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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