Print

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

So yes the Stuka looks like it has been used as an improvised fighter and, After the armistice of September 8, 1943, the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana (ANR) "was the air force of the Italian Social Republic during World War II, closely linked with the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) in northern Italy." 

Someone in the Axis forces must have recorded this shootdown, if it was in fact 2 stukas and an Italian fighter that took down a B-17.
Another line of enquiry, German Luftwaffe and Italian Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana records of enemy losses (us)during 1944.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Mario sent two stills from a recent dive.  He's looking for help in figuring out what they might be.

[Alan Harris]

[** Collective sigh of relief that we at last have some underwater photos that no one will claim show lumps of coral ** ]   

[Bob Lanz]

Marty, the bottom picture appears to be some sort of heat exchanger, possibly hydraulic or for cabin heat.

[Ricker H Jones]

Here is a design concept for late model B-17F's that shows wing ductwork and heat exchangers in the exhibits toward the end of the article.  This may be of general help.

[C.W. Herndon]

Thanks Ricker. This may be a big help!

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Here is a design concept for late model B-17F's that shows wing ductwork and heat exchangers in the exhibits toward the end of the article.  This may be of general help.

The very last page says, "Sources of heated air were three exhaust-gas-to-air heat exchangers; one was located in each of two outboard nacelles and the third in the inboard nacelle."

Icing research: "The deicing concept involved circulation of hot exhaust gas from the engines through the wings, and it proved to be effective. The first research publication of the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory (ref. 2) covered this work. This system was further developed to use inducted free-stream air warmed by an exhaust heat exchanger; it was then applied to the B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers (figs. 4 and 5) for wing and empennage deicing. Flight tests were carried out during the winter of 1943 at the Army Air Force Icing Research Base in Minneapolis. Results published in reference 3 for the B-17 showed that the system worked; similar performance was achieved for the B-24. With that success, the system was used on production versions of the Navy's PBY Catalina."

[Ricker H Jones]

Here is another document with many more pictures.  Some of the drawings look similar to the photo, (but the scale in the photo, of course, is not known.) 

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Here is another document with many more pictures.  Some of the drawings look similar to the photo, (but the scale in the photo, of course, is not known.)

At a quick glance, this seemed to bear a little resemblance to one of the photos.

[C.W. Herndon]

Could the object shown in picture 2 below, from Bolsena Lake, be a portion of the B-17's tail gunner position shown in picture 1 below?

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

A couple of members sent me this link to photos of the restoration of the Memphis Belle.

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Woody
I have completed the list of 15th airforce losses June 1944. A/c numbers, MACR numbers/reports, nose art names, MIA crew lists. We're gonna need plan B, C and D. Nothing obvious or even close to being possible.
 

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

I expected at least one article to uncover unexploded ordnance in lake Bolsena but, not a fishing magazine

this isn’t some euphemistic story about a woman at the World Carp Classic; we’re talking about an actual bombshell! Italy’s Lake Bolsena is a leviathan of a lake – officially Europe’s largest volcanic lake at 7 miles across, and the high winds across the waters annihilated the peg occupied by Carpworld’s Lee Jackson and Ian Chillcott. Not only that, the WCC officials were forced to draw out the cards and disqualify a French pairing for going out in the boat together and leaving the rods unattended, and then one was caught without a life jacket on. Then after the competition, which saw plenty of pristine Lake Bolsena carp reach the banks, a World War II bomb was found, which the authorities are now dealing with. This comes not long after a diving school found pieces of a B17 Flying Fortress plane, which was shot down by German fighters in June of 1944. Not your ordinary snag, I’m sure you’ll agree. However, this didn’t stop Hungary’s Peter Micula and Norbert Pongracz of Team Nash taking top spot in the competition, followed by JRC’s Andrea Campanini and Filippo Mongrandi of Italy in second, and Yohan Lidon and Pete Wilson in third, fishing for England’s Big Fish Richworth team. Sadly the Carpworld team struggled, and didn’t manage to land a single fish over the 5-day competition, and were one of three teams to blank in challenging conditions. Frank Warwick and Jason Cann fared a little better, landing three fish of 19lb 3oz, 9lb 8oz, and 9lb 5oz, to take 52nd place overall.

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Well, the Italians had at least 100 Stukas...

* The Stuka was provided to most of Germany's allies. The Italians received 50 ex-Luftwaffe Ju-87B-2 and Ju-87B-2/Trop machines in the summer of 1940, with Italian Stukas seeing service in North Africa. They were quickly followed by a batch of Ju-87R-2 machines. Later, the Italians received 46 Ju-87D-2 and Ju-87D-3s, plus a few more Ju-87R-2s. The Allies honestly thought the Italians built the Stuka under license and so assigned a designation of "Breda 201 Picchiatelli" to Italian Stukas, but the Stuka was never produced by anybody but Junkers and Weser.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Mario is asking for some help from folks who know their way around a Sperry Ball turret and or the Browning machine guns in it.

The first photo below shows the inside of the turret.  The second shows the LEFT machine gun data plate with a serial number of 155531.  It seems that this serial number is not sufficient to identify the airframe because records are incomplete.

They haven't been able to dive for a while.  Mario is wondering whether the serial number for the RIGHT machine gun will be on a plate that faces the inside of the turret--if so, they will have to do some chipping away of overgrowth to get at it; if not, there is no point in doing any chipping.