First Quarter (Jan - Mar) 2011

Volume 24, Number 1

The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum Editorial any readers probably know the quote, “History is written M by the victors,” attributed var- iously to Niccolò Machiavelli, Winston Churchill or other learned sages of the distant past. Those of us interested in his- toric aircraft and the roles they played in the wars of the 20th century might put a different twist on the adage: “Interesting hardware is preserved by the victors.” This could be one reason why very few of the most fascinating aircraft ever designed—those developed by Germany in World War II—are displayed in muse- ums anywhere in the world. The list of aeronautical “firsts” that German aircraft designers came up with in their feverish attempts to turn the tide of the War is long—the first jet fighter ( Me.262), first rocket fighter (Me.163B), first variable-sweep-wing aircraft (Mes- S ’s fast, innovative serschmitt P.1101), first forward-swept- Featured Aircraft He.177 Greif strategic came too late wing aircraft ( Ju.287), first oper- to have much effect on World War II. In this ational cruise (V-1), first practical here is little doubt World War II painting by artist Mark Postlthwaite (used ballistic missile (V-2), first jet-powered could have ended very different- without permission), He.177s of KG40 bomb flying wing (Horten Ho.229), and more. ly if a few key events had played England during Operation Steinbock, the T “Mini-Blitz,” in early 1944. With some notable exceptions, however, out in other ways than they did. For ex- these machines have faded into relative ample, what might have happened if Hit- obscurity, not on display to public view, ler had deployed his V-1 and V-2 “ven- unknown and unloved except by geeky geance weapons” earlier and used them Inside This Issue aviation enthusiasts. more effectively? Certainly, the War in Editorial...... 1 This issue’s “Featured Aircraft” is a Europe would have been prolonged, even good example. Although 1,000 Heinkel though the outcome probably would not Featured Aircraft...... 1 He.177 Greifs were produced during the have changed. For another example, con- From the Director...... 2 War, none of them exist today. But even sider “what if” Hitler had invaded and Historical Perspectives ...... 6 though you’ll never see one for real, we occupied the British Isles. This would hope you find this hard-luck story of Hit- have changed the course of the War dra- Membership Application ...... 7 ler’s interesting and in- New Exhibit...... 8 formative. Enjoy. Featured Aircraft (Continued on Page 2)

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Featured Aircraft (Continued from page 1) such as the British or the From the Director American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress matically, and maybe even changed its and Consolidated B-24 Liberator. The ast spring in this column, I men- outcome, since Allied forces would have Allies later used such aircraft with deva- tioned that War Eagles Air Mu- lost the air bases from which they later stating effect, bringing Germany to its L seum’s displays of aircraft, auto- launched thousand-plane raids against the knees and incontrovertibly proving the mobiles and artifacts are not static, and I Third Reich. For several reasons, Hitler military utility of strategic bombing. Hit- listed several “new” aircraft, automobiles did not undertake Operation Sea Lion, ler did not have such an aircraft for the and other items that we’ve acquired over his planned invasion, including the fact , and that may have cost the last five years or so. I’m happy to say that he felt a deep kinship with the Brit- him the Battle and the War. that this trend continues. ish. But another factor played into his de- But it wasn’t for lack of trying… If you haven’t visited the Museum in cision to cancel the operation. A success- Ironically, Germany’s lack of a big a while, you should come out to see our ful invasion would have required the bomber stemmed largely from its mili- latest exhibit: a Vietnam-era Hughes 500 to have air superiority over the tary successes in the Spanish Civil War light helicopter. It’s so light, in fact, and English Channel, and the only way to as- and in the first months of World War II. we’re so short of floor space, that we’ve sure that would have been for it to neu- As early as 1933, Luftwaffe Chief of Staff hung it from the ceiling. There’s no sign- tralize the (RAF). In the General Walther Wever realized the im- age for it yet—we’re still working to up- Battle of Britain, “the few” valiant RAF portant role that strategic bombing would grade all of our signs—but you can still fighter pilots, flying Hawker Hurricanes play in a war with the —a get a good look at it. and Supermarine Spitfires, soundly de- war then seen as inevitable. He commis- Sometime later this year, we hope to feated hoards of Luftwaffe Messerschmitt sioned two of Germany’s leading aircraft finish our display of four air-dropped nu- Bf.109s and Bf-110s, Dornier Do.17s, manufacturers, Dornier and Junkers, to clear weapons, which we are in the proc- Junkers Ju.87s and Ju.88s, and Heinkel design a new strategic bombardment air- ess of refurbishing. The display will in- He.111s that attacked relentlessly from plane dubbed the “Ural Bomber.” In clude six four-by-eight-foot information their bases in occupied Northern France. 1935, the RLM (Reichsluftfahrtministeri- panels that tell the entire story of nuclear In doing so, they saved England, denied um, or Reich Aviation Ministry) ordered weapons. It will be very educational. Al- Hitler the air superiority he needed and prototypes of the resulting aircraft, the so, we’re working with Franklin Moun- changed the course of the War. Dornier Do.19 and Junkers Ju.89. But tains State Park, the El Paso County His- after Wever’s death in an crash torical Society and the El Paso Commu- in June 1936, interest in a Luftwaffe stra- nity Foundation (among others) to com- tegic bomber force waned. Wever’s suc- memorate local military airplane crashes. cessor, Albert Kesselring, saw no need We’ll soon have a display of plaques that for such a force, so he canceled the Ural honor the crews of three aircraft—two Bomber on April 29, 1937. He thought B-24s and a B-36—that crashed in the the Luftwaffe needed more small, tactical Franklin Mountains decades ago. aircraft. The successes of the Condor Le- There’s always something new at the gion in tactical support and dive-bomb- War Eagles Air Museum. Pay us a visit ing roles in the Spanish Civil War, from soon and take a look around! November 1936 through May 1939, ap- S Great numbers of Heinkel He.111 twin- peared to confirm Kesselring’s opinion. Skip Trammell engine medium attacked London in Luftwaffe Commander-in-Chief Hermann the Battle of Britain, but their small bomb- Göring agreed; “The Führer does not ask load limited their effectiveness. me how big my bombers are, but how Plane Talk many I have.” This style of warfare had a Despite the many types of German name— (Lightning War). Published quarterly by: fighters and bombers used in the Battle Even as the Luftwaffe armed up with War Eagles Air Museum of Britain, one thing was missing from fighters and medium bombers, however, 8012 Airport Road the lineup. The largest Luftwaffe bomber a new strategic bomber project simmered Santa Teresa, New Mexico 88008 at the time was the relatively slow and on the back burner. Apparently Kessel- (575) 589-2000 ring and Göring feared completely giving vulnerable Heinkel He.111, a twin-en- Author/Executive Editor: Terry Sunday gine designed in the ear- up on the idea of big , in case Senior Associate Editor: Frank Harrison ly 1930s. He.111s were too small to carry the Führer ever changed his mind. On Associate Editor: Kathy Sunday decisive quantities of bombs to targets in June 3, 1936, the RLM had issued speci- [email protected] England. What Germany needed was a fications for “Projekt 1041 Bomber A,” a heavy, four-engine, long-range bomber, more-advanced aircraft than the Do.19

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and Ju.89, solely to Ernst Heinkel Flug- zeugwerke at Rostock-Marienehe on Ger- many’s Baltic Coast. Bomber A was to be capable of carrying a 2,200 pound bomb load over a range of 4,160 miles at not less than 335 miles per hour. It would be able to outrun all contemporary fight- ers and outperform all bombers then in service. A year later, on June 2, 1937, the RLM directed Heinkel to build a full- scale mockup of the aircraft it had de- signed to meet the specification. On No- vember 5, the RLM approved the mock- up and assigned Heinkel’s big bomber the type number “8-177,” while at the same time demanding that the company beef up the design so it could withstand the stresses of dive-bombing attacks.1 Heinkel knew his had to have four engines in order to meet its performance requirements. From the pic- tures and drawings here, you may think; “Four? That can’t be right. I see only two engines.” That’s because Siegfried Gün- ter, Heinkel’s chief designer, came up with an unusual design solution. Each of the He.177’s two propellers was driven Bf.109—mounted side-by-side in one na- bed. But it soon became clear that evapo- by two engines. That was one factor that celle, driving a transmission that trans- rative cooling could not handle the enor- gave the He.177 exceptional perform- mitted power from the two engines to a mous amounts of heat generated by the ance. It also led to a couple of disparag- single propeller. The inner cylinder banks DB.606s, so Günter had to switch to con- ing nicknames that aircrews applied later of the DB.601s were very close together, ventional annular radiators fitted behind in the War—the “Flaming Coffin” and and the designers had to shoehorn 12 ex- the propellers. The Greif’s wing featured the “Luftwaffe Lighter.” haust pipes into that confined space. It’s Fowler flaps spanning the entire trailing Each of the He.177’s complex Daim- not hard to imagine how hot that area be- edge, including the ailerons, which were ler-Benz DB.606 powerplants consisted came. With the inevitable grease, oil and split into upper and lower parts to pro- of two 12-cylinder, liquid-cooled DB.601 fuel that would drip down and build up vide lateral control when the flaps were inverted-V engines—the type used in the inside the lower cowling, it’s also easy to extended. The main had to understand why engine fires plagued the be very strong and quite long to provide He.177 throughout most of the program. ground clearance for the huge four-blad- Heinkel He.177A-1 Greif (Griffin) Günter took equally innovative ap- ed propellers, but there was not enough General Characteristics proaches to other aspects of the Greif’s room in the or the wing to retract Two 2,700-horsepower design. Rather than conventional engine gear of traditional design. Günter solved Daimler-Benz DB.606 coolant radiators, which had big weight this problem by mounting each of the Powerplants 24-cylinder liquid-cooled and drag penalties, he proposed a high- two main wheels on each side of the air- (paired DB.601) engines pressure evaporative cooling system that craft on a separate . One strut retract- Maximum speed 317 miles per hour used airflow over the to control the ed inward and the other outward, nestling coolant temperature. Such a system had the gear into shallow wells in the wing. Cruise speed 267 miles per hour worked well on an He.100 fighter test- On November 12, 1938, the RLM Service Ceiling 22,966 feet ordered six prototype-series aircraft, then Length 66 feet 11 inches 1 Whether this demand came directly from Hitler or doubled the order on February 24, 1939. not is unclear, but it could have been a result of the By that summer, it was becoming increa- Wingspan 103 feet 2 inches Führer’s obsession with dive-bombing. Later in the singly clear even to the most myopic Na- Range 1,988 miles War, the twin-jet Messerschmitt Me.262 Schwalbe (Swallow)—then the best fighter in the air—failed to zi leaders that Britain and France would Weight (empty) 35,494 pounds live up to its potential because Hitler ordered it to be adapted for dive-bombing, which utterly wasted the Featured Aircraft (Continued on page 4) Weight (max.) 66,139 pounds aircraft’s state-of-the-art performance capabilities.

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the fall of 1941, and the results were not good, with the Luftwaffe telling Heinkel that the He.177 was totally unsuited for operational use. In the interim, as we’ve seen, the Battle S One of the Greif’s most troublesome fea- of Britain had ended tures was its complex coupled powerplants. with the Luftwaffe fail- This photograph shows a 3,100-horsepower DB.610, consisting of two DB.605s, as fitted ing to gain air superi- in He.177V15 and later versions. ority over England, and the time when a big S In-flight photos of the He.177 are quite rare. This one shows the seventh prototype (He.177V7), which was used for defensive arma- strategic bomber might ment tests. This aircraft ground-looped on landing after a demon- Featured Aircraft (Continued from page 3) have been most useful stration flight for Reichsmarschall Göring in Paris on August 15, faded into the past. But 1941. There was no damage, and Göring reportedly exclaimed with honor their commitments to Poland in the the production program great delight, “At last, an undercarriage that can take it!” event of a German attack. With the future continued, with the first uncertain, the RLM figured that a strateg- batch of 35 He.177A-0s allocated to per- model He.177s reasonably reliable and ic bomber just might be a good thing for form more tests that should have been as- somewhat less likely to burst into flames. the Luftwaffe to have, so it put pressure signed to the prototypes (if most of them But the whole story is far too complicat- on Heinkel to hurry up building the pro- had not crashed). Continuing the tradi- ed to cover in these few pages. totypes. It also ordered 20 pre-production tion, the first and second aircraft of this The He.177A-3 was the first version He.177A-0 versions on July 6, and anoth- batch both crashed with their power- to see significant operational service. The er 10 on October 3. By then, World War plants in flames. Even so, in April 1940, Greif’s first combat missions took place II had been underway for over a month. the RLM demanded that the bomber en- in January 1943 on the Russian Front, but The first prototype, He.177V12, flew ter service as soon as possible, at one not in a way its designers had ever in- on November 19, 1939, at the Rechlin point insisting on a production rate of 70 tended. Twenty of them served as trans- Erprobungstelle (Testing Center) about aircraft per month. But the ongoing prob- ports, ferrying ammunition and supplies 60 miles northwest of Berlin, with Leut- lems required almost constant modifica- to the encircled German 6th Army at Stal- nant Carl Franke at the controls. Franke tions. Heinkel barely made five per ingrad. It was not an auspicious debut— had to land after 12 minutes because the month through 1940, most of which went seven Greifs crashed while flying only 13 engine temperatures began to rise alarm- to training units. Clearly the Greif was missions, and none of the losses were due ingly—a harbinger of problems to come. still not ready to fly in combat. Heinkel to enemy action. After a few weeks, the Still, he was impressed with the aircraft’s worked on the problems for a long time, Luftwaffe gave up and withdrew them general handling qualities, although he even after the aircraft were in service from the Front. But another mission for reported some engine vibrations and he with Luftwaffe units. This effort generat- the big bomber, in an equally unlikely ar- thought the vertical tail surfaces were too ed a bewildering variety of modifica- ena, soon presented itself. small. But Heinkel still obviously had a tions, upgrades and model designations, By early 1943, Grand Admiral Karl lot of work to do, as flights of other pro- and ultimately succeeded in making late- Dönitz, Commander in Chief of the Ger- totypes soon showed. He.177V2 disinte- man Navy, had become increasingly con- grated in the air on June 27, 1940, fol- cerned with Allied advances in anti-sub- lowing the loss of V3 on April 24. V4 marine warfare (ASW), which were mak- crashed into the Baltic during a stability ing U-boat missions around the British test. In early 1941, V5 crashed after both coast practically suicidal as their crews powerplants caught fire, the first case of tried with little success to stop the Allied a problem that became increasingly seri- convoys that continued to carry thous- ous as the test program progressed. V6 ands of tons of supplies and equipment to and V7 went to a Luftwaffe squadron in the island nation. Dönitz insisted that the France for operational suitability tests in He.177 be outfitted as a bomber to attack Allied ships. Initial tests of this S This photo shows well the He.177s unus- modification used an He.177A-3 with 2 German aircraft prototypes were identified with the letter “V” followed by a sequential number. The ual main landing gear. Note the open gear two Italian L5 torpedoes, but the defini- “V” stood for “Versuchs,” or “experimental.” The 12 bay doors on each side of the . The tive operational configuration used the prototypes in the initial RLM order were thus desig- inner strut retracted inboard and the outer He.177A-5, the first of which left the nated He.177V1 through He.177V12. one retracted outboard.

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assembly line in February 1943. In addi- So, when all is said tion to torpedoes, the A-5s could carry and done, what are we other external weapons such as the Ruhr- to think about the only stahl 1400 Fritz-X radio-controlled glide World War II German bomb3 and Henschel Hs.293 and Hs.294 strategic bomber, an air-to-surface guided . aircraft that came along Combat use of these guided weapons too late and with too was unimpressive—the words “total fail- little combat effective- ure” spring to mind. In the first operation ness to influence the against an Allied convoy in the Atlantic course or the outcome on November 21, 1943, Hs.293s dropped of the War? Inarguably, from 20 He.177s did not do any signifi- it was the Luftwaffe’s cant damage to the ships. Five days later, most technically ad- 14 aircraft attacked a convoy off Bougie, vanced bomber. In but four of the bombers were lost in ac- many ways, the He.177 tion and three more written off in forced was comparable to the landings. A 50% loss ratio was clearly American Boeing B-29 unsustainable, and showed that daylight Superfortress. That air- attacks on shipping were impractical. craft also endured more In early 1944, Greifs had some suc- than its share of design, cess on the Eastern Front, bombing from S These poor-quality images show a Ruhrstahl 1400 Fritz-X ra- development and oper- about 20,000 feet, which was too high for dio-guided mounted beneath an He.177 (top), and an ational problems, and the Soviet and tactics that He.177 in flight with a Henschel He.293A-1 rocket-propelled bomb also suffered from en- (bottom). Neither of these weapons fit in the aircraft’s bomb bay. were optimized for low-level missions. gine fires. Significant- At the same time, He.177s took part in a ly, it took Boeing and last-ditch reprisal attack on London, or- ation brought Greifs their greatest suc- the U.S. Air Corps years to fix the prob- dered by Hitler personally, called Opera- cess. They carried maximum bomb loads lems and transform the B-29 into one of tion Steinbock, which marked both the to 23,000 feet while still over German the most successful, well-known bomb- debut and the dénouement of Heinkel’s territory, then made shallow dives on ers in history. Heinkel and the Luftwaffe big bomber over Britain. The Luftwaffe their targets at speeds of up to 435 miles never got a chance to put the effort into raided combat units in Italy and Russia to per hour, which was too fast for British the He.177 that might have made it relia- get aircraft for Steinbock, coming up with fighters and anti-aircraft guns to follow. ble and successful. Instead, Hitler’s big 14 He.177s and 80 He.111s, Do.217s and Only four succumbed to hostile action. strategic bomber remains a little-known Ju.88s. Raids began on January 21, 1944, But they were still very unreliable. For and unappreciated aviation oddity. and continued until early March. Stein- example, 13 He.177s took off on Febru- bock was a dismal military failure—Brit- ary 13, but eight returned to base with ish defenses decimated the attacking me- overheating or burning engines. Of the dium bombers—but, ironically, the oper- five remaining, four reached London, and ADDITIONAL READING one of those was shot down. Again, the The story of the Heinkel He.177 is loss ratios were simply too high for via- convoluted and complicated. This art- ble combat operations. Later in the War, icle barely scratches the surface. To continuing engine problems, terrible re- find out more about the Greif, read: liability, fuel shortages and a lack of • Brown, E., “The Grievous Griffin,” trained crews brought He.177 operations Air International, April 1975 to a virtual halt. Many of the aircraft sat desultorily on airfields all over Europe, • Griehl, M. and J. Dressell, Heinkel unable to fly even for training missions. He177, 277, 274, Airlife Publish- ing, Ltd. (UK), 1998 • Green, W., Famous Bombers of the 3 The first combat use of Fritz-X was in a Luftwaffe Second World War, Doubleday & S To operate an Hs.293 rocket bomb, the attack on Augusta Harbor, Sicily, on July 21, 1943, Co., Garden City, NY, 1969 bombardier had to lie in the glazed nose of where they were dropped from Dornier Do.217 me- dium bombers (this issue’s “Historical Perspectives” Green, W., Warplanes of the Third the He.177 and steer the weapon with a two- • column discusses the Sicily campaign). Other attacks Reich, Doubleday & Co., Garden axis joystick. All the while, the bomber had on Augusta and Messina followed, but apparently to fly straight-and-level, which made it vul- none of the bombs hit their targets and the Allies did City, NY, 1970 nerable to anti-aircraft fire or fighter attack. not even realize the bombs were radio-guided.

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was not a great leap Capo di Tutti i Capi, or “boss of bosses,” for U.S. intelligence of all the crime families in the New York Historical services to deduce that area. Luciano was serving 30 to 50 at the these readily available Clinton Correctional Facility on prostitu- Mafiosi could be an tion and tax evasion charges at the time. Perspectives excellent source of in- The Government moved him to a prison formation about Sici- nearer New York City, and even agreed by Robert Haynes ly. As it turned out, to commute his sentence after the War the expatriate Mafiosi ended. With the Mafia patrolling the were very motivated docks, there was virtually no sabotage to cooperate, and they there for the rest of the war. Luciano also uly 10, 1943, was a very significant eagerly took advantage of the oppor- ordered his “associates” to give U.S. in- date in World War II. On that day, tunity. Many of them sought revenge on telligence agencies information on land- J the Allies invaded Sicily, in an op- Mussolini for forcing them out of their ing sites, local officials, populations and eration that marked the beginning of the livelihoods, and they also thought coop- anything else they wanted to know about end of the War in Europe. Also on that eration would “look good on their résu- the Mafia’s home territory of Sicily. day, the Allies first experienced the perils més,” and might get them plea bargains, These Mafiosi also offered to help and problems that would bedevil their ef- reduced sentences or other deals. restore order and stability after the inva- forts to liberate all of Europe from Fas- The first case of Government–Mafia sion. The U.S. gladly accepted this ar- cism. One important lesson they learned cooperation involved security at the New rangement, since it relieved them of hav- from the Sicily campaign was this: it’s York harbor, which was a major embark- ing to deal with civilians in the combat impossible to know who to trust once the ation port for troops and equipment head- zones. Thus, in one of the more poignant shooting starts. ed for Europe. Sabotage was a constant of the many ironies of World War II, the U.S. planners knew this would be a worry, even more so after February 9, U.S. was largely responsible for restoring problem long before the invasion force 1942, when the French liner Normandie the power of the Mafia in Sicily. hit the Sicilian beaches. To its credit, the caught fire and capsized in the harbor There has been renewed debate re- Government tried in advance to come up while being converted to a troop carrier. cently about whether the invasion of Sici- with ways soldiers could use to distin- Although an investigation found that the ly was a success or a failure. I consider it guish “good guys” from “bad guys.” U.S. fire was accidental, it showed how vul- a modest success. It accomplished its ob- intelligence officers turned to a source of nerable the docks were. U.S. Naval Intel- jectives of opening a second European information that, were they to do so in to- ligence soon enlisted the Mafia to moni- front (in addition to the Eastern Front) day’s acrimonious political environment, tor the docks and maintain security on and knocking Italy out of the War. Two would surely produce howls of outrage the New York waterfront. To do so, it weeks after the invasion, Mussolini was from one side or the other. They took the contacted Charles “Lucky” Luciano, the deposed and the Italian government be- unlikely step of partnering with one of the most secretive, sinister organizations the world has ever known—the criminal brotherhood known as Cosa Nostra, or, more commonly, the Mafia. As Mussolini and the Fascists had gained power in Italy in the 1920s, they forced many Sicilians, especially those with Cosa Nostra connections, to leave the Island. Mussolini installed a ruthless prefect named Cesare Mori in Sicily, and ordered him to break the Mafia, whatever it took. Mori set about his task by impris- oning 11,000 people and using the same brutal torture and blackmail tactics that the Mafia itself used. Driven out of Sic- ily, many Mafiosi emigrated to America, where they continued their criminal ac- tivities. Years later, when the invasion of Sicily was being planned, many were im- prisoned or under surveillance. Thus it S U.S. M4 Sherman tanks of the 2nd Armored Division advance through Palermo, Sicily, as throngs of local citizens surrender (note numerous white flags) on July 19, 1943.

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Membership Application War Eagles Air Museum

War Eagles Air Museum memberships are available in six categories. All memberships include the following privileges:

Free admission to the Museum and all exhibits. Free admission to all special events. 10% general admission discounts for all guests of a current Member. 10% discount on all Member purchases in the Gift Shop.

To become a Member of the War Eagles Air Museum, please fill in the information requested below and note the category of mem- bership you desire. Mail this form, along with a check payable to “War Eagles Air Museum” for the annual fee shown, to:

War Eagles Air Museum 8012 Airport Road Membership Categories Santa Teresa, NM 88008 Individual $15 NAME (Please print)______Family $25 STREET ______ Participating $50

CITY ______STATE _____ ZIP ______—______ Supporting $100

TELEPHONE (Optional) _____—_____—______ Benefactor $1,000

E-MAIL ADDRESS (Optional) ______ Life $5,000 Will be kept private and used only for War Eagles Air Museum mailings. gan seeking an armistice. In response, sion’s landing beaches near Scoglitti, and Hitler transferred troops and equipment could have fired right down on the Amer- to Italy to prevent the Allies from walk- ican troops. But their captured French ar- ing right up to the German border, thus tillery pieces could not fire their supplies tying up resources that he might have of Italian ammunition! sent to Russia or, later, to Normandy. Major General Terry de la Mesa Al- The Sicilian campaign taught the Al- len, the colorful commander of the 1st In- lies some useful lessons. For example, fantry Division, which landed near Gela there was little coordination among air, on Sicily’s south coast, may be of interest naval and ground forces. Ground troops to local readers. General Allen was mar- could not call in air strikes, and the lack ried to Mary Frances Robinson, daughter of communication led to “friendly-fire” of a former El Paso mayor, and lived in incidents, one of the worst of which oc- El Paso after the War. The couple was curred on the first day of the invasion, S Generals Bernard L. Montgomery (l.) and very active in the local social, political when Navy batteries fired on aircraft car- George S. Patton (r.) look over the situation and business communities. Terry Allen during the Sicily campaign, July 1943. rying 504th Parachute Infantry troops. A died in 1969, and is buried at Fort Bliss lack of fighter cover allowed Luftwaffe National Cemetery. Also, the Fieseler aircraft to attack troops on the beaches, gomery and American Lieutenant Gen- Fi.156 Storch in our Museum is the type sink supply ships and shoot down spotter eral George Patton, would have to be set of aircraft that German commandos used planes that were directing naval gunfire aside, as would vendettas between units. to rescue Mussolini from a fortress prison against the German and Italian forces Allied casualties, while relatively high in in the Italian Alps, where he was being maneuvering to counterattack. the campaign, could have been worse had held prisoner by partisans after he fell The need for closer cooperation be- Italian units been better supplied and mo- from power—a fall initiated by the Allied tween Allies also became clear. Personal- tivated. For example, the 206th Coastal invasion of Sicily, which has been under- ity clashes, such as the well-known one Defense Division had a great position studied despite being one of the most im- between British General Bernard Mont- high above the U.S. 45th Infantry Divi- portant events of World War II.

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tually won. In May 1965, the Army awarded Hughes a production contract New Exhibit for 714 OH-6A Light Observation Heli- copters, later upping the order to 1,300 ar Eagles Air Museum is not with an option for 114 more. Officially just a place where you can named Cayuse, the little egg-shaped ma- W see historic , classic chine soon became much better-known automobiles and interesting artifacts of by the nickname its Army crews used. aviation and military history. Thanks to a Loosely interpreting its military designa- new exhibit that we acquired in October, tion “LOH,” they called it the “Loach.” it’s now also a place where you can get a OH-6As first entered service in Viet- S The Hughes OH-6A Cayuse or “Loach” look at one of the most important and nam as scout helicopters in early 1968, Light Observation Helicopter saw extensive widely used American rotary-wing air- where they quickly earned their crews’ use in Vietnam, and remained popular after craft of Vietnam and later—the Hughes respect and affection for their small size, that war ended. War Eagles Air Museum has a nice example of the type on display. Aircraft Company OH-6A. light weight, ruggedness and maneuver- In 1960, the U.S. Army issued a Re- ability. They could absorb tremendous quest for Proposals (RFP) for a new four- amounts of small-arms fire and still keep An “internationalized” version of the seat, turbine-powered, extremely maneu- on flying. They later operated very effec- OH-6A, the Hughes 500M Defender, was verable helicopter capable of performing tively with Bell AH-1G Cobra attack hel- sold in 10 countries, and Italy and Japan many roles, from transport to observation icopters, coming in at low altitude to find built them under license. They saw com- to medical support to armed attack mis- targets, which they then marked with bat in Granada and Panama in the 1980s, sions. Hughes’ response to the RFP was smoke for the higher-flying, armed-to- as well as in both Gulf wars, in Somalia their Model 369, the prototype of which the-teeth Cobras. OH-6As armed with and in the Balkans. Many of these popu- first flew on February 27, 1963. Bell, machine guns, grenade launchers and six- lar, high-performance little “flying eggs” Fairchild-Hiller and Hughes were final- barrel “Miniguns” took out their share of are still in service today, in both military ists in the competition, and Hughes even- targets as well. and civilian guises.

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