Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

I am doing reasearch for my wife's cousin (Rose). My wife (Melanie) is German. Her cousin's father (OFW Richard Stramm, who Rose never met) was a Luftwaffe HE 111 pilot who went missing on 1 Jan 43 during the Stalingrad Airlift on a flight between Morowskaya and Pitomnik. I have built one model of an HE 111 he would have flown with 5./KG55 during the BOB. I also want to build a model of his HE 111 he flew when he went missing. I would love to contact any of his former squadron mates. I know their numbers are dwindling. I can speak german and I tarvel to germany regularly. I would also love to find Herr Stramm's flugbuch, soldbuch and any HE 111 relics from the Volgograd area. I plan to take a battlefield tour of Volgograd some day too.

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Well same as Oberst , history accuracy , early plane skins for computer game , react of fact read in biography book from ww2 era.... I think is just a passion about that subject,,,,,Warbird lover go to air show , warbird fanatic surf the net to learn even more loll I think it s something like this

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Hi Everyone,
Kenny Horne here. I am researching my Uncle James C Horne RCAF, both his childhood, and his service life.
Simply reading through these posts have been an education, and I hope to ask a few questions soon.

Thanks in advance,

Kenny

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

I started out tracing 2 allied aircraft that crashed into fields belonging to my paternal grandad. One a Polish Fairey Battle and the other a RAF HCU Stirling. After tracing the aircraft I became intrigued on what happened to the crews. Unfortunately the Polish crew were all killed in the accident. The 2 crew from the Stirling I traced with the instructor having had and interesting career during the war before becoming an instructor and survived hostilities and moving to South Africa. Unfortunately his pupil was shot down on his first mission with the loss of all crew. After this I tried the harder job of tracing the German crews that bombed the local ball bearing factory. I had 2 great aunts and my maternal grandad that work there , my grandad being an aux fireman wasn't actual at work on the day but turned up for his fire brigade duties and was injured when a 2nd aircraft attacked later that day. I traced the 2 crews with help from people on here although some of it is on going. But this then lead onto other attack on the town most of which were not common knowledge to most locals I spoke to.

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Well I guess it is my turn.

I am writing the story regarding the 154 airmen who are or were buried at the Adegem Canadian War cemetery, the Eeklo Town cemetery and the Maldegem Communal cemetery, all in Belgium. My main goal is to write especially regarding the men so people will know who they were, were they came from, .... when they visit the cemetery.

Due to divorce and cancer I have had a few serious set backs but now I am getting back on the tracks.

Well this is in brief what I am doing so if any one is willing to help or needs help, just drop me a line.

Thanks for reading this all

Sincerely

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Somewhere in the mid-nineties I got infected with a ‘historical aviation’ virus. I started to collect information off the gravestones of allied aircrew. The data was stored in a database that eventually became the Dutch Air War Study groups (or SGLO) database.
In 2005 I became a member with the SGLO and in spring 2008 I inherited all available SGLO data from my predecessor Frans Auwerda, and started to build the database and fill in all the gaps.
My personal goal was to have all SGLO data available online for everyone to see and search through.

“Wouldn’t be awesome if that youngster on the other side of the world could find out about his or her grandfathers last flight during WWII by using our online database….”

On the 29th March 2014 my dream came trough when the SGLO database went online thanks to my own son, aged 13 at that time, who build the environment to realize an online database.

I’m however fully aware that the database is not complete, and there still are many gaps to be filled with data that sometimes is already available. It will be a work in progress for the next couple of years. (If a day only had 48 hours instead of 24…)
I’m also aware that the database is not without faults and/or typos and it probably will never be.
Keep in mind that the SGLO database holds some 7400 a/c registrations, including over 22.000 names of aircrew.
Where humans are at work, mistakes will be made. I’m glad to be human!

Thanks to all who responded to my questions!

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Bronkazonk, I haven't seen this mentioned so here goes. You are a movie producer. Wonderful!!! I believer there is nothing more compelling to any audience than the truth told honestly and completely. Hollywood often misses this point in favor of CGI and phoney story lines layered on pieces of the actual history. This has been repeatedly demonstrated in recent releases about WWII events (example not quoted so we don't head down a different rabbit hole but the folks on this forum know of the movies of which I speak).

Point is, forums like this delve into the minutia of history for the many reasons cited by previous responses to your post. it may seem anal and compulsive behavior but these are serious sifters of history. This can be grist that you, with your film making talents, can draw on to create an accurate and compelling story. If you have a specific question, ask it. This forum is, as one person already stated, pretty user friendly, and we will do the best to answer your questions no mater how basic or abstruse.

Good luck with your movie. We all will revel in its release IF it tells the real story.

Oh, by the way, I'm a retired experimental fighter test pilot, erstwhile modeler and non-professioal historian. I'm named after a WWII B-24 pilot killed coming off target at Regensburg 2-22-44. I've been able to reassemble the exact events of that day due to forums like this and official sources. Someday I'll write a book. Is that reason enough to be an anal-retentive seeker of minutia? To answer your question, that's what I'm, doing?

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Hello everybody,

Let me introduce my work on this forum.
I am interested in ww2 history of Yugoslavia.

Currently, I am doing research on rescue of American airmen from Yugoslavia. I started with some books, then switched to MACRs, finally went to Escape and evasion statements. It is very interesting, almost detective work, finding links, missing data, etc. Also, it is one of the best covered parts of the war from personal side, since there is statement from almost every airmen, several dozens memoir books, interviews etc.
It is also very massive research. There were some 2,500 Allied airmen evacuated from Yugoslavia (of those, some 100 British, rest American). For majority I managed to find Escape statement, or some other source on their evasion.
I have wrote two articles on this topic which are waiting to be published in Serbian historical magazines. Research for book is almost finished.

Parallel to this research, I am working on two other projects:
- Allied bombing of Yugoslavia. Similar to previous research, I plan to start with analysis of smaller operations, and in time to expand research. For me, it was most difficult to find where are archive documents, and it goes easier after that.
- Effects of cryptography on events in Yugoslavia. Ultra is well known today, and it's effects on ww2. German cryptographer also had success against guerrilla radio traffic in Yugoslavia. Both those efforts had strategic effects on events in Yugoslavia.

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

No, not everybody asks for such detailed information about pilots' aerial victories and aircraft. Personally, I'm much more interested in their biographies, including their personal lives (of course, I don't poke my nose into very personal information, but I like to know, for example, whether they were married or had girlfriends, what kind of families they came from, etc.). Questions about, for example, the serial number of Walter Nowotny's Focke-Wulf, I find simply boring.

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

I have been undertaking research in my spare time as part of a project that a friend is putting together. This May marks the 75th anniversary of the Exeter Blitz (3/4 May) and it is hoped to have a DVD ready to mark the occasion.

Interviews have been conducted with surviving witnesses and archive photographs unearthed. My part in the project has been researching the graves of Luftwaffe crewmen buried in Higher Cemetery, Exeter. My first thread posted on this forum relates to one of the men buried there.

I have completed a model representing one of the aircraft shot down over the city (a Ju 88A-5) and hopefully will be able to add a Fw 190 (used in hit and run operations over the city) at a later date.

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

My Dad who died last September was an ARP cycle messenger (at 14 years old) in the Exeter Blitz and I have his story written down: it includes the burning of the City Library and Castle Street. He also, via a junior Air Ministry job, got to know the pilots of 307 Polish Squadron and had joyrides in their Beaufighters. My Mum could give you her perspective (from an Anderson shelter in Ebrington Road) — she gives talks to primary school groups about her wartime childhood. Contact me on nick@ghostbombers.com if you're interested.

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

I'm pretty happy to come across this site with friendly folk discussing a favorite subject. Attaching a few pages from my painting website that i dedicate to my father, Lt. Ernest Anders Erickson a former B-17 Air Corps pilot. The site has been going for years, though began my father's pages in 2013 when I inherited his huge Air Corps archives. take a look-see.

http://markerickson.com/Family_History/Ernest_Erickson/

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Hello, I just wanted to introduce myself, I have been a member for a while, but never commented and I am amateur JG 27 Researcher ( novice) from Australia and have a great interest with this Geschwader I'm also researching Hans Joachim Marseille and his Staffel. I have a great passion for the Luftewaffe and the Bf 109. Thanks and regards, Adrienne.

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

As I have posted a couple of threads it seems rude not to say why I have been asking very specific questions about the Luftwaffe in North Germany in early April 1945. The reason is that I am carrying out major additional work to a book I authored in 1994 entitled 'No Triumphant Procession - The Forgotten Battles of April 1945'. The book concentrated on the battles fought on the rivers Weser and Aller by formations from British VIII and XII Corps against, in the main, 2.Marine-Infanterie-Division.

I wrote the book in those far-off, pre-internet days when information was far harder to come by and consequently my coverage of the Luftwaffe was very thin. I'm now putting that right and through this excellent forum have already had really helpful assistance from Nick Beale, RodM and Delmenhorst. My thanks to them again. Once I have completed my research I will seek a publisher and hopefully produce a significantly enlarged MkII edition of my book. Pigs might....!

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

I wrote the book in those far-off, pre-internet days when information was far harder to come by and consequently my coverage of the Luftwaffe was very thin.

I thought it was a very good book though, on a part of the campaign that's glossed over very quickly in most histories.

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Hey, I have this book: I have always been interested in the last months of the war. In most WWII histories, the various Rhine crossings are described in details and then the focus goes to the Berlin battle. But April 1945 in Western Germany was still bloody (same applies to France after Dunkirk: actually more French and German died after Dunkirk than during the first phase of the campaign, still you read little about it).

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Well done Nick and Laurent and I congratulate you both on your excellent taste in reading material! How right you are about the bloodiness of the final weeks. This is what a British company commander wrote about those days....

'Reading the English newspapers at that time, one would have thought that fighting had virtually ceased and that all we were doing was to motor along and take thousands of prisoners. This annoyed us to no small degree and…two of our bitterest engagements were yet to be fought. Although things were going very well, yet valuable lives were still being lost daily, and we wished that some of these war correspondents who were sending back these totally inaccurate reports could be up with us to see what was really going on.'

Tough times.

all the best

John

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Hi John,
Got it. Pleas say if I can be of further assistance.
bregds
SES

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Love the replies on this thread. . .Yes, I am one of those "Old Hares" that began modeling in the late 50's as a kid. All of a sudden the kit building stopped when I found out in Jr. High that there was a lot more out there than just plastic airplanes! I never lost my interest in WWII aviation (specifically Luftwaffe & AAF) and at age 10 started on a huge WWII aviation book collection which still consumes me! And yes, I even started up again with my model building and am struggling through a 1/24th Bf-109 G (Hartmann).

Although I love reading about very specific details about pilots and such, I would rather hear about what people are doing model wise; especially when it comes to using new construction & painting ideas.

Love this forum. . .!

Mike

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

This thread is a very nice look into why so many are interested in this hobby, and refreshing to see people speaking passionately about what drives them to find the next answer.

Very impressive bunch of knowledgeable members, and I appreciate all the help and guidance to further my base.
I like details about the airfields, and which units were present. If I acquire a plane part, and the seller is giving honest information pertaining to location, it can lead to lots of great context.
Thank you all.

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Go here:

http://www.ww2.dk/lwairfields.html


//deZeng//

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Thank you,

I really use that site more than anywhere else. If you have the location, you can drop pins on google earth. It is amazing how many of the airfields can be seen, and some are wiped from the earth.


I am trying to learn how to look up werk numbers, and individual part numbers faster. That has been a really hard process for me so far.

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Currently working on my hungarian what if bf 109 F3 using eduard F2 ,my captured arado ar 234 with magirus ,my lippish P13 from revell.... I got way too much kit to finnish

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

Long not posting here :D
Sooo, I restarted my research on ZG 76 second installment 1943-45 which I intend to finish by publication.
Beside that finishing book describing 26.6.1944 combats over Europe (15th ussaf, 8.AF shuttle mission) and also continuing research on Konrad and Sudwind air activities...

Anyone has any interesting details to add? please contact me...

Re: In General, What is Everyone Doing?
 

I've been MIA for too long and am reminded what an excellent resource this is...

There was early reference to the um seniority of most of us. Undoubtedly we have much in common from our early years (creak) when Martin Caidin and EP Hoyt were accepted as historians. But as the audience (read: we) matured, many of us desired more in-depth and more authoritative material, and the market responded.

Currently I'm finishing a 1945 volume for Bloomsbury-Osprey and hoping to find a publisher for the 2nd edition of my 2002 Smithsonian Press (ugh) volume on the aviation Medals of Honor. There have been three retroactive awards since then, all Vietnam helo guys.