Boxed Graduation Gunner - Lloyd R Kennedy bio

[TCSchultz]

I was researching a named M-1936 bag that came in a lot of web gear from a local auction recently and came across this thread here on the forum to my surprise for the same man. Sgt. Lloyd R. Kennedy ASN # 39216772 who had his wings and ribbon bar already found back in 2011. Here's pictures of the bag showing his name and service number and this is the second time recently I have found something ID'd to someone who has already had items of his posted here. Small world in military collecting I guess!

 

 

 

 

[pfrost]

This is a happy end to the story...so many I've researched went the other way, the guy was flying his last mission when he went down. In analyzing another Group's missions I found that the pilots tended to finish their tours one or two or three missions before the rest of the crew. Probably due to their taking a few more orientation missions at the beginning of their tours. That left other members of the crew to be assigned a new pilot for those last few missions, often just one more... If their co-pilot took over as PIC, they stood a pretty good chance of making it.

 

However, if they drew one of the new pilots, their chances went down considerably. I'm not sure of this, perhaps someone with the knowledge can chip in here, but it seems certain that over the course of flying a full tour, the pilots learned to read and avoid the flak patterns that came up after them, thus giving everyone aboard a better chance of being "where they ain't" when the AA rounds exploded.

 

As for "dodging" flak, here is a very interesting training film about avoiding AA fire. They talk about avoiding flak patterns, which it appears was done by they whole squadron and not at an individual plane. Pretty cool stuff.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP_-WUMi-nw

 

 

[graham]

I was researching a named M-1936 bag that came in a lot of web gear from a local auction recently and came across this thread here on the forum to my surprise for the same man. Sgt. Lloyd R. Kennedy ASN # 39216772 who had his wings and ribbon bar already found back in 2011. Here's pictures of the bag showing his name and service number and this is the second time recently I have found something ID'd to someone who has already had items of his posted here. Small world in military collecting I guess!

 

 

 

 

 

Small world indeed. Thanks for adding this to the thread.

 

Graham.