Saturday, September 10, 2016

Frenchs Kabazie Wagon


https://www.flickr.com/photos/123114342@N04/25583278772/in/pool-435090@N22/

I'm not sure what are the 2nd row of symbols are, but they are smaller than the top row... Steve has the answer, aerial mines, M 26s, which were parachuted down into water, I suspect

Eric says that his grand dad was flight engineer, on this plane, and dropped a lot of POW supply stuff, and leaflets

Also, the pilot of the aircraft was named Jesse K. French, and Kabazie was a word for "junk" or "stuff" etc, growing up in Philadelphia.

Thanks Eric! That info is only accessible from that generation, and if you hadn't learned, it would be lost to history.

4 comments:

  1. My grandfather is the flight engineer in this aircraft pictured, and the last living member of this crew.

    He in the past has mentioned he flew a lot of leaflet and POW supply missions, and I even have one surviving leaflet. I cant authenticate the accuracy but for what its worth, I think it's more likely that those drops are what those parachute bombs represent.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! Wow, how did you happen across this post?

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    2. The pilot of the aircraft was named Jesse K. French, and Kabazie was a word for "junk" or "stuff" etc, growing up in Philadelphia. I googled the name of the plane to see what turned up on a whim.

      A few days ago I asked him, and he did confirm that there were some naval contact mines dropped as well.

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    3. wow. I hope you're paying back that great guy with beer and pizza... or whatever he's fond of! Thanks for the info, and get all the stories you can... I was trying to learn about 2 B 25s last night, and all the old info on the internet was barely enough to craft the story in a way I like to post, and then I learned that the last living crewmember of each plane had been interviewed, but is now dead.

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