Bobstamp

24 Jun 2015
05:37:08pm

I just completed the purchase of a postcard from Delcampe, which is a source for many European items that one rarely sees on eBay. This one is especially desirable to me. It pictures a Douglas B-26 Invader bomber being readied for a mission during the First Indochina War between the French Army and Viet Minh insurgents; I am currently working on a web page about that war.



In addition to the fact that I collect stamps, covers, postcards and collateral material about that war, the B-26 Invader is especially interesting to me because of a personal connection. In March, 1943, Donald Overturf, my father-in-law (now deceased), quit his job as an instructor at Santa Ana Junior College in California to become a supervisor on assembly lines at Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach. One of the planes he worked on was the B-26 Invader, which was a light bomber and attack aircraft that saw a great deal of action in both the European and Pacific theatres of the Second World War.

Soon after the French re-occupied Indochina after the war, the United States committed billions of dollars' worth of military aid to assist the French in overcoming the Viet Minh insurgency; one of the principal aircraft that the French used was the Invader. It's possible that the B-26 pictured on this postcard was one which was built under Don's supervision.

The Invader continued to be used to some extent by American forces during the Vietnam War.

Bob

 
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cdj1122

re: A postcard with WWII, Indochina War, and Vietnam War connections

There is another side to the "B-26" story.
The Martin Marauder "B-26" looked quite similar to the Douglas Invader "A-26" later also called the "B-26.
In the late 1940s-early '60s we lived in Levittown near Mitchel Field and saw many of the different types landing or taking off.

The difference has to do with the wings being attached near the top of the fuselage rather than to the middle. That made it difficult to identify correctly from a distance and provoked some debates (haha) among my 6th or 7th grade school mates, especially those of us who had models of one or the other. In those days, I had a handy book that contained line drawings of just about every aircraft ever produced to date, commercial and military. I liked to win those discussions.
One difference was that the Martins were mostly retired after WW-II while the Douglas served into the 1960s and Vietnam.
Probably other nations kept some flying longer and I think the CIA used several "B-26s" flown from Nicaragua during the Cuban Missile crisis.

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Bobstamp

25 Jun 2015
06:53:59pm

re: A postcard with WWII, Indochina War, and Vietnam War connections

Hey Charlie, you're confused too! The Douglas A-26/B-26 was the "Invader," not the "Avenger". The only Avenger I know of is the Grumman Avenger, aka the "TBF" Torpedo Bomber, aka TBM if built by General Motors. I'm guessing that you know that already. Blame your computer!

Here's a photo of a TBM that was operating as a slurry bomber in New Mexico; I took it in 1962 when I was working on a feature story about forest fire fighting for the El Paso Times:



The Avenger is the aircraft that George H.W. Bush was flying when he was shot down over Ie Jima island, where the communication centre for Japanese military in the South Pacific was located. Here's a picture of Bush in his plane:



It was a close call for Bush: He was madly paddling away from Ie Jima in a life raft, with a Japanese patrol boat in hot pursuit, when an American submarine surface nearby and rescued him.

Here's a photograph of a TBM taking off from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Yorktown:



Bob

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