Conversely, several ships were sunk off the East Coast of Australia in 1945 by a U-boat, which successfully found its way back to Germany around VE day. But I’d doubt that the Japanese had the ability to mount submarine patrols in the Carbibean. I thiink the U-boat had carried some critical equipment from Germany to Tokyo, and was just taking care of business on its way home.
The German submarine was able to visit Japan and occupied countries for fuel and repairs on its Pacific patrol. I don’t think the Japanese had any such facilities in the Atlantic or Caribbean…
M636C, Seems to me that a lot of the PBY’s in the Sou. Pac covering for the 380th, 22nd, 43rd & 90th B/Gs in WW2 were RAAF crews. Especially during the Balikpapan missions.
Not particularly. It’s a German word, for a German plane. And the German plural is “Albatrosse” (Or, as some like me who love WWI aircraft would fudge, “Albatros-Maschinen” since the name is for the type.)
Unfortunately for lesser pedants, any sort of Latin plural for a word obviously derived from Arabic is worse than pointless. Public school boys should have known better.
The Catalina was very important to Australia in WWII.
Apart from extensive use for reconnaisance and anti submarine patrols, they were used by Qantas for flights between, if i recall correctly, from Carnarvon in Western Australia to Sri Lanka (called Ceylon then). These were very long non stop flights and the few passengers were given a certificate called “the order of the double sunrise” (presumably this occurred eastbound). These flights replaced services via Singapore and India after the Japanese occupation of Singapore.
The preserved aircraft is painted black with blue and white roundels representing an RAAF aircraft.
I was at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome many years ago and during the air show, the aircraft were away from the field so there was the “ground show” involving the old tank, trucks and so forth. While people were looking at that, from behind right over the grandstand and flying low was the Albatross in full chat! Man that was something! It had a varnished, woodgrain forward fuselage like the one in the youtube film. Gotta get back there someday.
Got to give the Old Rhinebeck crew credit, they were the first to replicate an Albatros, in their case it’s a D-V model.
I know there’s an original Albatros D-V in the Air and Space Museum in Washington, there may be others somewhere, but I’m not sure of that. Possibly in some European museums?
[;)] Bob I understand ,could it be the blond haired sweetie in front of you with the “pig tails”?? Ah yes those were the days. I walked my blond haired sweety home along the "Pennsey RR " in Dayton Ohio. Her are still my sweety after 63 yrs.
I just got the October/November issue of “Air & Space: Smithsonian”. It includes an article about the best movie about the Air Force ever made: “Twelve O’Clock High”.
“Air Classics” magazine had a great article about the making of “Twelve O’Clock High” over thirty years ago.
Here’s an anecdote from the same…
At an Air Force Association premiere party for the film General Curtis Le May said he hoped all the usual technical goofs had been avoided but he doubted that would be the case. Two of the producers involved in the film said there was only one thing wrong in the film but they bet the general he wouldn’t pick up on it.
Long story short, Le May loved the film, saying “By God, there weren’t any mistakes in the film, although I never would have believed it!”
What did Le May miss? The addition of the whining sound of the attacking German fighters. In a B-17 you could see them, but you couldn’t hear them.
A bit of successful dramatic license.
I’ll tell you, not only is “Twelve O’Clock High” the best Air Force movie ever made, it’s one of the best war movies ever made. It’s timeless.
Here’s a taste, BGen. Frank Savage works over LtCol. Ben Gately, all shot in one take.
Twelve O’Clock High also spawned a successful 60’s television series that straddled the switch from black & white to color programming (Which I’m sure several around here have watched). Doesn’t share the realism of the film though and never really tickled my fancy, unlike so many other black & white hits from the first 15 years of American television.
Watched the full run on tv a few years ago on I believe MeTV, and probably won’t be returning down the road to view it again (It’s a classic 20th Century Fox tv series, which means it’s not commercially available on DVD since they’ve largely only have released current-fare for their tv series outside of MAS*H and a handful of other exceptions).
I remember “12 O’Clock High” the TV series from the 60’s quite well. Not as good as the movie but considering it was made for TV, and considering the limited budgets TV shows had to work with back then, I thought it was pretty well done.
I didn’t like when they got rid of Robert Lansing as General Savage and replaced him with Paul Burke as Colonel Gallagher! Bad move. The idea was they wanted someone with more “youth appeal.” Huh? Didn’t they realize that to most kids (like I was at the time) anyone over 20 is ancient? And besides, us kids weren’t stupid, of course General Savage was old, he was a general, he was supposed to be old! Although when I look at pictures of Robert Lansing as Savage now he doesn’t look as old as he used too! What happened? Scary…
Some people don’t remember what it’s like to be a kid!
And “Air Force” is pretty good as well. A great ensemble cast including John Garfield, Harry Carey, George Tobias and others. Not to mention those sweet-looking pre-war B-17C’s and D’s. There’s only one of those in existance now as far as I know, “The Swoose,” and here’s the story, with a bit of a surprise in it.
Let’s not forget “Dawn Patrol” from 1938 with Basil Rathbone, Errol Flynn and David Niven. Like “12 O’clock High,” it’s about the strain on a commanding officer sending men out on extremely dangerous, often deadly missions.
Anything with John Garfied is worth seeing. We’re all familiar with the Bogart and Bacall classic, “To Have and Have Not?” Watch Garfield in “The Breaking Point.” it’s the same story under a different title and closer to Hemingway’s book than Bogie’s picture, great as that one is. I think Garfield is more realistic as a Hemingway character than Bogart, but “The Breaking Point” doesn’t have Lauren Bacall doing that little dance at the end. Yow!