Six By Twilight

More love for those WWII photographers.  From what I’ve discovered so far, there are two primary photographers in the 1930s-40s in Color set, Howard R. Hollem and Alfred T. Palmer.  Since I gave love yesterday to Hollem, today is Palmer’s turn.  I can’t seem to find a decent piece on info on either of these photographers.  Here are all of the photos on Flickr that have been tagged Alfred T. Palmer so far. Enjoy.

The six men above are about to leave American soil on a what a little research tells me was probably anti-submarine duty in their YB-17.  A pretty safe mission, but only five months after this photo was taken (October 1942), the members of the 2nd Bombardment Group were earmarked for combat duty, based in North Africa and fighting in the Mediterranean, far from home. In December 1943 the group, part of the newly-created Fifteenth Air Force, moved to Italy, where it was based until the end of the war, bombing German targets throughout Europe.  During the war the group flew a total of 417 combat missions, dropping 25,797 tons of ordnance and downing 279 German and Italian aircraft.

Looking at these men, I’m immediately struck by the stark contrast between their leather jackets, practical, but iconic and stylish in retrospect, and their low slung parachutes.  they’re simultaneously informal and in uniform – ready to operate as one organism in as they go about their business.  Even though they’re departing on a mission where they would likely face no active opposition, they must carry one of man’s most extreme survival tool, a literal trust game with physics, strapped to their bodies at all times.

The YB-17 being flown here was one of the the first thirteen, of what was later designated the B-17 “Flying Fortress.”  The B-17 became the first mass produced large aircraft – when the US
became involved in the war, there were fewer than 200, and by the end
of the war a staggering 12,731 had been built.  Of the thirteen ordered for service testing, twelve were delivered to the 2nd Bombardment Group in 1937, where they were initially used to test strategic bombing techniques.  So these men and their aircraft were really at the forefront of military science and technology in WWII.  It’s fitting, as the 2nd Bombardment Group earlier tested bombing techniques against a fleet of captured German ships anchored off the Virginia coast following WWI, under the direction of Brigadier General Billy Mitchell, an early proponent for concepts of air superiority and the role of aircraft in naval combat (There are some interesting parallels between Mitchell and Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto on this front).

At Top: Here’s our mission. A combat crew receives final instructions just
before taking off in a mighty YB-17 bomber from a bombardment squadron
base at the field, Langley Field, Va. Photographer – Alfred T. Palmer, May 1942.

Technorati Tags: history, WWII, World War II, Alfred Palmer, Alftred T. Palmer, YB-17, B-17, photography, crew, warriors, soldiers, airmen, 2nd Bombardment Group, Flying Fortress