[ARC5] [ART-13_Transmitters] Re: New Collins Amateur Radio Club B-29 Project Update

[Mike Hanz]

On 12/13/2011 7:41 PM, Don Spivey wrote:
> It's fantastic to read "history" like this. Does anyone know of any 
> record of the radio gear removed from Fifi through the years? Photos, 
> serial numbers, identifying marking, collections now part of or 
> anything?  Guess I'm expecting too much here, but it would great to 
> have this info so it could be part of the historical record.

Each B-29 aircraft had a flight record for each time it left the ground, 
Don.  I spent a lot of time going over the stack of flight reports for 
the Enola Gay when I was preparing the countermeasures equipment that I 
donated for the radar compartment, searching for an elusive recorder 
that was used to record the crew's vocal impressions over the interphone 
system as they were leaving Hiroshima.    Unfortunately, I was missing 
the key report - the one for 6 August 1945.  My NASM boss finally found 
it in the Maxwell AFB archives a couple of years ago, and luckily the 
list of countermeasures equipment installed for the mission matched my 
guestimate.  You can see the 6 August report at 
http://aafradio.org/NASM/Flight_report_Aug-6-1945.jpg .  You will note 
that there is little detail from the standpoint of serial numbers - just 
equipment types - but this level of detail was available at one time for 
every B-29.  I don't know whether Fifi still has the documentation that 
was attached to her.  The USAAF was a little bit more relaxed about such 
things than the Navy, at least in my document chasing experience.  The 
phrase, "doncha know there's a war on?" was a constant reminder that 
intricate details might not be so crucial in a combat theater.  
Wholesale dumping of such documentation by the Navy a couple of decades 
ago, and a fire at Maxwell pretty much decimated such records for many 
aircraft.  It's a shame, but such decisions and accidents are seldom 
influenced by historians.

73,
Mike