Willow Run Airport

Re: My dad and his crew of the Cocky Bobby

More on the Cocky Bobby. THis plane was flown by more than one crew. Here is the crew my dad was on. Cliff Peterson was pilot. Of all of them I think Navigator Lloyd Truax of Rochester MN may still be alive. All the rest are gone. My dad is on the far right. Also a single pic of him as well.

Hope the pics load up.

Dennis L Oberer
Green Bay WI
 

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  • Art Oberer and Crew of B24  COCKY BOBBY  China 1944.jpg
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  • ART AND THE COCKY BOBBY.jpg
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Dennis, do you have the diecast "Cocky Bobby"? I'd think that would be a must have! :D So the pic that I posted was a different crew then?
 
I had a first cousin, who was a navigator on a B-24 during WWII. On one mission, over Germany, all of the radio and navigation equipment got knocked out by flack. He guided the plane back to England and to the airport, at night, by the stars. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for saving the crew. His name was James Cranwell.
MIKE :)
 
Great photos and even better stories from everyone who's posted so far on the thread. Thank you for the history lesson, threads like this are why I love being on the Ford Barn.
 
I have built a few of the Ford built Jeep engine. Alot of the parts from the Willys engine will fit the Ford engine. Differance, Ford engine has timing chain and the Willys engine has gears. The cams turn in differant directions. All of the parts on the Ford engine have an (f) like each head bolt has (f) on the top. I built one awhile ago and the (f) was rusted off the top of the bolts, the owner payed $90.00 for 9 new head bolts with the (f) on them. Walt
 
More....

I think that Camel on the nose are with the number 50 on it means 50 flights over the "hump" (the Himalays Mountains). They had NO av gas there in China so they used to fly over to India to bring back barrels of fuel.

Once they had enough fuel to fly a mission they did. Usually to bomb the hell out of Hong Kong and the Kowloon area to deny that port to the ****. Also to bomb whatever else was in range of their fuel capacity.

They slept in tents. I have some pics of the tents as well.

Whenever the **** figured out where the Tigers Base was they sent the army in to chase them out and so as my dad said "moving day again".

I wish he were still here to tell me more about those missions.

Dennis L Oberer
Green Bay WI
 
Noticed a lot of misinformation in this thread. For instance, the 9N tractor engine was in no way connected to the Model A/B engine! It was basically half of the '39 Mercury V8. Pistons, rings, valves and lifters are absolutely identical and interchangeable. The oil pump is very similar to the V8 60 pump (the gears may be the same). The distributor was mounted on the timing cover and driven directly from the cam. It had insert rod and main bearings and was full pressure oiled. The starter was from the V8 60 also. It was not used in the Jeep, but was available in '41 and '42 pickups where it was rated at 40 HP, I believe.
Get a load of this: According to the book "The Fords in My Past" by Harold Brock (chief engineer of tractor engineering from 1939 to 1959 at Ford and main designer of the 9N,): "Ford designed and built the first prototype" Jeep. And, copies of Ford's drawings "were transferred to Willys as a second source".
The original Jeep patents (nos. 2,317,619; 2,317,620 and 2,319,869) "were issued to C. F. Kramer of Ford Body Engineering Department".After the war Willys-Overland was charged with false and misleading advertising by the Federal Trade Commission for claiming to have designed the Jeep and it was proved in court that Ford drawings were copied and used by Willys. A cease and desist order was issued by the Federal Court for Willys to stop "claiming to have designed this vehicle". So Jeep DID NOT write the book after all!!
 
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