Orchard Place Of course it wasn’t what I set out to do. I’d actually thought it would be interesting to go through some old American aviation magazines and compare the advertising from late 1938 to late 1943 and then mid-1945… I wanted to see how things changed as the Depression economy recovered but before war in Europe had begun; then in the depths of WW2 … Continue reading Early Days at O’Hare
Churchill’s Skymaster When Franklin D. Roosevelt presented Winston Churchill with an entire airplane, it was much more than an updated transport option. Of course the gesture reflected an abiding friendship between the two leaders. Also, the USAAF was preparing the C-54 (42-107451) that would become famous as Roosevelt’s The Sacred Cow. For Churchill to have an identical high standard of modern airplane spoke to their … Continue reading The story of EW999 (Part 1)
Turning the corner While I was doing some extra research for last week’s Flying Boats article, I found this particularly historic photo of Boeing’s ‘big fours’ flying together. The unique formation brings together the prototype B-17A, at this stage still the 14th Y1B-17 and the 15th Type 299 (c/n 1987), in formation with the prototype Type 314 Clipper, NX18601 (c/n 1988) – two massive projects that were … Continue reading Boeing’s big moment
Featured image: Library of Congress P&P, LC-USW36-24 The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was essentially a propaganda agency, promulgated by Franklin D Roosevelt on June 13th, 1942 as a unification of several domestic information agencies. Many Americans were bewildered by their rapid progression from Great Depression, to Arsenal of Democracy, to co-belligerent in a global conflict. So Roosevelt charged the OWI with using … Continue reading Works of Art
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