We have one of the premier WWII gatherings in the country here in Reading each year on the first weekend of June and it started today. I took some photos over lunch and thought I’d share. Nothing professional, but you get a sense of what’s on display. I’m shooting from behind my workplace and not from inside the show.
It’s a little bit air show, a little bit ground pounder show, a little bit 40’s culture and a whole lot of history. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the period. Pix are here…
Thanks. I’ve got some more that I took in the evening on Friday that I’ll be adding tonight (hopefully). There was a Corsair flying when I left work among others. Saturday was too busy or I would’ve gone over and Sunday the weather wasn’t great. They buzzed my house all weekend, though. :)
I love old warplanes. I grew up reading so many wwII books on dogfighting. Those are great shots of the corsair and the p51.
My grandfather was a belly gunner in a b-17 and a few years ago I got to see one in person. They are much smaller than I imagined. I guess I am so used to today’s airliners, and I think “bomber” and it must be big, but I was taken aback for how small a b-17 is.
It’s a fascinating story on the B-17’s. The original design was to create bomber that didn’t need an escort. They found out this was not good in reality. The first few missions, the B-17’s were torn to shreds because they were so slow and they had to have fighter escort for the duration of the war.
The Corsair will always be stuck in my head for Pappy Boyington and the black sheep squadron - and so wonderfully played on TV when I was young. I never missed an episode. The books are pretty good as well - they became such a force, that the only way they’d get the japs in the air was to fly in bomber formation to draw them out.
The two planes I’d of love to see more pictures of is the P38 and the P47. The P38 was at the end of the war, and with it’s duel engines, was the first plane to outclimb a zero. The P47 was the definition of a tank if there was ever one. That thing was so heavy, and ponderous, but you didn’t want to get in front of it.
Thanks! There was a P47 here this year but I think it came in on Saturday and I didn’t get over to take any pix on the weekend. I love the P38 as well but I cannot recall ever seeing one flying here in all the years they’ve had the event.
You can see both up close at the USAF Museum in Dayton, OH. Highly recommended for anyone to visit.
