I'm sure you're all familiar with Joseph Heller, the writer of the novel Catch-22. Well, I just found out where he got some of his inspiration. Heller was bombardier in this plane:




"The picture of the B-25 with the chewed up tail is on the same page. It's listed as "war damage," but as I remember it the enemy did not chew up the tail. That was the result of one B-25 running into another while in formation. I seem to remember going down to look at the damage."

Dominique Taddei supplied the following information about the collision:

"...this photo has been taken the 21st of January 1945 at Alesani. This B-25J was the "8P" 43-27657 with pilot, 2nd Lt. W.B. Pelton. After the bombing of San Michele, the flak started to fire but nobody was hit. Changing the heading to join Corsica, a strong blast of wind unbalanced the "8U" 43-4064 with pilot, 1st Lt. W.Y. Simpson. The 8U collided with the 8P tail and killed the tail gunner S/Sgt. Aubrey B. Porter. The 8U came down in a spin and crashed with all the crew members (KIA). The 8P landed safely at Alesani with such tail. 8U crew: Pilot, 1st Lt. William Y. Simpson/ Copilot, 2nd Lt. Frederick C. Greenig/ S/Sgt. James C. Rice/ Sgt. Doyle G. Shipley/ Sgt. Robert J. Jackson/ Cpl. Fred B. Hicks. 8P crew: Pilot, 2nd Lt. W.B. Pelton/ Cap., F/O H.K. Shackelford/ S/Sgt. A.J.Bertagna/ S/Sgt. R.C. Garner/ Cpl. H. Lisby and S/Sgt. A.B. Porter (MIA). (The crew lists give only the pilot positions nothing about the gunners) I have only the names. Unfortunately for 1st Lt. Pelton, the 16th of March 1945, his B-25 "8H" ditched at 4 miles after the take-off, the two engines stopped at the same time, the plane blown up in touching the water. Only the body of the radio-gunner was found and buried at the cemetery of Bastia- S/Sgt. Lawrence W. Kahl."



"Roger Juglair sent me this flight schedule from the 488th Bomb Squadron for an earlier mission on August 23, 1944 in which the same two aircraft, 8U and 8P, were participating. Interestingly, 8P had Joseph Heller, author of "Catch-22" as bombardier and 8U had Francis Yohannan as bombardier. Yohannan was the real-life inspiration for Heller's main character of Yossarian in "Catch-22." 488th Operations Officer Captain John E. Rapp was piloting the lead plane in the box. 8U and 8P were again adjacent to each other in the box just as they were on the fateful day of January 21, 1945. In the book Heller describes a collision between two aircraft on a mission."

They key is that equipment damaged or lost due to enemy action is categorized differently by the bean counters. War damage is an automatic write-off, while accidents need to be investigated and sometimes paid for by the soldiers, sailors or airmen. I know of some guys in Desert Shield/Storm who got 1/3 to 1/2 of their field gear replaced because of "war damage" whereas if it had been caused on a peacetime field exercise most of it would have come out of their pay.

Makes sense. I'm thinking of doing a skin for those birds. It's a shame we don't have an Italy campaign, taking off from Corsica.

Years ago when the fake Italy map was released someone had build a mission called "Yossarian's Nightmare" that was based on Catch-22. I think it can be found at M4T.

I know, but I mean a campaign, not a single mission

Well, here's Heller's bird! Forgive the inaccuracies, but I could only find 3 pictures, all taken from the back to show the tail. If anyone has another one, I'd appreciate it. Could not by the life of me shoot off the right vertical stabilizer. God knows I tried

Here's one of her with her sister ship over the "Brenner Pass" which I use to travel frequently.


Regards Duggy

Wow, Duggy! Heck of a nice shot. I guess I got the nose section wrong.

Can you get any pictures of the engines? Thanks anyway.

I will see what I can find, but I think your bird, was not just "OD"
Below taken on a mission to bomb Cassino 15th March 1944.