Army Air Force CBI:
AAF, CBI, Light Flight Jacket, and coveralls:
I will try to get a story in here soon.
USAAF Air-Crewman:
Exactly what that is I’m not sure, not a Gunner so he wasn’t shooting back, and he’s, not a Fight-Engineer, Radioman, or Navigator either, perhaps on a Cargo Aircraft, whatever position he served in, it was a long and hard one, in the Pacific Theater, through 3 Campaigns, and the Philipines, earned a bronze star, near two years of WWII Service and Good Conduct Medal, several times, into the post-war, where he did Occupational Duty too. And that was through the 1st enlistment, likely into his second when he left the AAF, prior to is chance into the USAF.
Sergeant, Aerial Gunner, CBI:
Technical Sergeant ‘Gunner’ B-25 Mitchel Bomber “Leggy Lady”, Squadron M, 10AF, CBI 1944-45 :
Coveralls were a very popular piece of work clothing for numbers of Americans before they even entered the service, and really should not have come as a surprise to the Brass that they would be worn at every opportunity. That would be the case with a gunner in “Leggy Lady”. Bagged up fr wear about the base, he’d change into his ‘Work Suit” while on flight duty. In a ”Crewman picture”, it showed a wide range of dress being worn prior to their low-level attacks on Japanese Shipping and enemy installations of the various islands.
“Leggy Lady” flew 49 combat missions over enemy territory, a total of 207 combat hours. Like many bomber crews in the war, flak from enemy anti-aircraft guns, as well as the bad weather were the main concerns. Most of the time, the Japanese fighter planes were of little to no problem. The crew’s final mission was to knock out a Japanese headquarters facility in Thailand, in May 1945 flying from Finny (India) to the British Air Base on Ramree Island in the Bay of Bengal. The next morning they took off on their bombing mission, they flew to Siam, searching for the target.
They were flying at 13,000 feet and there had been clouds obscuring the target, this made another bomb run necessary. A lower altitude and slower airspeed made the bomb run a “real hot one” with accurate flak. The “Leggy Lady” managed to put bombs on the target but also took several hits from the enemy.
Soft fatigue cap with visor, undershirt with roughed-out ankle boots, possibly for higher altitude missions, and colder days he had an A-2 flight jacket, all depending on the temperature, this was how he looked as he went into the mess hall. Most of their flight gear did not have any insignia, whatsoever on it! Serving as the aircraft Tech Sergeant, he had his ‘other’ set of ‘work’ coveralls that were torn and very greasy and stained from various oils and grease as well as solvents all over it, many aircraft gunners, clean-up, the aircraft’s weapons, when they got back to base, but this gunner’s plane had a 75mm cannon mounted in the nose as well, along with the crew-served weapons (6x.50 Calibrie machine guns) there was also 4 in the nose and 4 in cheek gun-mounts that were fired by the pilot! so their work suit’s material took a beating, eventually ending up in the burn pile with several other work suits.
“Something New” PTO-Work Jacket:
I just am not sure what it is, PTO I’m thinking, and low altitude flying, had the vest and helmet to throw in with what I was thinking mechanic, so a flight Mechanic he has become-the vest is a complete guess that it fits here.
