NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Black USAAF navigators in WW2
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2023 Mar 28, 16:27 -0700
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2023 Mar 28, 16:27 -0700
The black WW2 fighter pilots in their "Red Tail" planes have gained fame, but that's only part of the picture. There were navigators too. Here's a class book from Hondo Army Air Field. (They put the colored guys at the end of the book.) The turret pictured at the top right corner of the web page is, or was, on the beautifully restored B-17 "Nine-O-Nine" operated by the Collings Foundation. In 2019 it crashed with multiple fatalities after an engine failure. (Not to be confused with the recent air show collision that destroyed another B-17.) https://aafcollection.info/items/detail.php?key=1011&pkg=lx!title!!1011!1!title!up!20 There's a lot interesting stuff at this site, including a wartime Air Navigation textbook and a Navigator's Information File. -- Paul Hirose sofajpl.com
