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Click Here For Full Artist Print Indexes | Aviation History Archive |
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Signatures on this item | |
*The value given for each signature has been calculated by us based on the historical significance and rarity of the signature. Values of many pilot signatures have risen in recent years and will likely continue to rise as they become more and more rare. | |
Name | Info |
Captain James Kunkle *Signature Value : £35 | Before he was eighteen and could join up, Kunkle had a job with Lockheed assembling P-38 wing sections, but as soon as he was old enough he enlisted for pilot training. In May 1944 he joined the 401st Fighter Squadron, 370th Fighter Group at Andover, England. His first mission was an armed reconnaissance across the Channel after D-Day. In July the squadron flew to an airfield on Omaha Beach, and flew air-support missions that devastated the German 7th Army at Falaise. He was shot down after a dog-fight with Fw190s and Me109s but managed to bail out over American lines. He later became a test pilot. |
Lieutenant Colonel William Pope *Signature Value : £35 | Bill Pope flew P-38s with the 343rd Fighter Squadron, 55th Fighter Group. He flew the first of his 73 combat missions on 29th April 1944, and was flying on D-Day. The 343rd Fighter Squadron later converted to P-51s. He retired in 1966. |
Lieutenant Colonel William Willis *Signature Value : £30 | William Willis joined the service in October 1942. Posted overseas to England, he flew P-38s with the 343rd Fighter Squadron, 55th Fighter Group. Based at Wormingford, the Group was equipped with P-38 Lightnings, which they were flying over Normandy at the time of the D-Day invasion. Shortly after they were converted to P-51s, on which Willis went to Berlin on a strafing mission. |
Sergeant Titch Rayner (deceased) *Signature Value : £35 | Titch Rayner served with the British Parachute Regiment. On D-Day he was flown into France on Horsa glider No.4, which landed off target due to a navigational problem. With the element of surprise gone, he and his fellow Paras had to fight their way through to Pegasus Bridge. He died on 2nd April 2015. |
Sergeant William True (deceased) *Signature Value : £40 | Bill True served with the 506th Parachute Regiment which was attached to the 101st Airborne. He took part in the initial parachute drop into France with the 101st on D-Day, and by the end of the day they were in control of the high ground overlooking the invasion beach. Bill made his second combat drop with the 101st near Eindhoven during Operation Market Garden, before, in December 1944, finding himself in the thick of the action defending the town of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, where the 506th defended the eastern perimeter section of the town. Advancing into Germany, the 506th's final mission of the war was the capture of Hitler's Eagle Nest at Berchtesgaden on 4th - 5th May 1945. He died on 20th March 2017. |
Staff Sergeant Peter B Boyle *Signature Value : £15 | One of the pilots in the third glider to arrive alongside what was to become famous as Pegasus Bridge, Boyle had a key role in perhaps the most dramatic action by airborne forces on D-Day. The Horsa landed heavily on the edge of a pond throwing two officers through cockpit windows and temporarily trapping some of the troops in the aircraft - one had been killed, the only fatal casualty in the landings. Boyle then joined in the actions across bridge. Although demanding very accurate flying (all three gliders landed within 500 metres of the bridge), they had been rigorously trained for the landings; Boyle remembers more than 40 individual rehearsals. A few months later he landed another Horsa at Arnhem but was taken prisoner in the subsequent fighting. |
The Aircraft : | |
Name | Info |
Lightning | Designed by Kelly Johnson the P38 made its maiden flight on the 27th January 1939 and introduced into service in 1941. they cost $134,284 at the time each and a total of 10,037 were built. The Lockheed P-38 was introduced as a inceptor fighter but soon proved a valuable long range bomber escort for the 8thUS Air Force's B-17 and-24 bombers as they bombed targets further into Germany. |
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