Hi, I have a picture of  an aircraft  with a unique nose art, named educated death. I was wondering if anyone had heard of her.
My grandfather and some other medics  had their picture taken in front  of her, but I don't know where they were at the time, possible they were even stateside. ( 106th Recon Squadron, before becoming the 100th BS.)  Anyway, this  nose art always fascinated me since most of the planes had pictues of  the ladies. I wondered if it was flown .  The pic doesnt have any crew name on it , and there are no numbers visible.

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While Im at it, there is a group pic of the 106th Recon sqd/100th bs  in front of two more aircraft.  One is called  My Baby, the other is Lofty Blue lady.  This is a pretty big group pic, but I can post it or email it.

Marcy,
 
I tried to locate - what appears to me - to be a unit crest on Educated Death's nose trying to associate it with either the 106th Reconnaisance Squadron or 100th Bombardment Squadron; no joy at this time but I'll keep looking.
 
As a general comment, an solely in the for-whatever-it's-worth category, the photograph or your grandfather that you attached strikes me as having the 'look and feel' of a CONUS (stateside) training location, e.g. starched uniforms, aircraft paint isn't too weathered, etc.
 
Compare your photograph to the 100th BS photograph I've attached http://www.web-birds.com/13th/42/Scanned%20Picture%202.jpg that portray's a somewhat more 'relaxed' aircraft paint maintenance and uniform code once the unit was deployed in-theater to see what I mean.
 
Take what you like and leave the rest.
 
Andy

Marcy,
 
Credit line for the image at attachment is http://www.jetzone.de/patches/usaf.html
 
Based on the Distinctive Unit Insignae (DUI) painted on the nose of Educated Death - and as that DUI has survived and been incorporated into the unit patch of the 106th TRS - I'd surmise the photograph of your grandfather was made while he was in the 106th Reconnaisance Squadron while he was in CONUS.
 
Just a deduction....
 
Take what you like and leave the rest
 
Andy

Thanks.
 
  I noticed that insignia on the plane. I do have a patch for the 106th recon sqd that  is almost identical to the patch you posted ( no TAC).

Also, I have seen the 100th Bomb sqd symbol posted online, and it is very similar to the 106th ( The 106th recon sqd. was renamed  the 100th Bomb Squad , so that makes sense.)

The 100th insignia that I have found is missing  some of the top details that the 106th insignia has.

[image]local://upfiles/8556/FA77E9BB0AFC427298977B1BB759CDA5.jpg[/image]

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Here's another picture of "Educated Death" from the other side. "Educated Death" was in D Echelon of the 106th Recon Bomb Squadron. The following were the crew in the picture, don't know who is who though. Herbert J. Sunderman - pilot, James Wingo -co-pilot, Eugene E. Crum - B.N (bomber-navigator?), Milton Cooper - R (radioman?), Marion Lockwood - F.G. (?), and Donald Lake - G (?).
This was one of several pictures in my uncle's effects.
 
Kelly Dellinger
 

[image]local://upfiles/2559/0D488C11E7DA411C91504673FFA91856.jpg[/image]

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Hey! Thanks alot Kelly !  That is so neat to see that someone  heard of her.
 
Just to let you know I have posted some pics  in the photo gallery of the 106th RS and the 100th.  There was a poster style pic of the 106th that I thought was really  interesting, and a large group picture.  Unfortunately I dont have the service members names.
Maybe you will spot your Uncle.

I'm unsure of all the details, but I was told by the pilot, Herb Sunderman, that the plane flew many missions. He is still living on Cape Cod and has quite a collection of material about his plane.

I have a picture of EDUCATED DEATH with my Dad(Ervin Musial 75th Bombardier/Navigator) and an unknown person below the insignia taken in the Pacific  between 4-44 and 5-45..probably early in those dates.And today 2-26  would have been his birthday..he would have been 87.However the insignia of my EDUCATED DEATH is painted slightly different, so it must be a different plane.

imaxfli.
 
A year later and I see your posting.  Hopefully you will see this message as my father was the one who named the plane.  I am currently putting together a documentary about his plane and his service during WWII.  He was stationed in the Pacific and successfully ran 73 missions, never losing one crew member.  I would appreciate any info you have including pictures so that I can complete his story.  I only have up until he was shipped home in '45.  Of course, anything you would like to know as well, please feel free to contact me. 
 
Carol Gordon

Heschler,
 
I know you were inguiring about this aircraft back in 2005 but I thought you might be interested in knowing that the plane Educated Death was flown in the Pacific, 73 missions and was named by my father, Herbert J.Sunderman who was Captain of the plane.  I am presently gathering information for a documentary I am putting together in his honor (we just celebrated his 90th birthday this summer).  I have a lot of information he has given me so if you have any questions I would be happy to answer them.  Also, if you have any info, I would greatly appreciate receiving any or all as well.
 
Carol Gordon

Kelly,
My father was the Captain and pilot of the plane you have a picture of - "Educated Death".  He is the first person on your left - Herbert J. Sunderman. The rest of the crew is named in the order you see them.  I am presently gathering as much information as I can beyond what my father has told me to put into a documentary in his honor.  So, if you have anything connected to the 100th Bomb squadron stationed in the Pacific or where it went after that I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.
Carol Gordon 

howmardel


Here's another picture of "Educated Death" from the other side. "Educated Death" was in D Echelon of the 106th Recon Bomb Squadron. The following were the crew in the picture, don't know who is who though. Herbert J. Sunderman - pilot, James Wingo -co-pilot, Eugene E. Crum - B.N (bomber-navigator?), Milton Cooper - R (radioman?), Marion Lockwood - F.G. (?), and Donald Lake - G (?).
This was one of several pictures in my uncle's effects.

Kelly Dellinger


[image]local://upfiles/2559/0D488C11E7DA411C91504673FFA91856.jpg[/image]

I had the pleasure of talking with Herb Sunderman on the telephone, plus exchanging postal mail with him, about a year ago as I was researching my uncle, Roy Anderson, who also flew with the 100th BS as a replacement pilot in 1944, and while researching another squadron plane, "Powerhouse," named by Theo Wright.

Only Herb can confirm this, but I believe, like an earlier post suggested, that there was in fact two (2) airplanes named "Educated Death."  There was the stateside plane, when the 106th was flying patrols on the east coast, and a later plane, flown in combat in the Pacific.  The quality and style of painting on the different sides of the cockpit are too different to be the same plane.  I don't doubt that Herb got to name both, but I believe they were physically two different planes.

Carol, is there any way you can confirm or dispute this with your father?

Kevin Anderson

Kevin,
 
What is it that makes you believe that there are two planes with the same name and basically the same nose art?  That would be amazing in and of itself.  However, according to my father, his plane was the only one with that nose art on it...as far as he knows and which is what I am trying to find out.
 
He headed overseas at the end of '43 in his plane, painted the nose when he got to the Stirling Islands and when he was shipped home, his plane was used in different arenas thereafter.  As far as he is aware, there was only one plane with that nose art. 
 
There are three different looking nose arts...one with just the name, one with the bombs crossed in front of a skeleton and another with all the above and a sickel.  There are two pictures showing the first and last descriptions that have my father in front of it.  The middle description is a picture with a crew from the Armament with a new crest added to the nose.  He believes it is the same plane, just modified by the new crew.  I am trying to find out for certain.  I have also heard that his plane may still be in existence.  If it is, I would love to get him to see it/sit in it/fly in it one more time before he is unable to.
 
You say you spoke to him last year?  Can you tell me what you spoke about?  He does not remember anyone talking to him except by email recently by a Staff Sargent Scale from Alabama.  He is, after all, 90 years old and so his memory is not as sharp as it used to be although he is amazing for his age.  This is why I am trying desperately to find out as much as I can so I can put this documentary together so he can enjoy it and feel proud of his contribution to his country.
 
Carol

Carol,

It was probably two years ago, 2006, that I talked with your dad.  Not last year.  I can't find my notes right this minute to confirm exactly when, but this is what I recall.  When I called on the telephone it was to talk about such things as:  my uncle Roy Anderson and whether he recalled him; about Don Robertson, who he did remember, and was a good friend (and happened to be my uncle's pilot when Roy was a copilot); about an airplane named "Powerhouse" that I was trying to identify, as I have a picture of that plane with my uncle sitting in the cockpit; and also about his time as operations officer, about crew assignments, and other miscellaneous stuff.  By e-mail, I was the one who gave your dad the information about how to get in contact with Donald Robertson, Jr., the son of pilot Don Robertson, as your dad wanted to get a hold of him and his mother, I believe to give them the portrait he had drawn of Don Robertson that is featured on your dad's website.

As to "Educated Death" and whether it is one plane or not.  Obviously I can't be positive, and if your dad says it was just one plane, then it was one plane.  It is hard to tell, when the two photographs posted with this discussion thread show different sides of the plane, and are from two very different time periods and locations.  Clearly if this is the same plane, then the nose art on the two different sides were painted differently, possibly by different painters, as there are several distinct differences.  Now there is no saying that both sides had to be painted the same.  But there are other differences:  The painted ring on the engine nacelle on the earlier picture, the one with the medics, plus the vertical stripe on the fuselage warning of the propeller arc, and the squadron emblem.  All of those are missing from the later picture with your dad's crew.  Now it could be that regulations or practices in the combat zone required that all those features be removed (painted over).  Yet this still leaves the fact that nose art on the pilot side is still very different than on the starboard side.  Finally, the other piece that I can't prove without more records or information is knowing whether the squadron got to bring their own planes overseas with them, or if they were issued new planes prior to departure or given planes when they arrived.  The fact that they were flying patrols as an organized unit prior to going overseas would suggest they may have brought their own planes, which would lead credence to one plane.

But as your dad says, that there was only plane, then I won't dispute it.  My apologies if I questioned this.  This discussion clearly points out the hazards of trying to do the research that we are all trying to do on details now 60 years past, and working from scattered, mostly incomplete records.  The snippets we have to work from - a picture here or a letter there - leaves much still missing that one can only guess at working from clues or practices known to occur.

Do you or your dad happen to know the serial number (i.e, tail number) for "Educated Death"?  You will need that to find the plane, should it indeed still exist somewhere.  How did you hear that it was still around?  And do you have more pictures of the plane not provided so far with this discussion thread?  The reality is that most of the war-weary planes, of which "Educated Death" would have been one, were reclaimed (salvaged) overseas and didn't even come back to the states (and that the planes you do see flying today are mostly trainers or late production models that didn't even leave the states).  It would be great to hear that his plane bucked that statistic.  If you know the serial number, then the next step is to get your hand on the individual aircraft record card, which will tell you when the plane was built and its disposition at least when it was salvages or left the Air Force inventory.

Regards,
Kevin Anderson

Carol,
I reread your posting again after my lengthy reply, and I note that you specifically said that your dad flew his plane overseas in 1943.  I also note that you specifically said he painted his nose art on Stirling Island.

And in response I then raise this:  the only way we can resolve whether "Educated Death" was one or more planes would be to identify exactly when and where the picture with the medics was taken.  I agree with the earlier posters that this picture has the look and feel of being stateside.  The look and feel doesn't match the Stirling Island pictures I've seen.  The plane in that picture is very clearly, however, a 106th/100th BS squadron plane regardless by the unit emblem.  The fact that the later picture, with your dad's crew also includes package guns below the cockpit, which are missing on the earlier photograph, doesn't surprise me, as the clamshell design of those guns matches the field modified design added in the Pacific.  That the guns are missing from "medic" picture, including evidence they may have been there, also suggests that this is an earlier picture and/or an entirely different airplane altogether.

I have to assume that you have shown that particular picture (the one with the medics) to your dad and that he recognizes that nose art and plane as the one he painted. Yes?

Kevin Anderson

For completeness sake, attached is the "Armament" photograph of Educated Death, which was posted by another armyairforces.com member in a separated thread on the 97th Armament (supposedly who is in the picture) under the 42nd BG series.  Carol, is this the other photograph you've referred to?

This photograph clearly dates to the same time as the "Medic" photograph in this discussion thread.  The plane is the same.  The building in the background is the same.  The building in the background looks like a stateside "Theater of Operation" style building.  I still think this is an early (1943?) picture.

As to tail numbers, in June 1994, squadron summaries indicate that the following B-25Ds were flying with the 100th squadron:  "299", "301", "304", "315", "316", "318", "336", "364", "369", "370", "377", "385".  Educated Death was likely one of those planes.  October/November squadron summaries indicate that the squadron was flying only 2 B-25Ds, with everything else now newer J types.  I do not know for sure which ones were the Ds, although "364" does appear in records in November, but not specified enough to know if this an old D or a new J with the same last three digits.   If Educated Death was still being used for missions in late 1944, then it is possible it was "364".

Kevin Anderson
 

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Kevin,

Wow!  Thank you so much for all that you have sent.  A lot of information to absorb and run past my father. 

I have resent him the four pictures I have of the plane(s) to see if he can further acknowlege the fact that they are both the same.  Two have him and two slightly different crews in front of his plane.  Even those two pictures are slightly different (one has just plain white lettering with no sickel while the other is two-toned and has a sickel).  My assumption is, and I have asked him to clarify, that one was taken before he had finished the nose art completely.

I am glad you are questioning this because if I am going to do this documentary, the facts have to be correct.  And as you said, it is hard to do after all these years. 

Thank you for the serial number clue.  I will talk to him in the next few days and let you know.  However, if you believe the Armament and Medic pics were taken early on during training up and down the east coast (of which he was a part of) and that this particular plane stayed stateside and never left US soil, then there are definitely two planes.  He told me he was issued a brand new B-25 which he personally flew over to the Stirling Islands...with no art work of any kind present until he and his co-pilot, Ken Miller painted it on.  For the year and a half that he was over there, the plane was always in his command except for one brief couple of months after his injury.  And so, if there are/were two planes with the same name, I would love to find the other pilot who named his plane by the exact same name and used basically the same nose art as my father.  I would also like to find out which one the supposed existencing B-25 named Educated Death.  My Dad got an email from a Staff Sargent Scale located in Alabama who is currently part of the 106th and was interested in finding out more about the plane for his records.  Dad has yet to give me his email so I can contact him.  I would be interested to find out what he knows and why he believes his plane is still around...or if he is referring to the second plane...if there is truly a second plane which it is beginning to sound like. 

The reason he named the plane Educated Death was a statement about how he felt about war during a time when antisentiment was unheard of.  The possibility that there were two planes having the same name and possibly two pilots having the same sentiments is astounding to me...but not improbable.  So, now I am even more curious to find out if there are/were two planes with the same name, and if so, who named the other and why and which plane is still in existence.
 
So your Uncle is Roy Anderson.  Small world isn't it.  I think Dad said he just talked to him this past weekend if I'm not mistaken.  Is he located down in Florida?  There were two crew members whose names are/were very similar... one is still alive and the other has since passed away.  I hope your uncle is the former.

I really appreciate all your responses to my postings.  They are helpful and make this journey to find out the full story of what my father went through back then even more incredible.  If you find out anything else, keep it coming.  With all my questions to my Dad, I am truly stretching his brain to its limits.  It is amazing how much he can still recall but there are things like this that he can not corroborate.

I currently live in AZ and am in the process of arranging a trip to the Cape in March to film my interview with him.  I hope to get as many questions answered before then as possible so the interview is as complete as possible. 

Carol
 

Carol,
I looked last evening at my microfilmed archives of the 100th BS, covering May through December 1944.  The records in May give no detail, but the records throughout June and early July provide many mission reports that listed pilots and bombardiers for each plane in a mission.

Your dad is listed as piloting plane "369" on June 1, 7, 8, 11, and again on the 17th.  Other planes he flew include "370" on June 14, "364" on June 20, "304" on June 24 and for double mission on June 28, "301" on June 25 and July 1 and 4, and "299" on June 7.  These planes are all listed in the mission report as B-25D's, which is the type that "Educated Death" would have been.  Operations Orders for October onward show him flying a variety of B-25J's, which had replaced most of the planes in the squadron.

Obviously if your dad kept a diary of his missions where he might have noted the plane he flew by name, then we could match things up.  Or, if we are lucky and your dad was one of a few veterans who kept all his paperwork, then you might find a copy of his secret orders for his flight overseas, which would have listed the plane that would become "Educated Death" by exact serial number.

If I were to hazard a guess from the little information I reported above, I suggest a good possibility is that the "Educated Death" flown in the Pacific and named by your father might be "369".  This is based on the possibility that earlier on the crews would have been flying more their assigned/named plane than seemed to be the case later on.  I have a more extensive document with this information in it that I can send you privately.

Kevin Anderson

Further research in Jeff Baugher's tail number databases suggests we are looking for serials numbers such as 42-87369 and the like, which would represent a B-25D-25 block aircraft.

It would not have been 41-30369 or similar, because that specific number matches to a B-25D with the 341st BG in CBI (China-Burma-India), and that crashed on December 12, 1944.  I would rather doubt that planes assigned to the 42nd BG in New Guinea in mid-1944 would have been suddenly transfered all the way to the CBI.  But I may also be wrong.  Numbers in the low 41-303xx series were assigned to nearby SW Pacific units such as the 38th BG, so some of the planes I listed earlier could be of the 41-303xx series, while others are 42-873xx series.  It all depends on when they came overseas.

Kevin Anderson