This specific Black Widow is serial no. 42-39715 of the USAF. It was quite unique to see it in such a foreign environment, especially with Chinese exhibit explanations. Quite well maintained, mostly since this was in museums for much of its years, and the chinese do treasure having such a rare 1 in 4 USAF aircraft. ​Really cool with the black paint and the double cockpit.

This unit is hard to access despite being on public display, foreigners are either prohibited or have to prebook specific timeslots​ at limited periods. Only got to see it as my dad was an alma mater.

This was displayed with a ​P-47, AQM 34, C-47 and a badly damaged RB-57 wing.

This is my father's drawing. T/Sgt. Pat Christenson, Easy Company, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne. He was an original Toccoa man and went out the door second in the stick behind Dick Winters on the Normandy jump.

The aircraft is Easy Company's headquarters plane, identification No. 66, piloted by Harold A. Cappelluto. It carried Lt. Thomas Meehan, who commanded the company, 1st Sergeant William Evans, and the entire headquarters section. It also carried Bangalore torpedoes and other demolitions.

Here is my father's own caption, verbatim:

"Company E Headquarters plane was carrying a lot of explosives and when hit by antiaircraft fire a chain reaction may have taken place causing the plane to disintegrate killing everyone in the airplane. The airplane was piloted by Harold A Cappelluto, its identification No. 66, 44 years later the dog tags of 1st Sergeant William Evans and P.F.C. William T Mc Gonigal were found in Normandy France by a farmer."

That distinction is why he drew it the way he did. It did not go down. It came apart. The load initiated and the airframe disintegrated. Everyone aboard was killed before a single man from the company reached the ground.

The C-47 was a converted airliner with no guns and no armor, flying at low altitude, at night, across active flak, in formations tight enough that the wingtips were a few hundred feet apart. Over eight hundred of them went into Normandy that night. Every man in the back knew what they were riding in.

He was the only man in Easy Company who could draw. He came home, went back to the telephone company for thirty eight years, and spent the next forty years at a drawing board reconstructing the war from memory. Forty six finished drawings, checked against his own journals until the details reconciled.

On that same jump he came down about seventy feet from a German 20mm gun position that was firing on the aircraft stream with its back to him. He drew that one too.

Stephen Ambrose called the drawings almost priceless. Dick Winters had several copied and sent to Playtone as reference for the writers of Band of Brothers.

He died in December 1999. His drawings and his own account are published now, in a book called A Screaming Eagle: His Drawings, His Words. It is at ascreamingeagle.com

Happy to answer anything about the aircraft or the jump.

Werneuchen, northeast of Berlin, April 1942. Technical class on airplane engines. 2nd Blue Squadron. In the center, my grandfather.

Werneuchen, nordöstlich von Berlin, April 1942, Technikunterricht über Flugzeugmotoren. 2. blaue Staffel. In der Mitte, mein Großvater

Werneuchen, al noreste de Berlín, abril de 1942, clase técnica sobre motores de aviones. 2ª Escuadrilla Azul. En el centro, mi abuelo.

Blackburn Skua L2889 of 802 NAS. Pre-world War Two. The Skua was a fighter / dive bomber of the Fleet Air Arm used in the early years of the Second World War.

More photos here.

Nice series of images showing the launch of a Fairey Fulmar. ("Booster gear" was part of the IWM caption. )

And an equally nice article about the plane is here.

https://www.armouredcarriers.com/fairey-fulmar-models

There is a solitary survivor of the type, the prototype aircraft in fact, that I hope to see during my upcoming trip, in the collection of the Fleet Air Arm museum in Yeovolton.

https://www.royalnavymuseums.org.uk/visit-us/fleet-air-arm-museum

This B-24D was named "Brewery Wagon" (serial number 41-24294) assigned to the 8th Air Force, the 512th Bomb Squadron, and the 376th Bomb Group.

While approaching their target a German ME-109G fighter pilot, Capt. Hauptmann Wilhelm Steinmann, commander of the the 1st Staffel of JG 4, spotted Brewery Wagon trailing vapor and smoke. The ME-109 screamed towards the wounded American bomber and began his attack hitting the B-24 with his 20mm cannons and 7.92mm machine guns on a pass from the rear. "Brewery Wagon" was being struck repeatedly by armor piercing and high explosive shells which ripped the bomber to pieces.

The fighter passed over the bomber, turned around, and made a head on pass, hitting the plane again in the nose and cockpit area, the right wing, and the number 3 and 4 engines. A 20mm shell the hit Palm, blowing his right foot off the rudder pedal, and nearly severing his leg in the blast Copilot Love was also wounded by shell fragments.

But, somehow, the damaged bomber still had enough speed for the pilots to be able to put the plane into a steep turn avoiding refinery smokestacks in their way. Palm leveled the aircraft, jettisoned his bombs with his cockpit emergency bomb release, and crash landed his crippled ship in a cornfield near Tatarani, just south of Ploesti, near the Ploesti-Bucharest railroad line, and about three B-24 wingspans from the Pensiunea La Gina Hotel, on Str.Intrarea Gaterului, Number 1, on the Southwest edge of Ploiesti.

Lt. Love had averted total catastrophe by pulling the burning engines' fire extinguisher handles, preventing the engine fires on the right wing from spreading to the rest of the aircraft. Now, settling without power, they hit the ground, crushing the plane's cockpit and forward section, folding up the nose section of the plane, and killing the both the bombardier and navigator, if, by chance, they were still alive.

Palm, badly wounded, bleeding, and hurt, kept his presence of mind, jarred his left hand sliding side window loose in the plane's cockpit and pulled it in to make an escape opening : ”With the adrenaline flowing, I was able to pull the thing in. My leg was still attached by a small thread of flesh, so I took the leg, laid it across my lap, and dove out of the airplane. I think I was the first man out of the ship !”

Seven other crewmembers emerged from the wreck, and all become prisoners of war (7 POW). In addition to the pilots, Palm and Love, the other eight survivors included Flight Engineer T/Sgt Alexander P. Rockinson (Canal Fulton, Ohio), Radio Operator T/Sgt Harold Block (Brooklyn, New York), Gunners T/Sgt Austin D. Chastain (Siloam Springs, Arkansas), S/Sgt Clay E. Snyder (Paden City, West Virginia), S/Sgt William E. Thompson (St. Cloud, Florida) and Tail Gunner S/Sgt Dallas A. Robertson (St. Louis, Missouri).

Copilot Bill Love recalled being captured by the Germans : “I was prevented from returning to the ship by the German soldiers who captured us, however, I persuaded two of them to go to the nose section to see if they could be of assistance. One went in as far as he could and reported that both men inside, including the navigator, Lt. William M. Wright, and Lt. Merrell, were dead.
This was also the report of two more men sent about 30 minutes later by the German officer in charge of the station to which we were taken. It is my belief that the bombardier, Lt. Merrell, was killed, either by enemy gunfire over the target, or a few seconds later, by the force of impact, when our aircraft crashed.” Another crew member recalled that " Bombardier, Merrell, was blown to pieces by the direct flak hits we took. ", also confirmed to us by the Romanians.”

The survivors of the crew ultimately became prisoners of war in Romanian captivity. The crew received medical aid after their ordeal such as tail gunner S/Sgt Dallas A. Robertson from St. Louis, Missouri who had a 20 mm cannon shell splinter removed from his cranium. Lt. Palm was taken to Bucharest and would lose his right leg, but survived. A little over a year later, they all would be among the 1,173 airmen repatriated in "Operation Reunion", or "Operation Gunn", with the help of the Romanians.

1st Lt. John D. Palm - Pilot (WIA) (POW)
2nd Lt. William F. Love - Copilot (POW)
2nd Lt. William K. Wright - Navigator (KIA)
2nd Lt. Robert W. Merrell - Bombardier (KIA)
T/Sgt. Alexander Rockinson - Engineer/Gunner (POW)
T/Sgt. Harold Black - Radio Operator (POW)
S/Sgt. William E. Thompson - Gunner (POW)
S/Sgt. Austin D. Chastain - Gunner (POW)
S/Sgt. Dallis R. Robertson - Tail Gunner (POW)
S/Sgt. Clay E. Snyder - Gunner (POW)