P-61 Photos Posted

[mrhenniger]

I am going through my negatives from 1996 to scan and organize the photos. I just finished with a few copy negatives I made of original prints. The photos are P-61 related and by a gentleman by the name of John Owad. Mr. Owad was ground crew for the P-61s and today he still active restoring Model T Fords.

Anyway... I had a chat with Mr. Owad today on the phone and I got permission to post his pictures on the net. You will find them here...
http://community.webshots.com/album/547440287sOcgcF

Enjoy! Looking forward to your comments.

Mike

[henning]

hi mike,

wow.. great shots.. actually I just met up with a pilot from the 549th about a month
ago... I just sent him a link to your pics.. I'll see if he's in the group shot.. He flew
in the 549th in IWO Jima. Great guy, incredible stories.

I'll keep in touch,

henning

[Andy in West Oz]

Excellent pics Mike, love the 'Widow, always has an air of mystery about her...maybe that's just me! Must have been a blast to fly.

Cheers

Andy

[airnutz]

Nice historic snaps Mike. Did Mr. Owad intimate to you the meaning of the
noseart "HOP 'N DITTY" ? I'm just curious about the period lingo...

[mrhenniger]

Nice historic snaps Mike. Did Mr. Owad intimate to you the meaning of the
noseart "HOP 'N DITTY" ? I'm just curious about the period lingo...

I'll give him a phone call this weekend and find out. Does anyone have any questions for him?

Mike

[airnutz]

Thanks Mike! I'm assuming the name has something to do with Swing-era
music, but I'll resist the urge to speculate and wait to hear what Mr. Owad
has to say.

[mrhenniger]

Thanks Mike! I'm assuming the name has something to do with Swing-era
music, but I'll resist the urge to speculate and wait to hear what Mr. Owad
has to say.

I spoke to John Owad today. Apparently "Hop 'n Ditty" is a phrase that means everything is all right. It has the same meaning as "A-Okay" or "Everything is Peachy". Apparently when things were all right they would say it is just hop-n-ditty! Mr. Owad was the crew chief of Hop N' Ditty and I am sure it was. He told me that William Charlesworth, the pilot, named the plane. Apparently Mr. Charlesworth went onto become a full Colonel.

Other than a cold he is having a tough time getting rid of, Mr. Owad is doing well. He maintains his mechanical skills, and is currently restoring Ford Model Ts. In fact he was telling me about a trick he learned while working on the R-2800s... He installed water injection on one of the Model Ts!!!

When asked if he would like to work on a P-61 again he said, "Give me 15 minutes or so to brush up on it. I'll be ready!"

Mike

[airnutz]

Kewwwlll, thanks Mike for following up. I'm curious where Charlesworth
and the folks of the period came by the term. I'm still thinking music..I'm
a bit of a music nut and will run Hop 'N Ditty past some oldsters from back
in the day. The Big Band period generated some real characters like
Ish Kabible(whose stage name was a play on a Yiddish phrase meaning,"What, me worry?"),Spike Jones, Danny Kaye, etc. Light-hearted
fun stuff in the midst of one of the darkest periods in the 20th century.

I'm glad Mr. Owad is getting well, still bending wrenches and rarin'-to-go!

[mrhenniger]

hi mike,

wow.. great shots.. actually I just met up with a pilot from the 549th about a month
ago... I just sent him a link to your pics.. I'll see if he's in the group shot.. He flew
in the 549th in IWO Jima. Great guy, incredible stories.

I'll keep in touch,

henning

I found out from Mr. Owad that he was at IWO Jima. In fact he was at a number of the islands.

Mike

[henning]

hi mike!
Great to hear from you.. By chance did you mention the name fred
richards to him? I would bet he probably worked on one of his planes!
I did pop off an email to him but didn't hear anything back yet...

I'll ping him again and see what he says.

Any more P-61 stuff to share? - my favorite bird!

take care,

henning

[mrhenniger]

By chance did you mention the name fred
richards to him? I would bet he probably worked on one of his planes!

I'll give me another call this weekend and mention Fred.

Any more P-61 stuff to share? - my favorite bird!

That stuff is rare and hard to come by. However... John promised he would go looking for more pictures. I think he has pictures of Sabre from the 50s as well. There may be more to come.

Mike