JUGs in Italy

[Guppy35]

Dan,

  Jimmy was my mother’s double-first cousin and he was survived by a younger brother and sister.  I wanted to share with you what Jimmy’s younger brother (William) wrote back to me. 

“Jamie: Thanks for the facts regarding my older brother Jimmy's death. This varies from what we were told of how he died. At my Father's invitation, Harold Hall visited us in Cass Lake, Minnesota several years running after the war and kept in touch with various family members through the 1190s.Jimmy is now buried in your great grandparents plot in Fairlawn Cemetery, Oklahoma City along with our earlier brother of the same name who was still born. Keep in touch and I will try to answer all your questions. Best regards William”

   My mother also was a resident at Cass Lake during Lt Hall’s visits and recognized him from the picture you sent.  Thank you very much for the time and information that you provided for my family.  Family history is important to us and you filled in some blank spots.  I will post the military graduation photo of Jimmy when it is sent to me.

Thank you again for going above and beyond.

Jamie
“TULL”
James W Gentry III
LTC (RET), Cavalry, USA

JAMES W GENTRY III
Commander's Operations and Training Assistant (COTA), Mission Support Team #3
ARNG Distributed Battle Simulations Program (DBSP)
General Dynamic Information Technology
jamie.gentry@gdit.com

Glad to help Jamie.  Those guys have been my heros since I was a little kid.  Learning about them has been a life long passion.  Please post the photo when you get a chance.  It would be great to put a face to the name.

Interesting that there was family in Cass Lake Minnesota.   Are they still there?

[uptown]

  I thought I was going to see some chicks from Italy...DOH!

[wrongwayric]

IMO some of you need to lighten up. If you didn't see the humorous side of the subject line i guess there's no hope for your sense of humor. I'm not making fun of any part of the history of the post. Just the title and what i was thinking when i read it made me chuckle. I always enjoy reading about the actual history aspect that the game is founded on and the people who actually were there. Now having said that i do have a question. How could the rocket tubes foul the ailerons? Would it have been the arming lanyards for the rockets maybe? The one thing that really sticks out in this is the confusion of war. You have 2 different reports on what really happened.

[Guppy35]

The death of the Jug pilot isn't a light subject.  I'd suggest that once you read the topic, that you recognize that and whether you saw something humorous in the title or not, you use better judgement in replying under the circumstances.

[Masherbrum]

IMO some of you need to lighten up. If you didn't see the humorous side of the subject line i guess there's no hope for your sense of humor. I'm not making fun of any part of the history of the post. Just the title and what i was thinking when i read it made me chuckle. I always enjoy reading about the actual history aspect that the game is founded on and the people who actually were there. Now having said that i do have a question. How could the rocket tubes foul the ailerons? Would it have been the arming lanyards for the rockets maybe? The one thing that really sticks out in this is the confusion of war. You have 2 different reports on what really happened.

You are pushing for a PNG.   You first claim "to be joking".   Then to further dig your grave, you are now "questioning".    How could have even "chuckled" is beyond me or any explanation of BS you could tell us.   

Just stop posting in this thread, you've done enough.   

[Tull]

Dan,

   My Grandfather was the 4th son of six brothers.  Jimmy was the eldest son of the eldest brother.  The entire family was in the cotton business with each of the 6 brothers managing one of the company branch offices in different cities across the South.  With cotton there was a four month period during the summer that nothing could be done except watch the plant grow.  During these months the entire family on mass would retreat to a complex of cabins on the southeast shore of Star Island.  The family owned this summer retreat from the 20’s until 1954.  In 54 due to the advancing age of my Great-Grandmother and changes in the cotton industry, the complex was donated to a church in that area for a summer camp.  That is when the family stopped going to the area.  The only visit to the area recently was by me when I was supporting training at Camp Ripley in the summer of 1998 and 1999.

Jamie
"TULL"

JAMES W. GENTRY III
Commander’s Operations & Training Assistant (COTA), Mission Support Team #3
ARNG Distributed Battle Simulation Program (DBSP)
General Dynamics Information Technology
jamie.gentry@gdit.com

[Masherbrum]

Tull, I have enjoyed the tiny "looking glass perspective" of your small world.   I'm also grateful for folks like Dan, Karnak, WideWing, Bodhi, and other who have a TON of information, rare documents, out of print books and other plethoras of info at their disposal.   

I'll assume by your handle that you might like Jethro Tull?    Good band and I hope to meet you in the MA one day.

<<S>> to you and your family.    Your grandfather made the "ultimate sacrifice" so many could live.   

Jay

[DH367th]

Dan thx for helpin a fellow squadmate the depth of quailty info is amazing thank you sir 
 

[kanga]

I should have gone to bed hours ago, so glad I stayed up reading and found this post.  Most amazing detail you've uncovered.

[wrongwayric]

First seems to me your the one starting the fight about what i meant. I chuckled because of the title, not the story. I find no humor in the fact that the pilot died as you so incorrectly assume. As to what i'm questioning is if someone knows how that could happen with the rocket tubes i'd like to know how. I worked with a/c explosives and i'm just curious if somehow it was the way that they were jettisoned caused it or what. Also to Tull if you took offense i'm sorry it wasn't meant that way and hopefully you didn't take it as offensive. If anyone would have a right to complain it would be you and none of the others.

[Guppy35]

First seems to me your the one starting the fight about what i meant. I chuckled because of the title, not the story. I find no humor in the fact that the pilot died as you so incorrectly assume. As to what i'm questioning is if someone knows how that could happen with the rocket tubes i'd like to know how. I worked with a/c explosives and i'm just curious if somehow it was the way that they were jettisoned caused it or what. Also to Tull if you took offense i'm sorry it wasn't meant that way and hopefully you didn't take it as offensive. If anyone would have a right to complain it would be you and none of the others.

Lets try this one last time.  As one of the others I thought it insensitve on your part to make a joke, despite how you took the title.  It didn't take much to read the first post and see what it was about and show a bit more respect by not making a joke.  It seemed like the most polite thing to do or not do as the case may be.

Tull shouldn't have to respond to it at all.  He wasn't asking for jokes.  He was hoping for some help in learning more about his mom's cousin and the circumstances of his loss.  As near as I can tell we did that for him, which is all this thread should have been about.

[KayBayRay]

WOW... the Mind Police are here.... 

We better clear our minds of All Politically Incorrect Thoughts or we might get Arrested 

You guys should learn to take life a bit less serious because it aint 1967 anymore and you cant strip search me on the street for having long hair or not fitting in to "your" definition of "correct".

I read the title of the post and had a funny thought that made me laugh and I shared it with the community. So if sharing thoughts with the community that made me laugh are Politically Incorrect and warrant banning... then by all means please petition HTC and have me Banned Immediatly..... because ya never know what thoughts I might have next time 


OH, and I did read the article and I did find it interesting as many of you did. However those were not the only thoughts I had.

And, BTW, my children and my Grandchildren play this and other online games as well so I am not a Kid although my mind sometimes wanders like one and is not confined by Political Correctness.

Awaiting my Ban,
KayBay

[Grifone]

  The story that he related to my family was:  At the end of a mission on the 9th of November, Jimmy had a hung bomb on his Jug.  He could not land the aircraft on the field due to the danger of detonation.  He ditch in the Med.  Hall orbited Jimmy until he was safely in his rubber raft.  Due to darkness, Jimmy was lost and his body washed up on shore the next day.

From a book I've been reading, authored by an Italian fighter pilot fighting alongside Allied forces in Italy in 1944, standard procedure in case of a malfunction that caused bombs to remain hung under the airplane (quite frequent, apparently) required the pilot to bail out at sea. The story you relate appears very consistent with this, if you exchange "bailed" for "ditched", which of course would have been very dangerous with ordnance on board.

We should not give too much credit to the official reports. The official explanation of a flight accident during the attack might have been conceived in order to cover up some responsibilities or mistakes which prevented the recovery of the bailed pilot.

The author of the book relates that a similar accident happened to him; on the way back from the target he was successful in shaking off the bomb from the rack using high g maneuvers. Apparently it exploded near or in a small village in Yugoslavian territory. He was deeply worried and wanted to go down and investigate but his squadron leader prevented him and asked all the pilots to keep mum about it. It was never reported.

Grifone

[Blammo]

WOW... the Mind Police are here.... 

We better clear our minds of All Politically Incorrect Thoughts or we might get Arrested 

You guys should learn to take life a bit less serious because it aint 1967 anymore and you cant strip search me on the street for having long hair or not fitting in to "your" definition of "correct".

I read the title of the post and had a funny thought that made me laugh and I shared it with the community. So if sharing thoughts with the community that made me laugh are Politically Incorrect and warrant banning... then by all means please petition HTC and have me Banned Immediatly..... because ya never know what thoughts I might have next time 


OH, and I did read the article and I did find it interesting as many of you did. However those were not the only thoughts I had.

And, BTW, my children and my Grandchildren play this and other online games as well so I am not a Kid although my mind sometimes wanders like one and is not confined by Political Correctness.

Awaiting my Ban,
KayBay

OK, was staying out of this, but I think you guys are missing the point...and trust me, I advocate free thought and free speech.  The point is, you can think all you want.  You can even start your own thread and make jokes.  But this thread was specifically concerning the death of a beloved family member.  It strike many people on the same level as you sitting in the back of the chapel and cracking jokes while the funeral service is going on.  It is not a matter of free speech.  It is a matter of proper respect.  As it is, many see the comments in this thread as disrepectful, rude and insulting.

This was not a live conversation.  This was not people speaking off the cuff without thinking.  When you post in a forum, you have a much greater opportunity to think about what you are going to communicate and the audience it is being offered too.  You have to be much more purposeful here.  And unlike the real-world, real-time, you even have the opportunity to edit and retract what is typed here.

Yes, you have freedom of speech.  But how in the world can you link thoughtless comments when discussing the events surrounding a familiar member as an issue of "Political Correctness"?  With that logic, I guess you support the Westboro Baptist Church protesting at the funerals of fallen US servicemen and women?

Grow up.  This isn't about your free speech.  It is about having some respect and decency.

To be fair, I do see that the response to the comments were a little heavy handed.  But again, many take this sort of thing very seriously and given that it is family member and a person that died to help protect that freedom of speech you are screaming about, I think you would do well to let this go and move on.

Just my thoughts.

<S> To Lt. James "Jimmy" E Anderson Jr for his service for showing his valor to the ultimate cost
<S> To his family for their sacrifice
<S> To you, Jamie, for reminding us of the real cost of liberty

[SkyRock]

From a book I've been reading, authored by an Italian fighter pilot fighting alongside Allied forces in Italy in 1944, standard procedure in case of a malfunction that caused bombs to remain hung under the airplane (quite frequent, apparently) required the pilot to bail out at sea. The story you relate appears very consistent with this, if you exchange "bailed" for "ditched", which of course would have been very dangerous with ordnance on board.

We should not give too much credit to the official reports. The official explanation of a flight accident during the attack might have been conceived in order to cover up some responsibilities or mistakes which prevented the recovery of the bailed pilot.

The author of the book relates that a similar accident happened to him; on the way back from the target he was successful in shaking off the bomb from the rack using high g maneuvers. Apparently it exploded near or in a small village in Yugoslavian territory. He was deeply worried and wanted to go down and investigate but his squadron leader prevented him and asked all the pilots to keep mum about it. It was never reported.

Grifone

I have read much the same about the reporting of accidents.