its history is as Gordy stated, finally ending up in the water off Townsville.

SD if you want the serial numbers for aircraft one and two please drop me a PM.

As for A29-43 = The Texas Longhorn, I pray not as we are talking two different models of P-40.

SD any chance of any of the numbers from the airframe (longeron, tags, anywhere Please) for the airframe they are calling A29-43. I have the ability to idenitify an airframe against the holy grail. This way we can confirm the identity without a shadow of doubt.

Buz

Buz,
It may have been written of charge in PNG in December 1942, however it wasn't scrapped. It was shot down and abandoned by Landers south of Dobodura(West of Pongani) on the 26th of December 1942. This aircraft was named "The Rebel" and belonged to the 9th Fighter Squadron CO, Bill Irving. I'm not sure that I have any records suggesting that it was Landers aircraft before it was Irving's.
I think it more likely that any cowl found in the Dobodura area bearing resemblance to "Texas Longhorn" would have to be the original cowl off the P-40 in the sea off Townsville. Probably swapped when the aircraft was retired south, because the pilot/ground crew didn't want to part with the artwork. There would have been plenty of grounded P-40's to raid parts from.

_________________
"If that's a goddamn 'Jug' in front of me, you sure as hell better wiggle your wings." 80FS/8FG Cape Gloucester, December 1943. And the entire 41st Fighter Squadron rocked their wings.

ALWAYS LOOKING FOR P-38 PARTS

Understand all and very true with the swapping of parts (so long as they fitted but thats another story).

I have records that show that the aircraft (Landers replacement after 'Skeeter') being transfered to become #75 and being flown by Irving...the question is did Irving still have this aircraft in Dec 1942, That I can't tell you.

What I do have is Landers had 'Skeeter' In the April Air raids, she went for repair due to issues with her engine, and he recieved a replacement. When 'Skeeter' was repaired it seems that Landers took her back, as noted in information from Jun 1942, as well as notes saying that the replacement #81 had been assigned to Irving. Finally in Jul he still had 'Skeeter', however in the PR shots taken in Aug just before the 49FG pulled out of Darwin, the aircraft had changed from 'Skeeter' to a P-40E-1

Hope that makes some sense.

Buz

Thanks Buz and Lightning, finally some sense coming to this matter.
I had suspected Skeeter was also a candidate for the ID transfer but was advised that Longhorn was the G.O.

Incidently, I have dived on what we believed to be the remains of Longhorn North, Northwest of of Magnetic Island, its in about 50 to 60 feet of water and very badly broken up, interestingly, the one thing I can remember about it was, its props had been bent forward? which looked quite strange to me and the others.

Of course at the time I had no idea of the significance of the wreck as we were looking for the lost B-24 full of all that lovely US cash or gold, can't remember the story now. The ID of the material used for the basis of A29-43 was, to the best of my knowledge, engine bearer, firewall, cockpit side back to the hand hold, canopy rails and remains of one side of the canopy, instrument panel (or remains of) I do recall a lower longeron but n any numbers, but 100% but I am away from home and will check that when I return on Monday but off the top of my head it was a 5549 or 50.

I recall seeing some research cards as well for A29-43 very early in its construction when MG showed me a image of it at Jacky Jacky (I think) and it was coded with the letter P. Thats as much as I know at this stage. The only other thing that I know that Xrayist doesn't is that Precision are also doing 40-481 which belongs to Reevers P/L formerly with Pete Smyth in Adelaide. I understand that Reevers has taken over his entire collection as his health continues to decline (last I heard) and certainly that was what he told me when we had dinner last year 2011 at Parafield in Adelaide.


SD

Just been checking both my notes and ringing around re this matter. The number I have scratched down for A29-43 is #5549 (?) with the question mark indicating this was something I had to follow up. Interesting that the subject of the pool has come up as that was an option I considered for the link between 43 and Long Horn, but I can not make the link, but I am happy for someone else to clear the muddied waters so to speak.

As an aside, I also have A29-153 as 41-24789 which according to my cards commenced its combat history with the USAAC as "Scatterbrain". My records also reveal this is being rebuilt by Graham Smith of Adelaide. Would be great to have that confirmed.

Back to Long Horn, I guess, the arguement could then be, which is the real one, the dead one in the sea? or the second one that crashed in PNG? given it appears to have retained the art work but changed serials??

Also noticed A29-186 is up for sale on Barnstormers.

Is it fair to present an aircraft based on "clip on components" as the real deal or does the name stay with the original serial aircraft that used the name?


SD

Howdy Shelldrake

'Jungle Bob' Supplied Graham Smith with major parts of P-40s including a wing that belongs to the PNG National Museum.
Not sure how Jungle Bob got that one out of PNG. ( Probably did his famous Sea Container switch, before Authorities could inspect it.)

Lightning

Thanks Lightning.

Didn't know about the connection between these two collectors, interesting. Jungle Bob would surely have to have someone working for him on the wharfs if he was swapping containers, all sounds too criminal to me.

It trying to work out this subject, I have revisited an old problem for many Australian P-40 researchers.

So, this is an open question to the forum which may or may not assist is solving some of the 'missing' links.

According to some authors of RAAF WW2 history, Australian received 25 P-40's from the USAAC which where then given the A29 number that the RAAF used for the Kittyhawk. However, this is were it get complicated, it seems some, if not all of these aircraft were returned to the USAAC (why??) and a second batch of P-40's took their place. Is it possible therefore, that the RAAF sequencing is currently incorrect as per A29 number and US serial?


SD

Shelldrake

Let’s see if we can answer the questions presented, with some pertinent information. Firstly which aircraft is the Longhorn, well it’s a good question but the answer is not so easy, depending on your point of view. To me the “Longhorn” is whichever aircraft wore the markings, so I suppose we could say there are two aircraft that can legitimately be painted as the” Texas Longhorn”. One is a corroding pile of parts left where they fell under the sea, the other is the aircraft transferred to become “The Rebel”, later crashing in PNG. To others the "Texas Longhorn will always be the one that has been identified in Photos by serial number. Which one is correct.......??

Now to the harder question of RAAF Kittyhawks, firstly some background, during early 1942 it was agreed by both the RAF and the USAAF that they would each supply 125 aircraft to the RAAF to equip their Kittyhawk units. In the end we got 163 aircraft and according to the history writers the RAF supplied none whilst the USAAF supplied all 163. Well not quite as you’ll see below.

The first 25 aircraft were taken from three separate US areas, some from the 49FG (were in SQN use by them), some from stocks at Amberley and some from Archerfield. Some of these crashed on delivery flights (IIRC 4), however these 25 were all given A29-1-A29-25 numbers.

The remaining aircraft came from both US/RAF stocks, and it’s in the A29-82 to A29-110 that the numbering gets very messy, with aircraft taken on hand and then given back, I believe the cause of this was the USAAF about to give over some airframes only for the RAAF to request aircraft delieverd from RAF orders (newer aircraft, and actually also aircraft destined for RAAF use). There are 12 aircraft which were either swapped out, or in 2 cases not delivered at all. Anyhow the RAAF received 58 aircraft from the RAF stocks…..so that means that the USAAF supplied 105 aircraft (not quite the 125 they were supposed to, but read on).

According to RAF records they sent 141 Kittyhawk aircraft, so we have a short fall of some 83 airframes somewhere so what happened. Well 14 were sunk en-route, so leaves still 69 unaccounted for. Well the USAAF played borrow from Peter to Pay Paul. They took 25 aircraft for the 68FS (many of these later passed to RNZAF), and another 25 for the 49FG. Of the remaining 19 airframes these are believed to have been used by the 49FG. In many cases the aircraft given to the RAAF were older airframes, all whilst the US took the newer aircraft (from RAF orders) for their own. I don't see this as done so the USAAF had the newer airframes, I believe this to more be that the other airframes were already errected, where as the new deliveries weren't.

In the end they certainly didn't live up to their end of the bargin as agreed with in early 1942, yes they gave over 105 aircraft, however took back 69, meaning in reality they supplied just 36.

Confusing isn’t it……and that’s the short version.

Thanks Buz

to me, I can actually follow the sequence you have given better than many versions I have read from officals sources. So based on this, it is not possible that like 153, Longhorn could not have ended up as 43. So that clears that up. Longhorn sits in the waters of Magnetic Island. To our overseas readers, Magnetic Isand is a beautiful sopt with numerous WW2 look outs, gun inplacements and a 3 out of 5 walking track to the lot.

So it seems that 43 has ben sold only to be turned into Longhorn which is vry disturbing as it appears someone prefers the chances of a better price for Longhorn than they do for 43, which is an important part of Australian History.

A very sad practice indeed, and those responsible should be ashamed.


SD