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North American B-25 Mitchell: The Ultimate Look: From Drawing Board to Flying Arsenal

My Uncle Ed Poltrack piloted 60 missions in the Pacific Theatre in WWII. He piloted a B-25 Mitchell Bomber.  The National Museum of the Air Force  website has an interactive photo  gallery of the interior of this aircraft (see the links under the photo). Note:Ed piloted a variation of the original design in which the transparent nose was replaced with two fixed machine guns.

38th Bomb Group – 823rd Squadron

Click on links to see a 360 degree view of the interior of this aircraft (links open in new window)

Pilot Station

Bombadier

Radio Operator

Tail Gunner

Ed Poltrack in Cockpit

From Ed Poltrack’s War Diary — Sunday, April 15, 1944 – Mission #48

Mission to Hollandia. Nil interception. Nil ack-ack. On return met a solid front near Bogadjim. Turned toward coast and found a hole on…

Although most people associate Smithsonian museums with Washington, DC, New York City is host to two very special Smithsonian museums: the National Museum of the American Indian, which we’ve previously explored here and here, and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Located in what was once the mansion of successful businessman Andrew Carnegie, Cooper Hewitt’s surroundings and ever-changing exhibitions are fascinating and inspiring.

What makes Cooper Hewitt particularly fun to visit is its interactive features. When visitors step up to the ticket counter, they are given an pen that holds all kinds of possibilities. As you tour the museum, you can “collect” information about individual exhibits that interest you. Each exhibit has a special symbol on the sign describing the exhibit and, by pressing your pen to that symbol, it saves that information in a digital file. You are given a unique identifier for your pen and visit…

Today, August 6, 2015, marks 70 years since the first atomic weapon was used during World War II. Whether or not an atomic bomb should have been used is still up for debate, but that’s not the purpose of this post. The stories of those that were near Hiroshima at the time aren’t very well known. Crews that were flying missions that day were limited and specifically directed to stay at least 50 miles away from Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Kokura, although they weren’t told why. Later on, the news about the atomic bomb broke. Reactions ranged from disbelief that such a thing was possible to hope that the war would soon be over. We have three eyewitness accounts from men of the 43rd Bomb Group, who were stationed on the island of Ie Shima and flying daily missions over Japan.

8/6-8/7/45 Account from Dick Wood, member of the 63rd Bomb…

Nothing can make you feel older than watching a bunch of adolescent teens wondering around the neighborhood staring at their phones looking for Pokemon-Go monsters.  I no longer fear the zombie apocalypse for I have seen it with my own eyes.  Empty headed dead brained children stumbling along into lakes and falling over ledges, curbs and tree stumps looking down intently at their $400 phones searching far and wide to capture Pokémon.

“Even if alternate reality location games were totally innocent there is something utterly revolting about celebrating the Pokémonization of the globe as the ultimate realization of the merged social and technological potential of modern life.”  But it is not totally innocent.

The smart phone technology is now ubiquitous (well not quite; I still have a flip phone!) and has been transformed into the ultimate weapon to (a) sell you shit and in a more sinister direction (b) to…

I get motivation lots of places.  I heard this story on a news broadcast when it first happened and it’s one of those many illustrative events that I rest my mind on when I’m feeling personally weak and uninspired.  

Most of us have challenges in life that nobody else really sees.  We’re not in a stadium full of people who watch us overcome or who applaud us to the finish line.  Nevertheless, it’s the personal strength and determination that I enjoy watching on display in this video.  It reminds me to keep pushing.  It reminds me that even if everybody else around me has already reached their goal, as long as I’m still putting one foot in front of the other, I’m in the game.  It doesn’t matter how fast I’m going, as long as I’m still fighting.