Congratulations to Mr. Prewitt. It should be noted, however, that France’s highest order of merit is called the Legion of Honour (Légion d’honneur), not the Legion of Armour, and also that France doesn’t actually have knighthoods in the same sense as Britain does. “Chevalier” (knight) is indeed one of the Legion of Honour’s five levels, and the name is a holdover from the days when France still had an aristocracy, but the French nobility system went out the window with the French Revolution. I once saw a series of amusing cartoons depicting what life in France would be like today if the Bourbon monarchy hadn’t fallen, and one of them showed an irate air traveler standing at the ticket counter of “Royal Air France” and telling the ticket agent “But I’m a baron and I have a confirmed reservation!” The agent replies, “I’m sorry, sir, but the Duke of So-and-so has precedence over you, so we gave him your seat.” In fairness, the same sort of thing actually happens in real-life republican France. A few years ago, there was scandal involving one of the major D-Day anniversaries (I think it was the 50th one), when the French government contacted various hotels in Normany and appropriated some of their existing reservations so that various French officials could have rooms for the event. Some of those rooms, however, had been reserved by foreign veterans of the D-Day invasion. When the story broke on the front page of French newspapers (under such headlines as “Our Liberators Insulted!”), public opinion was outraged and the French government beat a hasty retreat. The prevailing editorial opinion over this affair was: Do this to our own citizens if you want, but don’t do this to the heroes who ended the occupation of France.
You May Be A WWII Junkie
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if you are playing A&A by yourself, while watching WHERE EAGLES DARE on one TV, TORA TORA TORA on another TV, watching SAVING PRIVATE RYAN on your smartphone, and watching MIDWAY on your tablet all at the same moment?
hmmmmmm… i wonder if the psych ward is open today? :roll:
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Wasn’t sure where to throw these, but I found them today on some other forum and thought they were awesome.
Granted this is pre-war, but the re-colorization is amazing. Feels like you are there. This is either Yorktown or Enterprise; likely Enterprise judging by the air group markings. Man were those planes gaudy.
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Great pictures – thanks for posting them. I wonder if the paint jobs on the planes were intended to make them look nice and flashy for peacetime public relations purposes? In wartime those paint jobs would scream “I’m over here!” to potential enemies, so more sober, neutral, countershaded colours would definitely be preferable. :-)
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Yorktown sank at Midway
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Very nice Hoffman. Thanks.
Marc: what’s wrong with drawing attention to yourself, if you are the best? By 1944, the American planes were rarely shot down. Obviously, I can’t tell if these ones are meant to be early or late versions of Carrier Aircraft.
In WW1 Jasta 1 was intentionally bright and colourful, as if to say: come and get us, if you dare!Maybe I would have had a shorter life expectancy than you….
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I love those old paint schemes. Nice pics!
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@wittmann:
In WW1 Jasta 1 was intentionally bright and colourful, as if to say: come and get us, if you dare!
This has echoes of the line in the USAF Song which says “We live for fame or we go down in flame”. :-)
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@Imperious:
Yorktown sank at Midway
Yes…
… this is very pre-Midway. :roll:
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@CWO:
@wittmann:
In WW1 Jasta 1 was intentionally bright and colourful, as if to say: come and get us, if you dare!
This has echoes of the line in the USAF Song which says “We live for fame or we go down in flame”.  :-)
Love that saying
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awesome shots…looks like they were just taken yesterday with a smartphone camera
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awesome shots…looks like they were just taken yesterday with a smartphone camera
I know! I thought they were amazing.
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Uhmm… guy at bottom right?
TIME TRAVELLER? lol wicked costume, and definitely - a “WWII Junkie If” contestant of the century!
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Uhmm… guy at bottom right?
TIME TRAVELLER? lol wicked costume, and definitely - a “WWII Junkie If” contestant of the century!
As in?:
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Uhmm… guy at bottom right?
TIME TRAVELLER? lol wicked costume, and definitely - a “WWII Junkie If” contestant of the century!I don’t know the exact title these guys had, but he’s one of the carrier crewmen whose job is to give hand signals to pilots as they taxi across the flight deck to help them get into position for takeoff or park after landing. You can see them in action in the classic color WWII docu-drama The Fighting Lady. If you think their uniforms look dorky, their hand and arm signals look even more silly. Those signals, however, were standardized and weren’t viewed as a laughing matter by anyone on the dangerous environment of a flight deck where one mistake can result in someone being cut in half by a propeller.
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Aircraft Directors. On the Flight Deck aka Bears.
The one at the very bottom right could be a number of things though. It is hard to tell his jersey color.
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Aircraft Directors. On the Flight Deck aka Bears.
The one at the very bottom right could be a number of things though. It is hard to tell his jersey color.Thanks for supplying the position name. On my screen the guy’s outfit looks kind of yellow in colour, which matches what can be seen at 21:00 here:
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