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Paul Bellamy
8/11/2009 6:36:10 PM | Here's a photo of 42-39993 SC-C "Hell's Angels out of Chute 13" that I hadn't seen before in detail, courtesy of Jack Cook over on WiX:
This shows '993 with 93 mission markers, six "kill marks" on the cheek and another two on the chin turret, ILS and GEE aerials on the upper nose, and the alternative nickname of "Grossly Inadequate" visible below the cockpit window, amongst other markings. I'm looking into what the apparent extra antenna behind the RDF "football" could be.
The remains of snow on the ground would date the image to the winter of 1944-45.
Jack has generously sent me a 3744 x 2810 pixel version of this photo for the Association's archive in case we don't have it already.
All the best,
Paul
Paul Bellamy
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EDanaII
8/11/2009 10:54:14 PM | You just made friends with Rick on Facebook, Paul. All ya gots ta do now is let him know.
(Of course, if you don't, I will). 😉
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Paul Bellamy
8/12/2009 9:37:18 AM | Oops..... 🤦
Looks like there's a glitch in my database index.... this photo is of course NARA 65603AC.
Oddly, I couldn't find it via Footnote last night, yet today there it is.
Four crew members of the 401st Bomb Group in front of the Boeing B-17 "Flying Fortress" 'Hell's Angel' at an 8th Air Force base in England, 20 January 1945.
I got the date right though...... 😉
All the best,
PB
Paul Bellamy
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rick_kaufman
8/12/2009 10:50:17 PM | OK folks, here is an update on the pictures/images from the National Archives:
The 401stBG Assn paid a notable sum of $ to obtain copies of images from the National Archives.
I received a package of 9 CDs containing high resolution .tif images (639 image files / 5.72GB of data) from Art Seder last week. You have likely seen some of these in PFG, for example. Images include air crew photos, ground crew personnel, aircraft damage, nose art, jackets, mission photos, bomb drops, social events, COs, mission ops personnel, and, and, and...
It is my intent to get ALL of these images onto the 401st site in the future. There is up-front work that needs to be done prior to our posting these files:
(1) We need to generate a database (likely Excel to start with) that cross references images against their National Archive captions. The captions were originally noted on index cards that we have copies of. I will be looking for volunteers to assist in this effort soon after I accomplish:
(2) Images need to be converted to reasonable size JPG files in order to be useful on the web site. The high resolution tif images are great, but it simply isn't viable to store that much data on the 401stBG server at this time. The resolution required to view the images on the internet is not as high. I am currently experimenting with this a little to obtain a good balance between adequate resolution and file size.
(3) Once the images are on the site, we can add pertinent information to the captions if/when it is available. A good example of this would be to add names of crew members, etc to photos where they are known. Some of these photos are already resident on the site.
As always we have to walk before we can run. Understand that this is a high priority for me because I know that Pictures are Worth 1000 Words!
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Paul Bellamy
8/13/2009 6:57:23 AM | Good stuff Rick,
I'd suggest contacting Swinny for a copy of his Excel file for the 676 401BG NARA photo's currently identified and use that as a base to work from, and identify the photos not included on the CDs.
We can also resolve the issue of photo 59329-A AC.
NARA appear to have sent a copy of photo 59329 AC instead, which we have been able to confirm is of a 351st Bomb Group B-17. (See page 2 of THIS THREAD)
59329-A AC looks like this:
Let me know if I can help in any way,
PB
Paul Bellamy
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EDanaII
8/13/2009 7:30:21 AM | Rick,
Send me a copy (or two if they are wildly different) of those index cards. I'll analyze them for the information they contain. I can then suggest a structure for a database. I'll take a look at what Andy has too.
With regards to converting tiffs. Take a look at Picasa. Their software should convert tiff and they let you store them for free up to 1 gigabyte. We can then link those images back to the site. I use them for many of my photos.
Just some thoughts...
Ed.
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Paul Bellamy
8/13/2009 6:30:00 PM | After the comments in this thread, and a number of e-mails, I've started a new thread dedicated to dealing with the NARA photos HERE.
All the best,
PB
Paul Bellamy
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