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Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Lockheed P-38J-10-LO Lightning
In the P-38 Lockheed engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson and his team of designers created one of the most successful twin-engine fighters ever flown by any nation. From 1942 to 1945, U. S. Army Air Forces pilots flew P-38s over Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific, and from the frozen Aleutian Islands to the sun-baked deserts of North Africa. Lightning pilots in the Pacific theater downed more Japanese aircraft than pilots flying any other Allied warplane.
Maj. Richard I. Bong, America's leading fighter ace, flew this P-38J-10-LO on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field, Ohio, to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. However, his right engine exploded in flight before he could conduct the experiment.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1943
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 390 x 1170cm, 6345kg, 1580cm (12ft 9 9/16in. x 38ft 4 5/8in., 13988.2lb., 51ft 10 1/16in.)
Materials:
All-metal
Physical Description:
Twin-tail boom and twin-engine fighter; tricycle landing gear.
Long Description:
From 1942 to 1945, the thunder of P-38 Lightnings was heard around the world. U. S. Army pilots flew the P-38 over Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific; from the frozen Aleutian Islands to the sun-baked deserts of North Africa. Measured by success in combat, Lockheed engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson and a team of designers created the most successful twin-engine fighter ever flown by any nation. In the Pacific Theater, Lightning pilots downed more Japanese aircraft than pilots flying any other Army Air Forces warplane.
Johnson and his team conceived this twin-engine, single-pilot fighter airplane in 1936 and the Army Air Corps authorized the firm to build it in June 1937. Lockheed finished constructing the prototype XP-38 and delivered it to the Air Corps on New Year's Day, 1939. Air Corps test pilot and P-38 project officer, Lt. Benjamin S. Kelsey, first flew the aircraft on January 27. Losing this prototype in a crash at Mitchel Field, New York, with Kelsey at the controls, did not deter the Air Corps from ordering 13 YP-38s for service testing on April 27. Kelsey survived the crash and remained an important part of the Lightning program. Before the airplane could be declared ready for combat, Lockheed had to block the effects of high-speed aerodynamic compressibility and tail buffeting, and solve other problems discovered during the service tests.
The most vexing difficulty was the loss of control in a dive caused by aerodynamic compressibility. During late spring 1941, Air Corps Major Signa A. Gilke encountered serious trouble while diving his Lightning at high-speed from an altitude of 9,120 m (30,000 ft). When he reached an indicated airspeed of about 515 kph (320 mph), the airplane's tail began to shake violently and the nose dropped until the dive was almost vertical. Signa recovered and landed safely and the tail buffet problem was soon resolved after Lockheed installed new fillets to improve airflow where the cockpit gondola joined the wing center section. Seventeen months passed before engineers began to determine what caused the Lightning's nose to drop. They tested a scale model P-38 in the Ames Laboratory wind tunnel operated by the NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) and found that shock waves formed when airflow over the wing leading edges reached transonic speeds. The nose drop and loss of control was never fully remedied but Lockheed installed dive recovery flaps under each wing in 1944. These devices slowed the P-38 enough to allow the pilot to maintain control when diving at high-speed.
Just as the development of the North American P-51 Mustang, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, and the Vought F4U Corsair (see NASM collection for these aircraft) pushed the limits of aircraft performance into unexplored territory, so too did P-38 development. The type of aircraft envisioned by the Lockheed design team and Air Corps strategists in 1937 did not appear until June 1944. This protracted shakedown period mirrors the tribulations suffered by Vought in sorting out the many technical problems that kept F4U Corsairs off U. S. Navy carrier decks until the end of 1944.
Lockheed's efforts to trouble-shoot various problems with the design also delayed high-rate, mass production. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the company had delivered only 69 Lightnings to the Army. Production steadily increased and at its peak in 1944, 22 sub-contractors built various Lightning components and shipped them to Burbank, California, for final assembly. Consolidated-Vultee (Convair) subcontracted to build the wing center section and the firm later became prime manufacturer for 2,000 P-38Ls but that company's Nashville plant completed only 113 examples of this Lightning model before war's end. Lockheed and Convair finished 10,038 P-38 aircraft including 500 photo-reconnaissance models. They built more L models, 3,923, than any other version.
To ease control and improve stability, particularly at low speeds, Lockheed equipped all Lightnings, except a batch ordered by Britain, with propellers that counter-rotated. The propeller to the pilot's left turned counter-clockwise and the propeller to his right turned clockwise, so that one propeller countered the torque and airflow effects generated by the other. The airplane also performed well at high speeds and the definitive P-38L model could make better than 676 kph (420 mph) between 7,600 and 9,120 m (25,000 and 30,000 ft). The design was versatile enough to carry various combinations of bombs, air-to-ground rockets, and external fuel tanks. The multi-engine configuration reduced the Lightning loss-rate to anti-aircraft gunfire during ground attack missions. Single-engine airplanes equipped with power plants cooled by pressurized liquid, such as the North American P-51 Mustang (see NASM collection), were particularly vulnerable. Even a small nick in one coolant line could cause the engine to seize in a matter of minutes.
The first P-38s to reach the Pacific combat theater arrived on April 4, 1942, when a version of the Lightning that carried reconnaissance cameras (designated the F-4), joined the 8th Photographic Squadron based in Australia. This unit launched the first P-38 combat missions over New Guinea and New Britain during April. By May 29, the first 25 P-38s had arrived in Anchorage, Alaska. On August 9, pilots of the 343rd Fighter Group, Eleventh Air Force, flying the P-38E, shot down a pair of Japanese flying boats.
Back in the United States, Army Air Forces leaders tried to control a rumor that Lightnings killed their own pilots. On August 10, 1942, Col. Arthur I. Ennis, Chief of U. S. Army Air Forces Public Relations in Washington, told a fellow officer "… Here's what the 4th Fighter [training] Command is up against… common rumor out there that the whole West Coast was filled with headless bodies of men who jumped out of P-38s and had their heads cut off by the propellers." Novice Lightning pilots unfamiliar with the correct bailout procedures actually had more to fear from the twin-boom tail, if an emergency dictated taking to the parachute but properly executed, Lightning bailouts were as safe as parachuting from any other high-performance fighter of the day. Misinformation and wild speculation about many new aircraft was rampant during the early War period.
Along with U. S. Navy Grumman F4F Wildcats (see NASM collection) and Curtiss P-40 Warhawks (see NASM collection), Lightnings were the first American fighter airplanes capable of consistently defeating Japanese fighter aircraft. On November 18, men of the 339th Fighter Squadron became the first Lightning pilots to attack Japanese fighters. Flying from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, they claimed three during a mission to escort Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers (see NASM collection).
On April 18, 1943, fourteen P-38 pilots from the 70th and the 339th Fighter Squadrons, 347th Fighter Group, accomplished one of the most important Lightning missions of the war. American ULTRA cryptanalysts had decoded Japanese messages that revealed the timetable for a visit to the front by the commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. This charismatic leader had crafted the plan to attack Pearl Harbor and Allied strategists believed his loss would severely cripple Japanese morale. The P-38 pilots flew 700 km (435 miles) at heights from 3-15 m (10-50 feet) above the ocean to avoid detection. Over the coast of Bougainville, they intercepted a formation of two Mitsubishi G4M BETTY bombers (see NASM collection) carrying the Admiral and his staff, and six Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters (see NASM collection) providing escort. The Lightning pilots downed both bombers but lost Lt. Ray Hine to a Zero.
In Europe, the first Americans to down a Luftwaffe aircraft were Lt. Elza E. Shahan flying a 27th Fighter Squadron P-38E, and Lt. J. K. Shaffer flying a Curtiss P-40 (see NASM collection) in the 33rd Fighter Squadron. The two flyers shared the destruction of a Focke-Wulf Fw 200C-3 Condor maritime strike aircraft over Iceland on August 14, 1942. Later that month, the 1st fighter group accepted Lightnings and began combat operations from bases in England but this unit soon moved to fight in North Africa. More than a year passed before the P-38 reappeared over Western Europe. While the Lightning was absent, U. S. Army Air Forces strategists had relearned a painful lesson: unescorted bombers cannot operate successfully in the face of determined opposition from enemy fighters. When P-38s returned to England, the primary mission had become long-range bomber escort at ranges of about 805 kms (500 miles) and at altitudes above 6,080 m (20,000 ft).
On October 15, 1943, P-38H pilots in the 55th Fighter Group flew their first combat mission over Europe at a time when the need for long-range escorts was acute. Just the day before, German fighter pilots had destroyed 60 of 291 Eighth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses (see NASM collection) during a mission to bomb five ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt, Germany. No air force could sustain a loss-rate of nearly 20 percent for more than a few missions but these targets lay well beyond the range of available escort fighters (Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, see NASM collection). American war planners hoped the long-range capabilities of the P-38 Lightning could halt this deadly trend, but the very high and very cold environment peculiar to the European air war caused severe power plant and cockpit heating difficulties for the Lightning pilots. The long-range escort problem was not completely solved until the North American P-51 Mustang (see NASM collection) began to arrive in large numbers early in 1944.
Poor cockpit heating in the H and J model Lightnings made flying and fighting at altitudes that frequently approached 12,320 m (40,000 ft) nearly impossible. This was a fundamental design flaw that Kelly Johnson and his team never anticipated when they designed the airplane six years earlier. In his seminal work on the Allison V-1710 engine, Daniel Whitney analyzed in detail other factors that made the P-38 a disappointing airplane in combat over Western Europe.
• Many new and inexperienced pilots arrived in England during December 1943, along with the new J model P-38 Lightning.
• J model rated at 1,600 horsepower vs. 1,425 for earlier H model Lightnings. This power setting required better maintenance between flights. It appears this work was not done in many cases.
• During stateside training, Lightning pilots were taught to fly at high rpm settings and low engine manifold pressure during cruise flight. This was very hard on the engines, and not in keeping with technical directives issued by Allison and Lockheed.
• The quality of fuel in England may have been poor, TEL (tetraethyl lead) fuel additive appeared to condense inside engine induction manifolds, causing detonation (destructive explosion of fuel mixture rather than controlled burning).
• Improved turbo supercharger intercoolers appeared on the J model P-38. These devices greatly reduced manifold temperatures but this encouraged TEL condensation in manifolds during cruise flight and increased spark plug fouling.
Using water injection to minimize detonation might have reduced these engine problems. Both the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and the North American P-51 Mustang (see NASM collection) were fitted with water injection systems but not the P-38. Lightning pilots continued to fly, despite these handicaps.
During November 1942, two all-Lightning fighter groups, the 1st and the 14th, began operating in North Africa. In the Mediterranean Theater, P-38 pilots flew more sorties than Allied pilots flying any other type of fighter. They claimed 608 enemy a/c destroyed in the air, 123 probably destroyed and 343 damaged, against the loss of 131 Lightnings.
In the war against Japan, the P-38 truly excelled. Combat rarely occurred above 6,080 m (20,000 ft) and the engine and cockpit comfort problems common in Europe never plagued pilots in the Pacific Theater. The Lightning's excellent range was used to full advantage above the vast expanses of water. In early 1945, Lightning pilots of the 12th Fighter Squadron, 18th Fighter Group, flew a mission that lasted 10 ½ hours and covered more than 3,220 km (2,000 miles). In August, P-38 pilots established the world's long-distance record for a World War II combat fighter when they flew from the Philippines to the Netherlands East Indies, a distance of 3,703 km (2,300 miles). During early 1944, Lightning pilots in the 475th Fighter Group began the 'race of aces.' By March, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas J. Lynch had scored 21 victories before he fell to antiaircraft gunfire while strafing enemy ships. Major Thomas B. McGuire downed 38 Japanese aircraft before he was killed when his P-38 crashed at low altitude in early January 1945. Major Richard I. Bong became America's highest scoring fighter ace (40 victories) but died in the crash of a Lockheed P-80 (see NASM collection) on August 6, 1945.
Museum records show that Lockheed assigned the construction number 422-2273 to the National Air and Space Museum's P-38. The Army Air Forces accepted this Lightning as a P-38J-l0-LO on November 6, 1943, and the service identified the airplane with the serial number 42-67762. Recent investigations conducted by a team of specialists at the Paul E. Garber Facility, and Herb Brownstein, a volunteer in the Aeronautics Division at the National Air and Space Museum, have revealed many hitherto unknown aspects to the history of this aircraft.
Brownstein examined NASM files and documents at the National Archives. He discovered that a few days after the Army Air Forces (AAF) accepted this airplane, the Engineering Division at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, granted Lockheed permission to convert this P-38 into a two-seat trainer. The firm added a seat behind the pilot to accommodate an instructor who would train civilian pilots in instrument flying techniques. Once trained, these test pilots evaluated new Lightnings fresh off the assembly line.
In a teletype sent by the Engineering Division on March 2, 1944, Brownstein also discovered that this P-38 was released to Colonel Benjamin S. Kelsey from March 3 to April 10, 1944, to conduct special tests. This action was confirmed the following day in a cable from the War Department. This same pilot, then a Lieutenant, flew the XP-38 across the United States in 1939 and survived the crash that destroyed this Lightning at Mitchel Field, New York. In early 1944, Kelsey was assigned to the Eighth Air Force in England and he apparently traveled to the Lockheed factory at Burbank to pick up the P-38. Further information about these tests and Kelsey's involvement remain an intriguing question.
One of Brownstein's most important discoveries was a small file rich with information about the NASM Lightning. This file contained a cryptic reference to a "Major Bong" who flew the NASM P-38 on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field. Bong had planned to fly for an hour to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. His flight ended after twenty-minutes when "the right engine blew up before I had a chance [to conduct the test]." The curator at the Richard I. Bong Heritage Center confirmed that America's highest scoring ace made this flight in the NASM P-38 Lightning.
Working in Building 10 at the Paul E. Garber Facility, Rob Mawhinney, Dave Wilson, Wil Lee, Bob Weihrauch, Jim Purton, and Heather Hutton spent several months during the spring and summer of 2001 carefully disassembling, inspecting, and cleaning the NASM Lightning. They found every hardware modification consistent with a model J-25 airplane, not the model J-10 painted in the data block beneath the artifact's left nose. This fact dovetails perfectly with knowledge uncovered by Brownstein. On April 10, the Engineering Division again cabled Lockheed asking the company to prepare 42-67762 for transfer to Wright Field "in standard configuration." The standard P-38 configuration at that time was the P-38J-25. The work took several weeks and the fighter does not appear on Wright Field records until May 15, 1944. On June 9, the Flight Test Section at Wright Field released the fighter for flight trials aimed at collecting pilot comments on how the airplane handled.
Wright Field's Aeromedical Laboratory was the next organization involved with this P-38. That unit installed a kit on July 26 that probably measured the force required to move the control wheel left and right to actuate the power-boosted ailerons installed in all Lightnings beginning with version J-25. From August 12-16, the Power Plant Laboratory carried out tests to measure the hydraulic pump temperatures on this Lightning. Then beginning September 16 and lasting about ten days, the Bombing Branch, Armament Laboratory, tested type R-3 fragmentation bomb racks. The work appears to have ended early in December. On June 20, 1945, the AAF Aircraft Distribution Office asked that the Air Technical Service Command transfer the Lightning from Wright Field to Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, a temporary holding area for Air Force museum aircraft. The P-38 arrived at the Oklahoma City Air Depot on June 27, 1945, and mechanics prepared the fighter for flyable storage.
Airplane Flight Reports for this Lightning also describe the following activities and movements:
6-21-45 Wright Field, Ohio, 5.15 hours of flying.
6-22-45Wright Field, Ohio, .35 minutes of flying by Lt. Col. Wendel [?] J. Kelley and P. Shannon.
6-25-45Altus, Oklahoma, .55 hours flown, pilot P. Shannon.
6-27-45Altus, Oklahoma, #2 engine changed, 1.05 hours flown by Air Corps F/O Ralph F. Coady.
10-5-45 OCATSC-GCAAF (Garden City Army Air Field, Garden City, Kansas), guns removed and ballast added.
10-8-45Adams Field, Little Rock, Arkansas.
10-9-45Nashville, Tennessee,
5-28-46Freeman Field, Indiana, maintenance check by Air Corps Capt. H. M. Chadhowere [sp]?
7-24-46Freeman Field, Indiana, 1 hour local flight by 1st Lt. Charles C. Heckel.
7-31-46 Freeman Field, Indiana, 4120th AAF Base Unit, ferry flight to Orchard Place [Illinois] by 1st Lt. Charles C. Heckel.
On August 5, 1946, the AAF moved the aircraft to another storage site at the former Consolidated B-24 bomber assembly plant at Park Ridge, Illinois. A short time later, the AAF transferred custody of the Lightning and more than sixty other World War II-era airplanes to the Smithsonian National Air Museum. During the early 1950s, the Air Force moved these airplanes from Park Ridge to the Smithsonian storage site at Suitland, Maryland.
• • •
Quoting from Wikipedia | Lockheed P-38 Lightning:
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a World War II American fighter aircraft built by Lockheed. Developed to a United States Army Air Corps requirement, the P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a single, central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament. Named "fork-tailed devil" by the Luftwaffe and "two planes, one pilot" by the Japanese, the P-38 was used in a number of roles, including dive bombing, level bombing, ground-attack, photo reconnaissance missions, and extensively as a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks under its wings.
The P-38 was used most successfully in the Pacific Theater of Operations and the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations as the mount of America's top aces, Richard Bong (40 victories) and Thomas McGuire (38 victories). In the South West Pacific theater, the P-38 was the primary long-range fighter of United States Army Air Forces until the appearance of large numbers of P-51D Mustangs toward the end of the war. The P-38 was unusually quiet for a fighter, the exhaust muffled by the turbo-superchargers. It was extremely forgiving, and could be mishandled in many ways, but the rate of roll was too slow for it to excel as a dogfighter. The P-38 was the only American fighter aircraft in production throughout American involvement in the war, from Pearl Harbor to Victory over Japan Day.
Variants: Lightning in maturity: P-38J
The P-38J was introduced in August 1943. The turbo-supercharger intercooler system on previous variants had been housed in the leading edges of the wings and had proven vulnerable to combat damage and could burst if the wrong series of controls were mistakenly activated. In the P-38J model, the streamlined engine nacelles of previous Lightnings were changed to fit the intercooler radiator between the oil coolers, forming a "chin" that visually distinguished the J model from its predecessors. While the P-38J used the same V-1710-89/91 engines as the H model, the new core-type intercooler more efficiently lowered intake manifold temperatures and permitted a substantial increase in rated power. The leading edge of the outer wing was fitted with 55 gal (208 l) fuel tanks, filling the space formerly occupied by intercooler tunnels, but these were omitted on early P-38J blocks due to limited availability.
The final 210 J models, designated P-38J-25-LO, alleviated the compressibility problem through the addition of a set of electrically-actuated dive recovery flaps just outboard of the engines on the bottom centerline of the wings. With these improvements, a USAAF pilot reported a dive speed of almost 600 mph (970 km/h), although the indicated air speed was later corrected for compressibility error, and the actual dive speed was lower. Lockheed manufactured over 200 retrofit modification kits to be installed on P-38J-10-LO and J-20-LO already in Europe, but the USAAF C-54 carrying them was shot down by an RAF pilot who mistook the Douglas transport for a German Focke-Wulf Condor. Unfortunately the loss of the kits came during Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier's four-month morale-boosting tour of P-38 bases. Flying a new Lightning named "Snafuperman" modified to full P-38J-25-LO specs at Lockheed's modification center near Belfast, LeVier captured the pilots' full attention by routinely performing maneuvers during March 1944 that common Eighth Air Force wisdom held to be suicidal. It proved too little too late because the decision had already been made to re-equip with Mustangs.
The P-38J-25-LO production block also introduced hydraulically-boosted ailerons, one of the first times such a system was fitted to a fighter. This significantly improved the Lightning's rate of roll and reduced control forces for the pilot. This production block and the following P-38L model are considered the definitive Lightnings, and Lockheed ramped up production, working with subcontractors across the country to produce hundreds of Lightnings each month.
Noted P-38 pilots
Richard Bong and Thomas McGuire
The American ace of aces and his closest competitor both flew Lightnings as they tallied 40 and 38 victories respectively. Majors Richard I. "Dick" Bong and Thomas J. "Tommy" McGuire of the USAAF competed for the top position. Both men were awarded the Medal of Honor.
McGuire was killed in air combat in January 1945 over the Philippines, after racking up 38 confirmed kills, making him the second-ranking American ace. Bong was rotated back to the United States as America's ace of aces, after making 40 kills, becoming a test pilot. He was killed on 6 August 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, when his P-80 Shooting Star jet fighter flamed out on takeoff.
Charles Lindbergh
The famed aviator Charles Lindbergh toured the South Pacific as a civilian contractor for United Aircraft Corporation, comparing and evaluating performance of single- and twin-engined fighters for Vought. He worked to improve range and load limits of the F4U Corsair, flying both routine and combat strafing missions in Corsairs alongside Marine pilots. In Hollandia, he attached himself to the 475th FG flying P-38s so that he could investigate the twin-engine fighter. Though new to the machine, he was instrumental in extending the range of the P-38 through improved throttle settings, or engine-leaning techniques, notably by reducing engine speed to 1,600 rpm, setting the carburetors for auto-lean and flying at 185 mph (298 km/h) indicated airspeed which reduced fuel consumption to 70 gal/h, about 2.6 mpg. This combination of settings had been considered dangerous; it was thought it would upset the fuel mixture and cause an explosion. Everywhere Lindbergh went in the South Pacific, he was accorded the normal preferential treatment of a visiting colonel, though he had resigned his Air Corps Reserve colonel's commission three years before. While with the 475th, he held training classes and took part in a number of Army Air Corps combat missions. On 28 July 1944, Lindbergh shot down a Mitsubishi Ki-51 "Sonia" flown expertly by the veteran commander of 73rd Independent Flying Chutai, Imperial Japanese Army Captain Saburo Shimada. In an extended, twisting dogfight in which many of the participants ran out of ammunition, Shimada turned his aircraft directly toward Lindbergh who was just approaching the combat area. Lindbergh fired in a defensive reaction brought on by Shimada's apparent head-on ramming attack. Hit by cannon and machine gun fire, the "Sonia's" propeller visibly slowed, but Shimada held his course. Lindbergh pulled up at the last moment to avoid collision as the damaged "Sonia" went into a steep dive, hit the ocean and sank. Lindbergh's wingman, ace Joseph E. "Fishkiller" Miller, Jr., had also scored hits on the "Sonia" after it had begun its fatal dive, but Miller was certain the kill credit was Lindbergh's. The unofficial kill was not entered in the 475th's war record. On 12 August 1944 Lindbergh left Hollandia to return to the United States.
Charles MacDonald
The seventh-ranking American ace, Charles H. MacDonald, flew a Lightning against the Japanese, scoring 27 kills in his famous aircraft, the Putt Putt Maru.
Robin Olds
Main article: Robin Olds
Robin Olds was the last P-38 ace in the Eighth Air Force and the last in the ETO. Flying a P-38J, he downed five German fighters on two separate missions over France and Germany. He subsequently transitioned to P-51s to make seven more kills. After World War II, he flew F-4 Phantom IIs in Vietnam, ending his career as brigadier general with 16 kills.
Clay Tice
A P-38 piloted by Clay Tice was the first American aircraft to land in Japan after VJ-Day, when he and his wingman set down on Nitagahara because his wingman was low on fuel.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Noted aviation pioneer and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry vanished in a F-5B-1-LO, 42-68223, c/n 2734, of Groupe de Chasse II/33, out of Borgo-Porreta, Bastia, Corsica, a reconnaissance variant of the P-38, while on a flight over the Mediterranean, from Corsica to mainland France, on 31 July 1944. His health, both physical and mental (he was said to be intermittently subject to depression), had been deteriorating and there had been talk of taking him off flight status. There have been suggestions (although no proof to date) that this was a suicide rather than an aircraft failure or combat loss. In 2000, a French scuba diver found the wreckage of a Lightning in the Mediterranean off the coast of Marseille, and it was confirmed in April 2004 as Saint-Exupéry's F-5B. No evidence of air combat was found. In March 2008, a former Luftwaffe pilot, Horst Rippert from Jagdgruppe 200, claimed to have shot down Saint-Exupéry.
Adrian Warburton
The RAF's legendary photo-recon "ace", Wing Commander Adrian Warburton DSO DFC, was the pilot of a Lockheed P-38 borrowed from the USAAF that took off on 12 April 1944 to photograph targets in Germany. W/C Warburton failed to arrive at the rendezvous point and was never seen again. In 2003, his remains were recovered in Germany from his wrecked USAAF P-38 Lightning.
• • • • •
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Boeing B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay":
Boeing's B-29 Superfortress was the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments. Although designed to fight in the European theater, the B-29 found its niche on the other side of the globe. In the Pacific, B-29s delivered a variety of aerial weapons: conventional bombs, incendiary bombs, mines, and two nuclear weapons.
On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, Bockscar (on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio) dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Enola Gay flew as the advance weather reconnaissance aircraft that day. A third B-29, The Great Artiste, flew as an observation aircraft on both missions.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1945
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 900 x 3020cm, 32580kg, 4300cm (29ft 6 5/16in. x 99ft 1in., 71825.9lb., 141ft 15/16in.)
Materials:
Polished overall aluminum finish
Physical Description:
Four-engine heavy bomber with semi-monoqoque fuselage and high-aspect ratio wings. Polished aluminum finish overall, standard late-World War II Army Air Forces insignia on wings and aft fuselage and serial number on vertical fin; 509th Composite Group markings painted in black; "Enola Gay" in black, block letters on lower left nose.
Stagecoach East Midlands Alexander Dennis E40D / Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 MMC YX67 VCO (10901) , in the Interconnect c/s, passing through Gainsborough bus station, 11/07/20
This upload begins with something which has become awfully common of late; Gainsborough's InterConnect branded E400 MMCs on the 107. Last year, for a time, it was very common to have a mix of InterConnect MMCs and random Gainsborough deckers on the 100 and 107. After one of the Lockdowns (can't remember which... something like the 24th one) allocations then stuck to MMCs on the 100 and anything else on the 107 (and 106) as standard, and remained like that until a few weeks ago.
Since then, however, the variety of Tridents on the 107 has become severely diluted by allocations of an MMC on most days. Sometimes it will last on it all day, or sometimes a President or ALX will appear for some of the afternoon runs (then usually does the 2nd evening run at 5:40 away from Lincoln). Here on 13.7.21 we got an MMC on the 106! Unfortunately it was a bit early so by the time I found out about it on Bustimes, I could only make it out to see it on the 107 back to Gainsborough. Here is 10897 on the return leg of its slightly less-than-usual outing to Lincoln, seen on St Mary's Street with the bus station as the backdrop.
Given how common MMCs on the 107 have become (again), I have surprisingly few photos of them on it, so this is a bonus even if I was deprived a good Trident. I'm not going to try and spot all the 67 plates on the 107, but if I see another one I'll gladly take it. As for one on the 106, if it happens again I'll probably make an effort to see it, and hopefully not miss it like I did here! (And if I do get another on the 106 I will, of course, see it on the 107 a few mins later.)
There are six E400 MMCs in InterConnect livery for the 100, but that seems like way too many branded vehicles for what the 100 actually needs, so they often turn up on other routes (as Bustimes.org will tell you). This is fair enough, but the incessant allocation to the 107 can't surely be an accident. At least one ALX400 has been loaned to Hull, but I wouldn't be surprised if the MMCs are covering for several Tridents that are on loan elsewhere, in for repaint or simply out of traffic for whatever reason. Not sure, but from looking at Bustimes 18024 may have expired in Lincoln on the 106 today (15.7.21) since it just, well, stopped.
Not all the InterConnect 5s run to Boston, as demonstrated by YD63 UZW here with an IC5 for Coningsby, on its way out of Lincoln over Pelham Bridge on 6.11.20
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 15614, a 2010 Scania N230UD ADL Enviro 400, was seen near Burgh Le Marsh operating a service 56 to Skegness. New to Stagecoach Oxford.
One of the 05 plate Solos from the JX# batch, crossing Pelham Bridge on its way out of Lincoln with a students only short IC5 to Coningsby.
12.3.21
The InterConnect 7, or B7 as it's now known, unfortunately provided me with no more deckers for the rest of the day. However, this Tempo that showed up was one that I was still after, having somehow never spotted it on the IC5 before. Brylaine don't use fleet numbers, not on the vehicles themselves at least, although like many operators there are hypothetical numbers that can be seen on Bustimes. This is supposedly 181, but with a reg like that it'll instead be known to me as Megahertz.
Richmond Drive, Skegness, 31.8.22
Here's something a bit unusual; a (usually) Skegness based Gemini in InterConnect purple working a Lincoln depot 16 to North Hykeham. Now - as ever - I'm only guessing, but this did appear to be in the works at Lincoln for a while, but in the meantime a couple of Lincoln E400s either got loaned to Skegness or Lincoln ran a few turns of the 56 with them (given it was the same E400s, I'd say a loan). With no need for 16939 to go straight back to its home depot once the work was over, it entered service at Lincoln!! Perhaps it was only a test to see how it performed following the work done, but whatever the case it's a Gemini working a Lincoln route that normally you'd never see.
16939 pulls away from the stands at Lincoln bus station with a 16 to North Hykeham, here on the sunny evening of 19.4.21 - I purposefully took this while the bus was in the shade as I really, really wanted the blind to come out well on the photo... and it has!
Its allocation to Lincoln only lasted a couple of days, which is a little annoying as I'd have liked to have seen more of it. I did see it on Bustimes working a 19 the following day and tried to get it on Tentercroft Street (for a not-in-the-bus-stn shot) but I have a friend who doesn't understand the meaning of setting off at an agreed time so we missed it.
A couple of days after this all happened, what should appear inside the Lincoln depot building but 16944 with its engine door open, and as far as I know it's still in there... though having said that I did see a purple Gemini just yesterday (13th May) which looked like it had fresh paint and the new style of Stagecoach logo, but I can't be sure.
It's also taken me this long to realise there are only two purple liveried Geminis in use, because 16941 is in Beachball (and looks REALLY tatty might I add), 16943 is the open top Tour Lincoln bus which Skeg have pilfered for Seasider work and no others are on the fleet list.
Anyway, stop reading all this text and look at the bus... it's a rare thing!
Unlike the Stagecoach buses, Brylaine are taking a different diversion to avoid the closure of Pelham Bridge, as both the IC5 and 30 use Canwick Road so the 'city' diversion would take them a little out of their way, not to mention the delays that would be incurred. Instead, buses are using the Eastern Bypass to skirt around the closure (pretty much the only ones that are) and entering/exiting the city on the northeast side. Here on its way towards the bus station is YJ06 YSP, descending Broadgate with an InterConnect 5.
Although Optare Tempos are common on the IC5, this one is far from a regular performer on the route so I was quite pleased when an 06 plate turned up for my shots of the Brylaine diversion! It's even what you might term a mk1 Tempo, with an offside-mounted radiator grille similar to its predecessor. In the past, this particular bus was with Marshalls of Sutton-on-Trent for a while as their OP72, but has since been with Norfolk Green an Stagecoach.
With the historic buildings of the Lincoln Constitutional Club and the cathedral in the background, YJ06 YSP reaches the end of its journey to Lincoln on 14.6.21
Here from Grimsby and parked up at the back of the bus station on 19.11.20 is Wright Eclipse 21265, having come to Lincoln on an InterConnect 103.
Stagecoach East Midlands ADL Enviro 300 FX61HGL (27764) seen as it crosses the Lincoln to Barnetby line at Holton le Moor whilst operating the 10:40 Grimsby-Lincoln 53.
The allocation on Grimsby's 51 and 53 'InterConnect' services theoretically changed from Scania E400s to B7RLE Eclipses in August last year after the five of the former type allocated to the depot were moved to Worksop. I say theoretically as, as mentioned in the caption for my photograph of 19074 in October, the Eclipses do not seem to have taken well to this longer distance work for some reason. This was the fourth occasion I have attempted to photograph one, and the fourth occasion when a different vehicle type appeared. 27764 was one of five integral E300s to move from Mansfield to Grimsby in August as fleet strength replacements for the departed Scania E400s, and these seem to be particularly common on the 53.
Grimsby's input on the 53 consists of an all-day duty on the full route, plus two peak extra duties. The other two buses on the route are operated from Lincoln and comprise the other full route duty plus the vehicle for the short journeys between Lincoln and Market Rasen. This is a route which has been consistently scaled back over the past decade or so. A would-be flagship service was introduced in 2010 with new Scania E400s operating hourly between Newark, Lincoln, and Grimsby under the auspicious of the 3/X3. The section south of Lincoln was soon discontinued, whilst in 2012 the service was reduced to two-hourly between Lincoln and Grimsby, with short workings operating between Lincoln and Market Rasen to maintain an hourly frequency on that leg. It has become commonplace to see single deckers on the route in recent years, a trend which the replacement of the Scanias with the B7RLEs will only increase.
This cable laying barge, surrounded by support ships, is laying an electric power cable as part of the cross channel electricity interconnect.
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The “NP 289”, built in 2012, is a high standard uniquely versatile multi-purpose accommodation pontoon, of 80,00 x 24,00 x 5,00 meter. It is a heavy constructed barge, non-propelled with lots of facilitates, an excellent stability data and the highest QHSE standards.
The “NP 289” offers SPS-classed, air-conditioned accommodation for up to 60 people , plus four offices, mess room, recreation room, coffee corner and more.
The “NP 289’s” 60 tons CT 6-point mooring system (of which the aft winches are all located under deck) in combination with its spacious and strong – 15 tons per m² – working deck and spud arrangements makes it a versatile and predictable platform with outstanding position keeping capabilities.
Other features include the ability to mobilize the pontoon with project-specific equipment such as fixed and crawler cranes, carousels, boat landings and many other associated and maritime related equipment, to make the pontoon suitable for a wide range of operations such as offshore construction, salvage, renewables support, cable lay/repair and general transport. Its size and specification make it ideal for a wide range of offshore as well as coastal projects.
Passing through the small village of Partney, 3 miles north of Spilsby, is former Lincolnshire RoadCar Volvo B7TL number 16911 in the Stagecoach fleet. Autumn 2019 has seen an increase in use of the East Lancs bodied Vykings on the 56 route following operations at the Long Sutton depot now being part of the East Midlands allocation.
This has resulted in the transfer of the regular Scania Enviro 400s (15808/9/10 & 11) to primarily work the 505 King's Lynn-Spalding route, along with cascaded ones from Oxfordshire. The service is now marketed as part of the Lincolnshire Interconnect network.
This photo dates back to July, and it's October now! This is the alternate, 'blind visible' view that relates to a photo I've previously uploaded, showing Stagecoach Gainsborough depot's Plaxton President 18038 on the (normally E400 MMC worked) InterConnect 100 from Lincoln to Scunthorpe.
MX53 FMA 18038 departs Lincoln bus station, onto Norman Street, on 27.7.23
Recently repainted from 'InterConnect' livery into standard Stagecoach colours, 16908 approaches Lincoln City Bus Station. It is a Volvo B7TL with East Lancs Vyking bodywork, new in 2004 as Road Car 908.
Painted in 'InterConnect' livery, Stagecoach East Midlands 21274 is waiting to depart from Louth Bus Station. It is a Volvo B7RLE with Wright Eclipse bodywork. New in 2009 as First Potteries 69498, it passed to Stagecoach Merseyside & South Lancashire (no. 21274) in 2012 along with First's Wirral operations. It was transferred to Stagecoach East Midlands in 2016.
It looks like i managed to catch up with a very recent transfer here! As always, Skegness gain more buses for the summer season to cope with extra capacity, For example, they got our Enviro 300s last year (which they kept), and a President in 2019.
Seen on its second day of service operating out of Skegness depot, Stagecoach Lincolnshire 15511, a 2009 Scania N230UD ADL Enviro 400, was seen leaving Lincoln Bus Station on a service 56 to Horncastle. New to Stagecoach Lincolnshire Gainsborough depot for the 100 service, this was most recently with Worksop depot.
Lincolnshire Road Car 803 just East of Horncastle heading for Skegness. The diagrams on these routes involved the buses doing usually 3 round trips each day mon - sat, a journey of 4 hours round and back. Interestingly they had a graphic of Lincoln Cathedral on the left of the destination display and Skegness bracing man on the right. Its still got a scania badge here. . . . I liked this livery but thought there was too much yellow on this particular model type application.
Stagecoach East Midlands (Gainsborough) YX67 VCO 10901 Enviro 400 MMC interconnect 100 branded, is seen in a random village on the 95 route operating the route from Retford to Gainsborough
Curiously, some vehicles from Hull have been transferred - I assume temporarily - to Skegness depot and can be found on various Skeg routes. They have gained a single E400 MMC, SN66 VXF 10738, which bizarrely has become a regular performer on the 56! It would make sense that they'd use this significantly newer vehicle with its high backed seating on a route which treks across half of Lincolnshire, but it just seems so out of place coming from the land of 06 plate Geminis and purple E400s, and then to Lincoln where the only other E400 MMCs we see are the Gainsborough ones!
When I took this I fully expected it to be a one-off occasion, yet this thing's since cemented itself onto the 56 roster, while Lincoln's AE07 E400s seem to be making up the majority of other trips. Have they gone back on loan again or is Lincoln depot just running some 56s now?
Lincoln bus station, 16.1.21
FX53TXA Stagecoach Grimsby Cleethorpes 16907
Volvo B7TL / East Lancs Vyking.
X51 Cleethorpes to Skegness via Louth, summer sunday only service in 2008.
Preparing to leave Scunthorpe Bus Station on Interconnect Service 100 to Lincoln via Gainsborough, Stagecoach East Midlands 15508 is a Scania N230UD with Alexander Dennis Enviro400 bodywork, new in 2009.
Despite the drizzly weather, this turned out to be quite a good day for single deck InterConnects, with the 53, 56 and B5 providing interesting vehicles. I don't think any of the three can be labelled as most interesting, as each have their own merits, but this 53 is notable in being the first InterConnect purple liveried single decker I've seen in quite a long time. There are increasing numbers of Eclipses being painted into Local livery, so I wonder how many IC purple ones are left?
Of the purple Eclipses, 21273 is by far my most spotted, with this being the fourth occasion I've photographed it working a 53 into Lincoln. Here on 5.11.22, the Grimsby-based machine is tailed by an Enviro 300 down Pelham Street as it loops around under the flyover to get to the bus station. Most 53s are double deck these days (it used to be quite a rare thing) so appearances of unusual saloons like this one have decreased.
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 21272, a 2009 Volvo B7RLE Wrightbus Eclipse Urban 1, was seen on the Bradley Park estate, whilst operating a service 12 to New Waltham. New to First Potteries as their 69496 for Park and Ride services. This also operated with Stagecoach Merseyside, before transfer to East Midlands.
Today's surprise allocation, discovered through a thankful tip-off early in the day, threw a right curveball into today's plans. I mean, it was forecast to rain pretty bad, so I was in a rush to get this bus before the rain started. Then I blew the shot. Off to Interchange I go. It's raining sideways, its cold, its windy, but I was determined to get a photo of this heading out on the 14 again. And so thankfully, with the rain literally in my face, I got the surprise allocation. I believe that (unfortunately, depending how you feel about their B7TLs there) this newly-repainted ex-North East vehicle is bound for the Skegness-based InterConnect services? Because for a 2008 E400, it makes the bus almost look fresh and new! Here’s hoping that it’ll stay that way…
Seen here as the endeavours of my bus hunting for the day, involving having to get a reshoot because of blown framing, newly-repainted and newly-transferred Stagecoach Lincolnshire Roadcar 19210, a 2008 ADL Enviro 400 new to Stagecoach North East, having been transferred from there to Lincolnshire RoadCar likely bound for Skegness, is seen here, temporarily based in Hull following the repaint, departing Hull Interchange bound for the 14 to Falkland Road.
Curiously, some vehicles from Hull have been transferred - I assume temporarily - to Skegness depot and can be found on various Skeg routes. They have gained a single E400 MMC, SN66 VXF 10738, which bizarrely has become a regular performer on the 56! It would make sense that they'd use this significantly newer vehicle with its high backed seating on a route which treks across half of Lincolnshire, but it just seems so out of place coming from the land of 06 plate Geminis and purple E400s, and then to Lincoln where the only other E400 MMCs we see are the Gainsborough ones!
Here it is departing Lincoln bus station onto Broadgate as it begins its journey to Horncastle and then onto Skegness on 16.1.21
In the background, Brylaine and PC Coaches Solo SRs go about their business while an SC 'local' E400 is laying over in the bus station and an ALX400 Trident is on the 1 to Grantham. Certainly not Nottingham levels of variety, but it's a decent enough mix and the abundance of older vehicles makes up for the rest.
The most recent in a life's-work series of interconnecting large (6 ft. tall 2.5 ft. wide) marker drawings. See the rest of them, separately and connected, here: www.justinduerr.com/Posters/PosterPage.aspx
Stagecoach 16910 is a Volvo B7TL with East Lancs bodywork, new in 2004 as Lincolnshire Road Car 910. It is in a livery used for InterConnect services run in conjunction with Lincolnshire County Council.
Stagecoach Lincolnshire "Interconnect" liveried Enviro 400 FX09CZZ 15509 is seen parked up at Scunthorpe Bus Station, 2nd April
As usual, an InterConnect MMC was to be found on the 100 to Scunthorpe via Gainsborough, this one being 10899 as it departs Lincoln bus station on 6.9.21
Hull Fair is, as ever, back once again and with it, also as ever, comes the Stagecoach loans to bolster the shuttle network. There's been a couple changes here and there on the fair network to maybe go into detail if I get the chance, but instead, we'll kick things off this year with the now-traditional InterConnect loan. For 2025, following on from last year's single-decker that has since left the East Midlands division to go home to Cambridgeshire, we return to form with an original InterConnect Enviro400 MMC in the new branding for the service network, which when compared to the single-deck effort, looks really rather basic due to adverts covering up some of the side branding. It's a shame, really, because the livery wears quite well on these. Honestly, what happened to taking off the adboards for painting buses into route brands? The first few generations of Stagecoach's InterConnect fleet had that done.
Rolling things back to Monday with one of the first Hull Fair runs of the night, Stagecoach Lincolnshire RoadCar's 'InterConnect'-branded 10899, a 2017 ADL Enviro400 MMC, is seen coming down Gillshill Road while on loan to Hull as it works a specially-extended 12A to Hull Fair.
Stagecoach Grimsby-Cleethorpes 27201, a 2014 ADL Enviro 300, was seen at Grimsby Riverhead Exchange, operating a service 53 to Lincoln and Market Rasen. New to Stagecoach South Wales. Unfortunately, no my phone wasn't being a pain, and there is genuinely a gap in the blind..
From the start, Buster worked hard to prove that he's a graffiti artist, not some little hoodlum with a sneer on his face, paint stains on his fingers, and a can under his jean jacket. Buster is the nom de plume, or perhaps more correctly, the nom de guerre of Jesse Ortiz, 22; he carries a business card and an album full of photos of his art work, including the abstract mural he painted for the San Diego Automotive Museum in Balboa Park and the logos he completed for a local Top 40 radio station. Still, he gets little respect from cops and security guards. Truth is, Buster will always value the walls of a building more for their size and texture, their ability to serve as blank slates for his imagination, than for anything that could possibly be inside them. Last December, a security guard tried to chase him away from what he and other graffiti artists refer to as the California Street walls, near the Santa Fe railroad tracks, just north of downtown San Diego. "I go, 'What do you want?'" Buster says he asked the guard. "He goes, 'What are you, some kind of punk? You think you're a badass trying to mess with me?'"
Actually, Buster had permission to paint at the site. He'd met late last summer with the manager of Cousins Warehouse, just east of the railroad tracks, and showed him his portfolio and asked if he could practice his art on the massive retaining wall behind the store parking lot. The manager gave his approval warily— and only to Buster. But soon a whole flock of young graffiti artists and hangers-on were gathering at the site, turning the wall behind Cousins, as well as the back wall of Southwest Safety and Supply, on the west side of the tracks, facing Cousins, into a riot of color and design. Some called it art. Others just called it trouble, big-time.
Eventually, almost every square inch of the two walls was covered with spray paint— an imprecise medium, to be sure, but one whose practitioners take great pride in the precise drawings they are able to create. It's all a matter of can control, they say. The walls drew curious onlookers and photographers, who cautiously stepped out of their cars to see the urban art work: simple cartoon characters, outlined in bold, dark lines; black-and-white portraits of singer/dancer Paula Abdul and of a female bodybuilder; the torso of a robot; big block letters filled with colors that fade into each other; a sinister creature clutching the strings of a marionette; examples of the often-illegible interconnecting letters once known as wildstyle; and other samples of the New York graffiti style that West Coast kids have been imitating for more than a decade.
And the graffiti was not confined to the two walls, each of which measures more than 250 feet long. It was scrawled over dumpsters, over two long-forgotten refrigerators lying on the ground and filled with empty spray cans (their nozzles removed to keep younger kids from spraying the leftover paint on the walls). A silhouette of a human figure was painted on the cracked concrete lot, where more graffiti spread like a rash in every direction. Spaghetti noodles of color stretched across an abandoned Plymouth, covering even its broken windows, its four flat tires.
Buster was the pioneering artist at the California Street walls, but that doesn't mean he's ever been king of the walls. That distinction was earned a few months ago by Sake (pronounced like the Japanese beverage). Sake is the nickname used by the leader of a graffiti art crew named No Suckers Allowed. The crew has another name too: 594— the California Penal Code section dealing with vandalism. Sake says he was first caught in the act of vandalism five or six years ago when he and a couple of friends were chased out of a school yard as they were spray-painting the outline for their piece (as in "masterpiece") onto a wall. To this day, Sake believes the man who chased them must have been a ghost because of his great speed and because the man was listening to a transistor radio tuned to what seemed to be a Padre game— at midnight. "You could just see his silhouette," says Sake. "It was really weird."
Sake is now 20. He wears three gold hoops in one ear; his curly hair is cropped short, except for the braided tail that rests on the back of his gold turtleneck. As of last fall, Sake confined most of his wall art to the California Street walls, the place where he earned the title of king by battling the former king, Quasar. Insiders know that a battle is a contest to determine which spray-paint artist can create the best piece. And they know that a tagger is a young wannabe artist who scrawls his name everywhere (on buses, electrical boxes, fences, storefronts) to get up, be recognized. They know a toy is an unskilled amateur— not really an artist at all— and that a sucker, the lowest of all earth crawlers, destroys artists' pieces or fraudulently claims others' pieces as his own work by signing his name to them. They know "who can rock the walls," as one artist describes it, and what it takes to be king.
In his battle against Quasar, Sake painted a giant jack-in-the-box. The Q on the front of the box left no doubt that the toy was Quasar. In the background, Sake painted a gray castle and in the foreground a handful of bright red, blue, and yellow children's play blocks. Quasar painted "San Diego King" in highly stylized, interconnecting letters for his battle piece. But he quickly conceded that Sake had won with his impressive mural.
Quasar, who spends 40 hours a week cooking meals at Children's Hospital and most of his free time spray-painting walls, always figured he'd have to relinquish his title someday. Quasar is 23, the self-described old man of local graffiti artists, and he says it's only natural that the work of older artists will continue to be superseded by that of younger ones at the walls, "if society doesn't kick us out of here."
Sake, though, resents any suggestion that graffiti art is just for kids. "Aerosol art is like a disease," he says. "Once you start, you can't stop. I'll be doing this art form probably till the day I die." Expecting him to quit at the threshold of adulthood is "like telling Gauguin to stop [painting] when he's 40. That's bull."
Last summer, shortly after Buster started painting the wall behind Cousins, store manager Ken Bond was approached by police who asked if the store wished to press charges against the spray-paint vandal or vandals at work there. "We gave the authorization to a Mister Ortiz to do nice murals," Bond told police. But he was alarmed at the growing number of youths who had joined Buster since last summer. "I don't like the direction it's going," said Bond ominously. "At this point, I'm not seeing what I would consider art or something that would enhance a wall."
And a few days after Bond made those comments, and as Sake and Quasar and about a half-dozen other guys stood around, casually surveying the Southwest Safety and Supply wall, a well-dressed man emerged from Cousins. The man called across the railroad tracks to the artists, asking if Jesse Ortiz was present. No, he was told; he asked them to have Ortiz contact him and left. "Well, there goes the wall," said one of the youths. "Doesn't look good," warned Sake. They worried out loud whether the manager meant to take the Cousins wall away from them. After all, police had visited the site the previous weekend, after one kid threw a cap from a spray can at a passing train. "I don't think he'll take it away," said one bear of a kid, "'cause he knows what the consequences will be." The artists and their entourage of taggers and assorted other followers knew they had a good deal going here, and they did not wish to lose these two walls they'd taken by storm.
Graffiti art has long been associated with trains; in New York, early writers filled subway trains and tunnels with their art. Buster talks fondly of the time several years ago when Crayone, a well-known L.A. graffiti artist, came to San Diego. Together they painted the boxcars of freight trains that passed through town, hiding under the stopped trains when watchmen emerged, swinging lamps. The California Street walls held romance, at least for these youths, a romance enhanced by the Amtraks and freights that regularly pass between the two walls.
Buster, a loner who eschews membership in a graffiti crew, would have been content to keep the Cousins wall to himself, though that proved impossible. Buster says he tries to not even let other artists' styles influence his work, though some of the other young artists talk behind his back and claim that he bites (steals) some of his ideas for murals and lettering styles from others.
Fred Brousse, owner of Southwest Safety and Supply, was also alarmed by the graffiti art that appeared about three months ago on the back of his building— without his permission. When he confronted the youths at the time, he warned them he'd call police and hire a security guard if he discovered tagging anywhere on his building but the back wall.
So Buster stenciled "No Tagging Please" onto the sides of Brousse's building. He didn't have enough paint to cover over the tags that already blemished the sides of the building, so in some cases, he sprayed the warning right over the tags. Brousse was impressed by Buster's efforts and by some of the art work. "For the time being, I'm turning the other cheek," he said at the time. "They're not into destroying property. They're looking for a place to express themselves, really. They're out there with respirators [protective masks] on and the whole business," Brousse said, affably. "It's very interesting to me; they'll come in and paint something, and you'll figure it's gonna stay there. Strangely enough, someone comes in and paints right over it."
But the graffiti artists understand that transience is the flip side of the spontaneity inherent in much of their art. Buster explains: "It's part of the wall life. When I paint on that wall, I know I'm gonna be gone over sometime. If they can do better than me, if they can do a better piece, then go ahead and go over me. As long as it's good."
In late February, one of the murals on Cousins' wall depicted the span of a freeway bridge; its pillars were 3-D letters spelling out "Buster," painted with grays and blues to look like cracking cement. Street lamps painted into the piece shed a plum glow, and a full moon completed the scene. Buster has a photo of the piece, but the bridge mural itself was history less than two weeks later.
Members of Wall Power Crew painted over it with a large "WPC"— a throw-up— a simple one-color design inside a dark outline. WPC didn't even bother to finish the throw-up. The destruction of his elaborate work stung Buster. "When I'm gone over the way they did it, that hurts me. They just did a little one-color piece. I thought they were going to do a top-to-bottom, side-to-side piece. They up. It makes them look bad."
Why'd they do it? Them guys, they heard you were coming, so they went over me," Buster said. "They did it out of jealousy because I had some stuff up."
"It's not fair for that guy Buster's stuff to stay here forever," retorted 15-year-old Dyze of WPC. "He ain't great. He bites most of his stuff."
But even Sake was critical of WPC's deed. "That's just a throw-up," he sniffed. "It looks trashy."
All that remained of the bridge mural was the dedication Buster had included: "To Julia, my aerosol heart, from your father, 1990."
Julia, Buster's two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, figures prominently in other wall art. Late one afternoon, Buster climbed into his primer-gray '66 VW bug to take a look at an illegal wall he's painted, illegal since he never gained permission to paint on it. Julia's photo, enclosed in a red plastic heart, is attached to the dash. The VW rides low to the ground, and Buster drove very slowly over the railroad tracks, car metal scraping track metal every inch of the way. Heading toward Old Town, following the line of the railroad tracks, Buster says he knows of two San Diego girls who are writers, as graffiti artists call themselves. One goes by the name of Pastel, he says, adding, "She's pretty good. She could take out some of the toys. L.A.'s got some good girls [graffiti artists]. I want to see some good girls getting up."
Buster stopped the car where the railroad tracks meet the juncture of freeways 5 and 8. The name Julia is painted in big chrome-blue letters on a six-foot-high retaining wall behind a motel. There's also a big red heart with the words "Happy Valentine's Day Julia." Twice while painting that wall, Buster recalls, police drove up, in a San Diego squad car and a state police car. Neither officer approached him or spoke, but both watched him intently.
Buster was standing a few feet from his Old Town wall, talking. A wool beret, stiff with a coat of black paint, rested atop his head. He wore a jean jacket; on the back, he had air-brushed a lifelike portrait of LaToya Jackson. On one sleeve is painted "CAP," the tag for the originator of throw-ups. His jeans were splattered with paint, and he wore one gold hoop earring.
Buster said his dad once worked as a sign painter and drew Disney characters in his spare time. But his dad now lives in a convalescent home; ten years ago he collapsed in the backyard while gardening. A stroke left him paralyzed on the right side. Buster and his mom tried to care for his dad at home for a few months, but the work proved too hard for the two of them. Buster once filled his dad's room at the convalescent home with his own paintings, but all of them, he said, were later stolen.
Buster and his mom live in the same modest Linda Vista home where the family's always lived. The two interests that dominate Buster's life are evident in his room. His own canvases cover the walls, including an African-mask-like self-portrait, the face half yellow, half black and linked by full, red lips. A drawing table and coffee cans full of colored markers are in one corner. A Fisher-Price stove set, a doll in a stroller, and other toys take up most of one wall. Photos of Julia all around. Julia spends three days a week with Buster and the rest of the time with her mom, Buster's former girlfriend, who lives down the street from him.
Out back there's a rusting Chevy and a shed where Buster keeps the protective masks he wears while painting walls, as well as his paints, a sport jacket that looks as if it could stand up alone, it's so stiff with bright smears of acrylic paint. A chalkboard hangs inside the shed. "When writers come over, I don't want them tagging up my buildings," says Buster.
Behind a cluster of auto shops a few blocks from his home, Buster has painted what graffiti artists call a permission wall. A prehistoric bird appears ready to dive from a tower at the edge of a cliff that's dripping with vines. A prince riding a huge white rat is poised to rescue a damsel held in the clutches of a genie who's materialized from a gold lamp. There's a green Medusa crawling with snakes, words reading, "Why have a dream if you can't live your dream? Only you can make it happen." Also "San Diego" in orange-and-brown, interconnecting graffiti letters, bisected by a character with Mr. Spock's ears. But someone has scrawled "LVC" over the word "Diego," and the garage door next to Buster's art work is littered with Linda Vista Crips' scrawls. "They just trashed it," complained Buster, who vows to paint over the gang graffiti.
There's plenty of chest-thumping, survival-of-the-fittest, boys-who-would-be-king rivalry among local graffiti writers. But if there's one thing they all agree on, it's that society has wrongly pegged them as gang members and equated their elaborate designs with the careless scrawls of gangsters staking out turf.
"So many people stereotype us because of our medium,"' complains Daze, one of Sake's crew members. "Man, I'm so against gangs and drugs and stuff." (Both Sake and Daze are members of the Guardian Angels.) "It makes me so upset to have someone claim they're a graffiti artist and they're in gangs," Daze continues. Sake openly ridicules the names gangsters choose for themselves. "To be called Goofy or Lazy...sounds like people from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," he says. "Writers— they have real cool names, like Dash. They're harder." He prefers the nicknames like Buster, Daze, Dyze, Quasar, Nex, Kers (as in "curse"), Zodak, Romeo, Clash, Crush, Vapor, Scae, Fire, Lost, and Penguin, and the names of the others who frequented the California Street walls.
And the writers always try to restrict their battles to the walls. Recently, there was a standoff at the railroad tracks between Daze and another member of No Suckers Allowed and the Underworld Kings. One guy claimed he could paint a piece far superior to the other guy's. Then one guy was accusing the other of making fun of the way he talks. Soon, one side was challenging the other to a fight. "Daze goes, 'No man, I don't fight,'" says Buster. "He goes, 'I just "piece."'" Daze's version of events is similar. "If you wanna go against me," he told his opponents of the moment, "we'll just paint.... I wish everything could be settled that way."
"We had to break it up," says Buster, who says he warned the others, "If you guys fight, everyone thinks that when it's time to battle, that's what it's going to lead to, fighting. They all agreed and said, 'You're right, you're right.'"
Romeo, given his tag by his brother Picasso, is leader of the Underworld Kings. Like a lot of kids who are part of the hip-hop culture of rap music and graffiti, a culture that in past years included break dancing, Romeo wears his hair short on the sides and top and long in back. Anyone who has taken the trolley out of downtown has probably seen a mural painted by Romeo and a friend last year on a small grocery at 12th Avenue and Market Street. Interconnecting letters filled with swirls of color and outlined in a shade called true blue, spelling out "San Diego." A palm tree, a boy character, skyscrapers, the words "No Toys."
On a quick tour, Romeo and two of his friends point out two graffiti walls: the Euclid Avenue trolley station, completed by Quasar and some buddies in '86 with a commission from the Metropolitan Transit Development Board, whose directors wisely figured permission walls would earn respect of youths who might otherwise deface the station with unsightly graffiti; and an unsupervised, free-for-all graffiti wall called "the pit," just east of the trolley station. The pit is nearly a block long and, in sharp contrast to the organized series of murals at the trolley station, is full of spontaneous throw-ups, slogans, and characters. "This one's 4 all U punks who sell out your own crew! Suckers! Sayin' peace to my real homies," reads one that lists Case, Sok, Shok, Terock, and Spy, presumably as the homies.
"Personally, I think Romeo's better 'n Sake," confides Lost, whose teeth are swaddled in braces, as they leave the pit. "It's just that Romeo has trouble sometimes getting paint. But he's more creative."
In front of Romeo's home in Logan Heights, there's a retaining wall filled end-to-end with blue-and-pink letters spelling "Memories," complete with painted-on starbursts of reflected light. Romeo dedicated the piece to an 18-year-old girl who had lived on his block and who died in a car crash last December.
Romeo, 16, a student who buses to Point Loma High to avoid the gangsters in his own neighborhood, is asked the inevitable "Whatdyawannabewhenyougrowup?"
"I want to work in real estate," he says. Not art, not graphics. Real estate. "This is just my hobby, and I want to take it to the limit." But, says Romeo, "I just don't want to live how I live now. I want to live different."
In contrast, Buster definitely wants to make it in the art world (after he becomes king locally, that is; he thinks Sake and Quasar should battle again and that he should take on the winner). Next to his genie-and-white-rat piece, Buster painted his true name, Jesse Ortiz, his home phone number, and two others where messages can be left for him. One number will reach the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park. Centro director Victor Ochoa notes that very few graffiti artists will ever make a living at their art, but Ochoa holds workshops for the kids, urges them to wear masks to avoid the toxic fumes from spray paint. And he's got the connections Buster needs; Ochoa has helped the younger artist land several art commissions. Buster also has made a friend of graffiti guru James Prigoff, co-author of Spray Can Art, and regularly sends the Sacramento author and photographer photos of his own pieces. "I really feel strong about my art, and I don't want to let it go," Buster says. "I'm looking at my future. Should I stick to what I want to do, or should I go out and get a job?" Buster doesn't have a high school diploma. He was kicked out his senior year because he skipped school too much. And he doesn't know if it's worth his while to go back for the diploma.
While at his house, he takes his beret off for the first time, and it's suddenly clear why he wears the hat so often. Vestiges of a mohawk, growing out. Ah, adulthood, paths chosen, haircuts abandoned. "I can't walk into Target and get my film developed with a mohawk!" he says, incredulous that anyone should even ask why he hides his skull.
Buster worries there aren't enough serious graffiti artists in town. "You got a lot of people in these crews that say they're graffiti artists. They get their name tagged right along with yours. All they are is just taggers, someone that just hangs with a crew.... I don't like to waste my paint on tagging."
Zodak, the 15-year-old artist who painted the monster with the marionette at the California Street walls, was out tagging along G Street with some friends earlier this month and was busted at about 11:30 p.m. for violating curfew. But the cops didn't take away the kids' markers. Zodak's artwork, including an impressive sketchbook, full of muscled bodies and a wide range of lettering styles, seems to show the makings of a graffiti king.
Tagging is what younger writers do to get up, to be noticed. "That's how you establish yourself," says Daze, 20, who attends Southwestern College full-time and takes care of kids part-time in a latchkey child-care program. But tagging is done less and less with age, partly because most kids are savvy enough to know that once they're 18, any new criminal convictions become part of the public record. One writer, who still tags occasionally, especially when he's angry about something, says, "Really, vandalism is no great crime. You could tag your name a thousand times, and when you're caught, you're caught for only that one tag. If they try and make you pay for all [past vandalism acts], they can't do that, because that's the way the law is."
Two years ago, Sake says, he dropped out of high school after getting in trouble for a graffiti spree that caused extensive damage to San Diego sanitation trucks. Sake claims, with a straight face, that he went along with his friends to the city yard but didn't do any tagging. When the spree made the TV news, Sake says, "Teachers were like looking at me all screwed up. I just
dropped out 'cause I couldn't take the people there. They'd look at me like 'you scum' 'cause I do aerosol art— I don't like to use [the term] graffiti art."
After he dropped out, Sake says he spent his time tagging everywhere his paint and markers found a flat surface. "That's all I did. I didn't work. I racked [stole] my paint."
But lately he's been making payments to his mom for the shiny black '82 Mazda she bought for him. He works 40 hours a week as a "maintenance artist," he laughs, tending the grounds of a church in Casa de Oro. When a writer tagged the church building, says Sake, "I told him not to do it anymore, because I work there. I was like, 'Damn, now I gotta clean it up.'"
Sake plans to get his high school diploma. He wants to be a cop, like his older sister, a San Diego police officer. "She's real tough and stuff. People respect her."
As a cop, he'd have to bust young graffiti artists, no? "That's true, but it's a job.... That's what's sad about this art form. To get good, you have to do it illegally. I didn't have a place like this [the California Street walls]. I had to go out and risk getting caught every night."
Buster didn't do it. Sake didn't do it. Neither, apparently, did any of the regular artists who worked the California Street walls. It wouldn't have made sense for any of them to do it; they all knew the price they'd pay. Fred Brousse, the owner of Southwest Safety and Supply, had said he was turning the other cheek, allowing the artists to paint the rear wall of his building. Well, in early March some vandals spray-painted that cheek. The vandals tagged all around that building. They also sloppily scrawled names like "FTL" (Fuck The Law), "Arnell," and "Filipino Prides" all over three of Cousins' trucks and, according to Cousins' manager, jump-started one of the trucks and rammed it into a wall. They also smeared graffiti on several nearby businesses the same night. Their handiwork caused several thousands of dollars in damage and brought the curtain down on the California Street walls.
"I have changed 180 degrees," said Fred Brousse, angrily. Owners of half a dozen businesses in the area got together and planned their counterattack, and they have more paint than the vandals. The graffiti-busters painted a two-foot-wide, light-yellow swath the full length of both the Cousins wall and the back of the Southwest Safety and Supply building. "No more!" they painted below the swath on Southwest's building. A few days later, the graffiti art work was completely obliterated with a fresh coat of paint.
The businesses pooled resources and hired security guard to keep any graffiti — art or anything less— off the walls. "I'm out to stop 'em," swore Brousse. "If I have to arrest them I'll arrest them. If I have to prosecute them, I'll prosecute them."
Buster, accompanied by Julia, went to talk with Brousse, promising he'd clean up all the tagging damage if they'd let him continue to paint. All to no avail. "Unfortunately, everyone has to be penalized because of the bad guys," fumes Brousse. "It just had to come to a screeching halt."
Sake and Daze face other problems in addition to the loss of their much-loved walls. They were among six Guardian Angels arrested March 15 at Ninth and F, downtown, in an incident in which police say the Angels overstepped their bounds. The Angels confronted two men they suspected of narcotics activity. The two men, in turn, accused the youths of handcuffing them and generally roughing them up and placed the Angels under citizens' arrest.
"I got more hurt than they did," says Sake of the two men he says were smoking crack when the Angels appeared.
With the sounds of Yo! MTV Raps drifting over the phone line, Sake says that he doesn't personally know the youths who vandalized the Cousins and Southwest properties. But, he says, "They're just taggers. They're lower than taggers. They were really stupid. They didn't know what we could lose. That was the only legal wall we had in San Diego County. Everyone's all, 'Where we gonna go?'"
And Buster, he still has his Old Town wall to paint on and is actively searching for more wall space elsewhere. He too belittles the vandals by labeling them as taggers and says, "They don't understand what the art's all about."
-- Jackie McGrath
Spot of the day - and indeed the thing I went out for - was Grimsby's Local liveried Eclipse 21264, seen here on Pelham Street with a 53 on 8.7.21
As seems to be common with photos at the moment - thanks to the friendly driver of this one.
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 19210, a 2007 ADL Enviro 400, was seen operating a service 3 to Skegness Interchange, at Hardys Animal Farm. New to Stagecoach North East, this transferred down to Lincolnshire last year, in order to replace East Lancs Vykings. This was the first NK57 i've been on, they're decent, but certainly not worthy of Vyking replacements!
When the loans really started trickling in, it was these that I really wanted to see the most! Not to mention how easy it is to find them on bustimes... a quick, not neccessarily 'wild' goose chase was had all the way up to Bransholme, resulting in me dropping off down Holwell Road to catch this Scania. And there, funnily enough, a chance encounter was had with fellow Flickrite 'Simplihull', who, funnily enough, was waiting for 15176! I'm sure his photo will be up soon enough... small world, eh?
One of the few F1 loans that wasn't operating in Hull at some point, new only just down the road in Grimsby, Stagecoach in Worksop's 15176, a 2014 Scania N230UD ADL Enviro 400 new to Stagecoach Grimsby-Cleethorpes for their InterConnect services, now branded for the 'Aspire' 77 from Worksop to Chesterfield, is seen here on loan to Hull and working the 2 to North Bransholme up Holwell Road.