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Category Archives: ariel combat

Book Review Backlog

So it’s that wonderful time of the year. Time to clean things off the back burner, so here are a few lingering book reviews: Bomber County by Daniel Swift–I kind of loved this book.  Most of the WW2 books I have will get recycled in some way, either by giving them to friends or reselling […]

Tuskegee Airmen

I had the chance yesterday to watch an interview with three Tuskegee Airmen who were in town for the inauguration of Barack Obama.  The interview caught my eye as I was flipping through the channels before heading off for the day.  There they were, seated in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in front of […]

Air and Space (the Smithsonian at Dulles International)

So it’s been about four years since I’ve been out to the Smithsonian Air and Space at the Dulles International airport in Virginia. With school out and the holiday shopping done, we figured it was time. Some thoughts: 1) the Space Shuttle wing is awesome. While the shuttle Enterprise is obviously the centerpiece, all the […]

More on the Grumman Avenger

Reader David S posted this as a comment earlier. It provides additional detail on the aircraft: — This is a nice photo; I’m glad the Smithsonian is paying appropriate homage to this fine warbird. The photo in the photo shows TBF/TBM Avengers in flight between May 1942 and Feb 1943, according to the National Insignia […]

Grumman Avenger

It’s funny how subjects for writing sometimes find you. I tell my students this from time to time, but they never really believe me. Here’s how it worked for this post. The other day I inadvertently deleted a folder on my desktop that contained a few pictures, about 100 or so, and in the bunch […]

Lawrence Beall-Smith

Scrolling through the archives of the Naval Historical Center, I revisited their collection of period artwork this evening. And it is, in a word, awesome. Many paintings of conflict are somberly painted, with good reason. But there are others, like this painting by Lawrence Beall-Smith, that show color in interesting ways. Having grown up watching […]

ww2db.com Featured Image, #1

The ww2file is pleased to announce the ww2db.com Featured Image partnership. The idea behind this post (and the weekly posts to come) is to highlight ww2db.com’s collection of 3500 plus photos, many culled from the National Archives, Library of Congress, the US Naval Historical Center, and other research institutions. Okay, so here we go. When […]

Dogfights

Oh man…I can’t wait for the season premier of Dogfights. To me, this show is the perfect marriage of computer animation and oral history. I read, too, that there is even a video game based on the episodes, though nothing for MAC-type folks.