Osborn-esque Cartoons from the Tarawa

In our third and last installment of Navy materials from the estate of Helldiver pilot Herman Olds, this week we feature a series of training cartoons. As we said last week, during World War II, renown satirical cartoonist and illustrator Robert C. Osborn drew thousands of cartoon for the U.S. Navy's training command, dealing with both technical issues, as well a personnel ones, as embodied in his cast of infamous characters led by the bumbling pilot "Dilbert". Osborn's style became a Navy institution, one that was copied on a local level by other Navy artists.

The Olds collection includes a group of 8x10 glossy photo prints of training illustrations done in the Osborn style by a Navy artist that signed his work only with the initials "R.E.H". All of these are back stamped from the USS Tarawa and dated November 3, 1946.

Globemaster Twos

These two shots picture Douglas C-124 Globemaster IIs at an unnamed location (it has been suggested that this might be in Korea; if anyone recognizes the airfield, please comment!), along with a KC-97. No particular story this week, just a pair of snapshots that give a glimpse at the past. The C-124s were built between 1950 and 1955, and served into the 1970s. The style of print, however, leads me to believe that these photos were taken sometime in the later 1950s.

Helldiver Training, Cartoon Style

During World War II, renown satirical cartoonist and illustrator Robert C. Osborn drew thousands of cartoon for the U.S. Navy's training command, dealing with both technical issues, as well a personnel ones, as embodied in his cast of infamous characters led by the bumbling pilot "Dilbert". Osborn's style became a Navy institution, one that was copied on a local level by other Navy artists.

Last week, we featured several Douglas SB2C Helldiver photos from the estate of pilot Herman Olds. Included with the collection of actual photos came a large group of 8x10 glossy photo prints of training illustrations done in the Osborn style by a Navy artist that signed his work only with the initials "R.E.H". Some of these illustrations were specific to training issues with the Helldiver, and those are being featured in today's post. Next week's Tuesday post will feature this same artist's cartoons that address other issues faced by Navy pilots.

All of these prints are stamped on the back to indicate that they were printed on 3 Nov 1946 on board CV-40, the USS Tarawa. Olds' logbooks indicate that he completed his SB2C-5 carrier quals on the Tarawa on November 27, 1946 as a member of "Bombing Squadron Four", so this packet of prints were probably part of his training regimen there. During this time-period, Olds and the Tarawa were operating around Saipan and the Marianas, and flew training mission which included live bombing of targets on the island of Pagau.

The artist's initials of "REH" appear on the bottom of some prints.

Dynamite is my Co-pilot

The harsh necessities of bush flying often have led pilots to do things on a routine, daily basis that would have been unthinkable in the regular aviation world. Like flying around with boxes of dynamite on the seat next to you in a Bell 47D.

When there are no roads, and you've got some blasting to do in the far north of Canada, this is the guy to call!

Over 5,600 Bell 47s were built over the years, and they did just about every kind of helo work imaginable. Introduced in 1949, the D-model had the fully molded canopy, but didn't have the larger side-saddle fuel tanks of the more famous G-model.

Helldiver Oops

Occasionally, the Archive has the opportunity to acquire not just images, but materials that help tell the stories of the photographs they accompany. Such is the case with this week's offering of Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldiver photos, three of which show the result of a mechanical failure in the landing gear system. They come from the estate of Navy pilot Lt. (jg) Herman E. Olds

The SB2C Helldiver, which replaced the legendary Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber, failed in many ways, and was generally unpopular with pilots. When it was produced, it was plagued with problems which led to a scathing by the Truman Committee, and ultimately the problems started the slide into oblivion for Curtiss. These included handling qualities issues, electrical problems, a terribly complicated and hard-to-maintain hydraulic system (which could very well have led to this gear-up incident), and problems with the aircraft's weight and range (more specifically, lack thereof). Some of these problems were solved in later models of the Helldiver; the one pictured here was the more mature -5 version.

One of the unique things about this set of photos is that we also have the pilot's logbooks, which include the entry for the incident, which occurred on July 1, 1946 at NAS Cecil Field, Jacksonville, Florida. (The back of the photos are dated July 2, so either they were taken the day following the incident, or printed the following day, or the lab simply got the date wrong.) NAS Cecil Field was a principle dive bombing training base during and immediately after WWII.

Starting in March, 1947, Lt. Olds flew with attack squadron VA-1A

Not sure the point of this particular formation...please comment if you know.

This 8x10 is presumably a training photo. Though stamped on the back, there is
no explanatory text.

Gooney Bird in the Dust

Early this week, we featured two official images of Douglas C-47s, and today we have an unofficial image snapped of C-47s hard at work rather than posing for an official portrait. As photos go, this crooked snapshot wouldn't win any awards, but as a glimpse at ordinary life in the field, it is priceless.

Skytrains in Train

Serial 316101, ship 20, in the lead, is a C-47A.

The crews of these two C-47 Skytrains, along with whatever chase plane the photographer was in, clearly were having fun on this day, switching out positions for the photog.

The back of the photo on the left is marked "Photographic Section, Sedalia Army Air Field, Warrensburg Missouri" (the back of the second print isn't marked at all). Sedalia was established in November 1942 as a training base for WACO glider pilots, so these two C-47s likely were primarily used as glider tow planes. During the early months of 1945, the base's C-47s were replaced by Curtiss C-46 Commandos, so that plus the tail numbers of these planes place the date the photos were shot somewhere between late 1943 and early 1945.

Ship 26 is either serial 316140 or 316149, the image just isn't clear enough to be
certain, either way, it is a C-47B.

Sedalia is known today as Whiteman AFB, home of the nation's B-2 fleet, named after Lt. George Allison Whiteman, who was shot down during the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, becoming the first U.S. casualty in aerial combat during World War II.