HISTORY

airspeed of more than 216 knots (400 kph)

and after several bounces of the water

surface they impacted the ship’s hull and

exploded upon the impact. It was decidedly

more accurate and more effective deploy-

ment than the bombing from the high altitudes. Slim, fast maneuvering ships were

a difficult target to hit. And more to it, modified Mitchells were able to set forward fire

from up to fourteen 0.5-inch caliber machi-

In 1930s Paul Gunn served also as a pilot aboard the light cruiser USS Omaha. He flew missions with

a floatplane launched from a catapult.

rally defoliated the vegetation and pinned

the soldiers to the ground. The following

explosions of the small but effective bombs

created the “death zones” where the chance of survival was minimal. To avoid the

damage of aircraft by its own ordnance the

application of the braking parachutes was

instrumental. The bombs drop was executed at the altitude close to the treetops.

Due to such a low altitude the bombardier

was not necessary. This tactic was so successful that it became the primary attack

method of the units equipped with Douglas

A-20 and a little later the Pappy’s modifications were adopted by the aircraft manufacturer as well. A-20G were leaving the

assembly lines as the attack version already, armed with machine guns in the nose.

The same modification was applied to B-25,

which was a larger, more robust airplane

superior to A-20 in some areas. These

changes addressed so called skip-bombing using ricocheting off the water surface as 250 lbs bombs were being dropped

from approximately 250 feet altitude at the

October 2022

The car in his narratives grew bigger every

time, possessed higher performance and

more details were added about the ride and

astonishment of all at the farm when they

arrived in the cloud of dust. Allegedly one

“It apparently hadn’t occurred to him to ask permission of anyone to

install an armament load that was nothing like the original one, or to

bother about what anyone else thought about cutting the airplane all

apart to make new installations” (general George Kenney)

(photo: U.S. Navy)

A-20 modifications causing an uproar during the General’s inspection, Kenney was

keenly interested in Gunn’s work. Not only

that, but he also tasked Gunn to modify the

A-20 bomb bay to carry the aforementioned bombs. “It apparently hadn’t occurred

to him to ask permission of anyone to

install an armament load that was nothing

like the original one, or to bother about

what anyone else thought about cutting the

airplane all apart to make new installations”, recalled General after many years

in his book “The Saga of Pappy Gunn”.

The tests that followed proved the devastating effect of these bombs dropped from

the low altitudes. The modified aircraft fought its way to the target area by heavy fire

of its six 0.5-inch machine guns which lite-

ne guns! The manufacturer came up with

the nose mounted 75 mm cannon version

and as opposed to most of the pilots it was

much beloved by Pappy Gunn.

But we jumped ahead a bit in our story. Who

was Paul Irvin Gunn before the outbreak of

the Pacific War? Who was the man instrumental in creating the famous “Strafers”

which so effectively destroyed the ground

and naval targets?

Mom, I too will be flying just like

that!

A farmer’s son with seven siblings, four of

those were almost a generation older, he

lost his father at the age of seven and for

several years that followed lived with his

mother and three siblings (he was the second youngest of all of them) at his uncles’

farm. Once, walking with his mother from

the nearby town, a stranger offered them

a ride in the car. It was in 1908 and very

first time Paul saw a car. He retold the story about the car ride for many years that

followed and every time he embellished it.

of the pigs lost its life in the process, who

knows… It was one typical side of Paul Gunn’s character. His stories were sometimes

hardly credible but nevertheless, entertaining for the audience. Fact is that this event

sparked interest in the cars in eight years

old Paul. It lasted two years. Then one day

in 1910 an airplane dashed above the farm

and Paul told his mother: “Once I’ll too be

flying just like that”. That desire stuck to

him and when the war in Europe broke out,

he was devouring all stories about the air

battles. When in 1917 USA joined the fighting, Paul was just one year short of the

military service age limit. He solved the

issue in his typical way, he told the US Navy

recruiting commission that he was born on

October 18, 1899, i.e., one full year earlier

than his actual age.

So, he was enlisted however instead of

the pilot training, after a short stint in the

kitchen (story of him cooking the tapioca

pudding was one his favorites) he became

an aircraft mechanic. The war ended before he could utilize his skills, so he decided

to stay in the Navy a continue pursuing the

pilot qualification. He had never been patient enough, so he saved some money for

the private pilot training and got some flight hours in compensation for his help with

maintaining the training aircraft as well. In

the spring of 1922, he flew his first solo, after that he obtained his pilot’s license and

shortly after that he even bought his own

airplane. Well… For 250 dollars he bought

a non-airworthy Curtiss Seagull floatplane

from WWI from Navy surplus stocks and

started to fix it over the weekends. Nobody

will ever know where the US Navy aircraft

mechanic sourced all the necessary spare parts… At that time, he met one Clara

Luis Crosby and even he had claimed not

to marry before he reached forty, after

a year of dating he proposed to her. He was

not fond of her first name though and in his

typical manner called her Polly all his life.

Their honeymoon was stylish, the young

couple spent it travelling along the coast in

Paul’s Curtiss floatplane.

INFO Eduard

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