The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, probably the international premiere collector-car competition, has a hot rod class-winning trophy named after Dean Batchelor.
An active hot rodder before World War II, Arthur Dean Batchelor served in a B-17 in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a radio man and gunner, was shot down over Munich in 1944 and they crash landed, and he became a POW for a year.
https://b17flyingfortress.de/en/b17/42-38025-flak-happy/42-38025/
Dean Batchelor joined the Army Air Corp in 1942 and became one of the ten needed to outfit a B-17 Flying Fortress. Once in England, Batchelor (at age 22) became a gunner & radio man in the 92nd Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force. The B-17 they had been assigned had already taken its prior crew on 25 missions. The plane, named Flak Happy, performed better than any B-17 they had flown in training and Dean had always said that it was because their flight mechanic was a “Hop Up” guy.
The Flak Happy completed 12 missions with Dean on board and never saw a German aircraft. However, the Germans were excellent with their anti-aircraft guns and upon return to friendly territory, Dean would inevitably find holes all over the aircraft. In fact, the crew’s navigator ( I believe this was Kevork Ghourdjian) was replaced for a mission scheduled on July 16, 1944 after being injured by flak. (remember that D Day was June 6th 1944)
Here he is, confirmed as the top row, 1st on the left.
Their mission was to knock out a BMW plant and stop its aircraft making business.
The crew approached the target at 25,000 feet. Flak hit from seemingly every direction – both engine #1 and #2 were severely damaged. The pilot was able to feather the #1 engine, but the #2 engine was unresponsive to any commands. They dropped their bombs and headed for an emergency landing in Switzerland. The Flak Happy wouldn’t make it.
The crew ended up crash landing in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Upon approach, both wings were torn off by sturdy trees. As they slammed against the ground, the fuselage broken into two. It was as violent as you can imagine, but amazingly the entire crew survived without injury. However, the Flak Happy was not quite out of the woods yet.
Surrounded by germans, the crew found themselves on a 9 hour flight to Munich.
The Russians were moving in fast to liberate, but the Germans decided to put their prisoners of war in motion. They marched 10,000 men a total of 487 miles over 80 days. Dean kept a log of the entire journey. They stayed in barns and open fields during the winter months of Europe.
He had diarrhea for 28 days in a row. He lost 30 pounds. As other men got sick, they were marched off and never seen again. Finally, the group reached U.S. troops and the nightmare was over. Dean and crew survived.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/?p=6813
https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/wanting-to-find-photos-of-a-ww2-b-17-42-38025.14422/
After the war was over, he bought a 32 roadster (I wonder if someone has that in their garage right now?) into which he installed a 1947 Mercury flathead V-8 with Navarro heads, an Edelbrock intake manifold and Clay Smith camshaft.
During the week--as he attended industrial design classes at the Chouinard Institute in Los Angeles and worked at Lockheed assembling planes
With a degree in industrial design, Batchelor designed the innovative, record-setting So-Cal Streamliner (with Alex Xydias, founder of the So-Cal Speed Shop) and survived a terrible 150-mph crash when it flipped at high speed.
Batchelor even became a member of the Road Runners, that famous SCTA club that included such pioneers as Wally Parks, Ak Miller and Vic Edelbrock.
He also made his mark designing the winning Hill-Davis and Shadoff Special Streamliners. These cars, which set FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) records, were hand-built by backyard California hot rodders and were faster than the vaunted pre-war land-speed-record cars built by Germany’s Auto Union.
In 1952, he became the editor of Hop Up, which led to a two-year stint at Motor Life and then on to Road & Track
His post-racing career included work as a mechanic, as a historian at the National Automobile Museum in Reno.
Later he wrote critically acclaimed books on Ferrari, Porsche and racing pioneer Briggs Cunningham, along with the definitive history, The American Hot Rod, completed the night before he died.
I didn't know until now that the Motor Press Guild gives awards annually but it seems they only do so to their own members, and one is the Dean Batchelor Award for Excellence in Journalism.
There are a few other MPG awards, awarded at the Motor Press Guild’s annual Dean Batchelor Awards dinner, the MPG Best of the Year Feature Article, Book, Video Review, and Feature Video
There is also the Bob D’Olivo Award for Photography
https://www.history.com/news/8-hot-rod-heroes-burke-batchelor-muldowney-roth-coddington
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/article/dean-batchelor
B-17 #42-38025 / Flak Happy
Delivered Cheyenne 17/11/43; Gr Island 8/12/43; Presque Is 12/12/43;
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