Never heard about a Hamilcar used by american forces.. On a aerial, The hamilcar is clearly different from a Horsa PS : You are right for the last picture and the NARA copyright! the picture is also on Fold3
First search revealed this: Page 73 - Ranville, Lower Normandy, France, Sortie US7/1769, Frame 7127 This picture is taken on June 7 and there appear to be MORE gliders n the fields now, so a second or third batch has landed there too...... [hr] And by the way, it REALLY is too HOT to sit here in my office and browse through gazillions of old aerial photographs.......... call me crazy :-D [hr] Now that I know how to spot a Hamilcar, on to pages 81 and 83 ..... :-D
Yes US7/1769, Frame 7127 is on NCAP There are Hamilcar gliders in the aerial.. and Hamiclar came during operation Malard, evening of 6 june
OK Guys, Thanks for checking for Rich's sorties; I appreciate your time. Roy has sent me this email with high resolution scans attached: The first two scans are both 600dpi copies of the full frame photograph which appears on page 83 and reproduced here again for clarity: Image Credit: Col. Roy M. Stanley II / Pen & Sword Books Ltd.The exact location of this frame is shown below in a two step Google Earth finder chart. First the wide angle with Boutteville marked thereon: The area of the red rectangle above is zoomed to below with the black border indicating the location of the photograph from page 83: Note that the western most vertical hedgerow in the upper half of the photograph has been removed since 1944. Also, the complete Horsa at bottom right has it's starboard wing tip overhanging not a hedgerow, but the main drain for the marshes, marked as 'La Grande Crique' on Google Maps. OK, that's the exact location of the full frame appearing on page 83; apologies for the lack of clarity in my previous post. The third scan Roy has sent to me is the complete frame for the extract used on page 81 with the possible Hamilcar: Image Credit: Col. Roy M. Stanley II / Pen & Sword Books Ltd. Having looked at all non Waco gliders visible on this copy of the photograph, I would now be pretty sure they are all Horsas. La Cour Farm, where the 91st and 128th Evacuation Hospitals were to be sited east and west respectively of the farm avenue, is shown marked thereon as is Bouteville Church (lost in the dark tones). I did note some other new and old interesting extracts from this full frame photograph however, not the least of which is new cover of an area to the immediate north west of the marshes indicated by the yellow rectangle and zoomed to below: Note that the 'axe head' shaped field has been merged into the one adjoining holding the 1½ Wacos. Across the laneway to the west appears to be another glider crash site. Have we any NCAP cover here guys? The blue rectangle is reproduced below and shows the area heading NE towards Les Mezieres and the 'WXYZ' complex: The Sainte Martin de Varreville Battery is just at extreme top right of this extract and what appear to me to be stray bomb craters from pre-invasion strikes on this battery are circled in yellow. Note tie fields 1-3 inclusive with the GE finder chart below: The red extract shows a cluster of Wacos which we have looked at before in relation to the re-supply mission footage on the British Pathe site: Regular readers may recall the Associated Press photograph which may well have been taken from the same aircraft cockpit on the return leg of the flight: The AP shot shows a better view of the Waco cluster which you may recall we numbered to tie the area to the following stills from the re-supply mission footage: ...and the requisite GE finder chart:The green circle on the AP shot indicates a vacant parking space for the Waco circled green in the stills from the footage. This glider appears to have been a late arrival as it is also missing from Roy's photograph. The object circled blue in the last two stills remains a mystery. The 'small tree' marked on the first still is one and the same as that shown on the photograph below: I don't have any red ribbon but it all fits together nicely BTW, the next time we have someone in NARA, can I ask you to have a look for can number D7239 as described in Roy's email please? Thanks, Pat
Hi All, Roy has sent on two further high resolution scans for identification. The first one below is the full frame from which the extract on page 80 is taken: Image Credit: Col. Roy M. Stanley II / Pen & Sword Books Ltd When I first saw the extract of this frame in the book, I thought it was the same frame as the one we acquired on ebay back in May (see the 'New Reconnaissance Cover - Boutteville Area' thread for that story), but now that I see the full frame, it is clear that it is separate from, but adjoining, (with overlap) the frame we titled 'Parachutes' in the ebay purchase. The location of Roy's frame is here: Note Boutteville once again to the west. The second scan for which Roy is seeking a location for is shown below. This frame does not appear in the book but is an easy mark when viewed in conjunction with the previous post: Note once again the main drain ('La Grande Crique') of the Boutteville Marshes running centre left to top right. The lighter tones in the drain are areas of vegetation on the surface of the water. A 'gaggle' of seven Horsas are visible, all in relatively good shape as far as I can see. This area is visible in the wide angle shot of the marshes shown on page 81 of the book - note the pair of parachute canopies circled in yellow are the same chutes circled yellow in the extract below: The exact location is shown on the GE finder chart here: We have two frame numbers accompanying these latest additions - 4067 and 4070 but no sortie number yet. Two more down Regards, Pat
Hi François, I agree; there does not appear to be any Hamilcars on the marshes but to be fair, Roy only suggested a presence of one 'possible'. A lot depends on the angle of view and if there is a true Horsa close by to compare the 'possible' with. There is some very common Hamilcar/Horsa footage shot over on one of the British LZs, often used in documentaries of D-Day. The footage was shot looking straight down and runs for three or four seconds IIRC. I am currently grabbing screenshots from the sequence and stitching them together in PS into one long still image file with a view to finding the location using Roy's photographs in the book. When you see the two types of glider side-by-side, the larger size and slightly longer wingspan of the Hamilcar is apparent. The wing profile is also different. On another tack, I have asked Roy to have a look for D+1 cover for the Hiesville area to see if we can add to Kevin's 'MSG John McCarthy’s Road to Lecaudey Farm (Part II)' thread. Roy is looking for a GE search box to show him the extent of our Hiesville AoI and I will be posting that on the McCarthy thread tonight. Regards, Pat
Hi All, Recent discussion here regarding Hamilcar gliders has sent me off on a tangent taking a closer look at a piece of well known footage shot from the air looking straight down on a glider LZ. It's very commonly used in TV documentaries and is widely available on the web which is where my version was obtained from the excellent International Historic Films DVD 'Dropzone Normandy'. The sequence runs for seventeen seconds from time mark 01:02:12 to 01:02:29 on this particular DVD. I extracted screen shots as the film was running and stitched all nineteen together to make a single still TIFF image. I have this file uploaded to my ADrive account and is available as a 43.4MB download from this link until the end of August. Please be aware that this file is copyrighted to International Historic Films since they are the owners of the DVD. A downsized version of the file is shown below: So, where is the location? With at least seven Hamilcars visible in the path of the camera, it has to have been taken on one of the British LZs. However, the narrow angle of view kept me up until 3:30 this morning when I happened on the photograph of LZ N on the web and spotted the two bright angled crop rows lettered 'A' and 'B' thereon: Guessing that the hedge less fields in this area of Normandy would have changed quite a bit over the intervening years, I decided to check the 1947 IGN cover to see if it could be used as a finder chart. Sure enough the direction of crop drilling matches much better than present day GE cover. Below is the finder chart based on the 1947 cover: Note the first frame in the still composite shows a hedgerow with a 'kick'; this can be seen in the 1947 cover but is removed and replaced with a straight fence line on today's GE cover. Below is a full size copy of the first frame showing the bend in the hedgerow: Note this extract is turned 90° clockwise to marry with the downsized composite above also rotated to the right to make best use of screen real estate. Note also, I have marked one section of the composite with a yellow rectangle. This area is shown below as a good example of a Hamilcar and Horsa for comparison purposes: Looking at the two gliders side-by-side in this footage, I remain convinced that there are no Hamilcars on any of the American LZs; at least none that I have come across to date. Regards, Pat
Hi All, Roy has asked for a location on this shot taken on D-Day: It turns out to be very close to the vertical glider footage location in my last post: Note Ranville to the immediate north west. Another one in the bag Regards, Pat
Great ! I am also still looking for the Bill Brown Waco that crashed near Hiesville. Maybe more sots can help us too. I wrote a letter to the mayor of Hiesville, in my best French even, but she apparently chose not to answer me. I am also still trying to figure out to what first aid post Bob's father was taken on June 7th. [hr] When looking at not-so-clear shots I use to look at the aircraft's 'nose' to see the difference. The Hamilcar not only has a shorter nose, it usually was also opened to the side, showing almost NO nose at all ahead of the wings, whereas the Horsa's were opened BEHIND the wing (if at all) and show a long nose (when not crashed that is).
Hi All, The extract below is from page 84 and is on Roy's 'wanted list'. I have rotated it to north at top: It took a while to find but the funnel shaped field at lower left finally brought it home. The location is just west of Sainte Marie du Mont on D+1 as seen on the GE finder chart below: This is getting close to Kevin's AoI for 'Keokuk' cover and it would be very interesting to see the full extent of this photograph. Note also to the east we are not very far from the Brecourt battery hedgerow as indicated by the dashed yellow line on the finder chart. Even better, we are within a cat's whisker of the Holdy battery hedgerow indicated by the blue dashed line Regards, Pat
Hi All, Another extract which appears on page 87 is part of a very famous photograph showing Wacos in the process of being released from their tugs over LZ 'W' and the Les Forges crossroads: Image Credit: Col. Roy M. Stanley II / Pen & Sword Books Ltd The N13 highway is running left to right/north to south through the centre of the photograph. Note ties A, B, C and K (our oft quoted 'Keystone' Field) on the GE finder chart below: Regular readers will recall that we named the 'Keystone' Field from its unusual shape which can be better seen in another famous photograph shown below, but not in Roy's "Looking Down on War...": The field in question is the large, irregular 'keystone' shaped field at centre right. Regards, Pat
Few people speeding over that highway now will realize they are running over spots where Waco's landed at the time.......
Hi François, Not only gliders - I wonder how many people passing realise that there was once a large cemetery near the Les Forges crossroads in the field at centre-right in the companion photograph taken a few seconds after Roy's extract: Below is IGN cover flown in 1947 just before the cemetery was closed and the remains moved to Colleville-sur-Mer. You can see the white grid of the sections quite clearly. I have also marked our ties A, B, C and K there on: Moving to page 76, Roy has also asked for a location for the extract below: Image Credit: Col. Roy M. Stanley II / Pen & Sword Books Ltd This long extract shows a join so there is at least two separate frames used. The irregular shaped field like the snout of a hammerhead shark in the centre brought me to the location: Note Hiesville just out of shot to the north and Vierville is just within shot at lower right. Roy's caption dates this composite extract to the 6th June so I was interested to see if it might belong to sortie US30/4079 also flown in cloudy conditions on D-Day. Frame 1073 from that sortie is shown below: Image Credit: RCAHMS/www.aerial.rcahms.gov.uk...and 1073's finder chart: You can see that there is a small amount of overlap and the direction of flight seems to be the same as per this extract from the sortie index with Roy's composite extract indicated in red there on: Looking at both photographs, I cannot get a good cloud match for the common area of overlap, so unless the pilot made a second pass on the same course when the cloud cover had moved, the two must have been taken on different sorties. It is understandable that this area would get priority reconnaissance treatment on D-Day with the 101st CP situated at Hiesville, so there were very likely many flights over the area in an attempt to get cloud-free cover. Roy also zoomed in on the area of the yellow rectangle above, showing two Waco gliders quite close to each other on the ground: Image Credit: Col. Roy M. Stanley II / Pen & Sword Books Ltd His caption suggests that the south eastern most Waco is on its back, with fuselage shadow on one of the wings. I would wonder about this though as I think we can also see the shadow of the intact vertical stabiliser. I would be interested to hear what others may think of this Waco. I had a look in my files and the only ground photograph I have of an overturned Waco is shown below: I checked to see if the serial number of this Waco, which appears to end '...2747' is listed in 82nd records and I cannot find it there so this crash site may well be in 101st territory as is Roy's composite extract from page 76. However, even if Roy is correct about the overturned glider in the composite extract, this ground photograph is clearly not this glider because both wings appear on the same side on the ground. Regards, Pat
Several comments, Pat: 1. 1073 is pretty fuzzy - plus it was snapped close to high noon GMT (so the shadows are at their shortest) - but I'd guess the new Stanley view is maybe 30-40 minutes later. I get something close to 1230 GMT for the Stanley view (as always, assuming your N-S orientation is correct). Give it a margin of +/- 30 or 45 minutes. Wish we could see lots of the road to Vierville as this would be fairly close to the time of Sink's ride. Anybody have a more exact idea of the time of Sink's trip than Koskimaki's 'around midday'? If too late for Sink's ride, wonder if a hi-res version might show vehicles associated with the German move towards SMdM? 2. Wish the extreme SW corner of new Stanley view was lighter. Have always wondered if the two purported artillery lunettes just SW across hedgerow from Dippers were US built or German built and US used. Remember we saw them on the June 12 view 4052. Also recall that we have have the coordinates for Bat C 87 Armd FA Bn for June 12 - 3862/9076. Doesn't that come really close to the lunettes? 3. 4052 seems to pretty clearly show that the yellow rectangle Waco north of the Dipper Horsas is not flipped. On 4052 it looks like the cockpit is open - and glider is in same location/orientation as in the new Stanley view. 4. Is the Waco NNW of the yellow box (maybe 250-300 yards) in the new Stanley view in a slightly different spot than on 8010 - or is it lens distortion? 5. Assuming the Brown map attempts to show landing spots (instead of release points), could Brown's Chalk #2 be the (in my view) non-flipped Waco? Back to flipped gliders...I'm eagerly waiting for you to name those trees in the distance behind Waco 2747.
Wow, didn't know that !! Glad they MOVED it ! My very first thought too was that we can see the tail shadow on the Waco, so it must be upright. Also, it would look more damaged if overturning? Difficult to make out what could cause the shadow of the forward section though. I can understand Roy's reasoning.
Hi Guys, Don, below is an extract from our copy of NCAP_ACIU_US7GR_1857_4052 to which you refer: Image Credit: RCAHMS/www.aerial.rcahms.gov.uk If you look at the rare colour photograph below from page 30 of Philippe Esvelin's 'Forgotten Wings'... ...you can see that the raised nose would cast a very long shadow because of its height relative to the rest of the glider. This 'exaggerated' nose shadow is evident in the 4052 extract. At first I thought the raised nose might be resting askew due to a damaged hinge but that theory does not seem to be borne out when you look at frame 4052. I suspect it's just the angle of view which is causing the nose section shadow to fall long the port side wing root. I'll ask Roy for a high resolution version of the page 76 extract to see if its possible to extract anything out of the cloud shadows. The original may also cover more ground that the published version. I recall being on a 'Battlebus' tour with Dale Booth wherein he done a reconstruction of Sink's famous jeep ride, even turning the eight seater minibus around in a high speed U turn as Sink did to make another 'pass' at the German column which he had drove through a few seconds before. I cannot recall the exact route though. Brown's #2 could well be the glider you refer to but you know my take on these 'maps' There must be a book of tree names available somewhere - let me know if you find a copy Regards, Pat