My grandfather passed away when I was quite young. I've been researching his WWII history for some time, esp. as I have a daughter who is very interested in flight. We are waiting on the military records, but even so, what I'd like most is to meet someone who actually flew with him. See pictures, share stories. I know so little about my grandfather's military history outside of the information in the article below:

He was commisioned as a pilot in the Army Air Force in November 1942. He flew in the 477th bomber squadron and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with nine oakleaf clusters during his tour of 52 missions as a B-17 pilot in the European Theater of Operations. [The 2 planes that I can identify are “War Eagle” and “Char Baby”.]

He served in the Strategic Air Command from 1949 to 1956. He flew the Berlin Airlift as Squadron Material Officer in charge of maintenance, communications and supplies. During four years of his assignment with SAC he was based at Offutt Air Base as engineering officer, Flight Safety Division, SAC.

He had three brothers in the armed forces, First Lt. Robert A. Quinlivan, who served as flight officer with the Army Air Force in England, and was shot down several times; Pfc. John F. Quinlivan, an airplane mechanic at the Army Air Base, Moses Lake, Wash., and S. 1/c Charles J. Quinlivan, who served with the U. S. Navy in the Pacific battle area.

Thanks so much in advance for any information and connections!

Scotty Ann

Scotty Ann....The 477th Bomb Squadron you mention was NOT a B-17 unit....the 477th BS was a Stateside B-26 unit and did not leave the US.

I also looked up Char Baby and War Eagle...no Char BABY was listed in Wallace Foreman's B-17 Nose Art  and Name Directory....and there were 5 War Eagle named B-17. and two were in the 15th AAF and two in the 8th AAF with one unidentified.

The closest I could come was the 92nd which had as one of it's Squadrons, the 407th...is this the squadron you mean ?

The 99th had a 347th BS, and the other 100th did not come close to resembling the 477th. The other 15th AAF was the 97th, but its squadrons were the 340,341,342 and 414th.

Please verify that the squadron you refer to is the 407th of the 92nd BG.
 
Added...with 52 missons, as Mike points out....it sounds as if it may be the 347th BS of the 99 BG. (15th AAF)
The 15th AAF flew 35 actual missions but got credit for 50 missions due to some of the longer and more hazardous missions counting as "Doubles".

Thank you,

Jim :-)

James S. Peters Sr. T/Sgt
B-17 Flt Engr, 27 missions
99 BG, 348BS, 5th Wing, 15th AAF
Tortorella, (Foggia#2), Italy
My Tour was from 12/03/44-06/19/45
M/Sgt USAF (Retired)

SA - Jim ,
With the AM , OLCs and 52 Missions , Sounds like 15th AF ?
Mike

Mike...I agree.  She should answer and we may be able to tell for sure. If it was the 15th, it will be either the 97th or 99th.
 
Unfortuantely, neither the 97th or the 99th records are complete...unless a member joined the respective Association after the war...many members will be known only to the relatives.

Jim :-)

James S. Peters Sr. T/Sgt
B-17 Flt Engr, 27 missions
99 BG, 348BS, 5th Wing, 15th AAF
Tortorella, (Foggia#2), Italy
My Tour was from 12/03/44-06/19/45
M/Sgt USAF (Retired)

Gentlemen, you have been most helpful. Since none of the memorabilia resides with me, I was at quite a loss. I was in touch with my aunt after your posts and she was able to give me the following information - my apologies for trusting an old article and not having confirmed the details first. Note please that we are still doing our best to make out photographs, but hopefully the following will be better for tracking people down. I can't thank you all enough for going to such trouble for a granddaughter. I am giddy just at the prospect of learning more.

OK, here goes (from my aunt):

Scotty — here is what I could read off the framed photos we have:

First — your grandfather’s info off the brass name plate he had made:

Lt. Col William Joseph Quinlivan
A0793840
1/42-11/45
11/48-6/56

He was with the 15th Air Force


There’s a picture with his combat crew. It says:

Combat Crew 477 B.SQ.
Lt. Quinlivan (pilot)
Lt. Barlow (co-pilot)
Lt. Mulcahy (bomb/nav)
Sgt. Bruce (eng)
Sgt. Everson (radio-gunner)
Sgt. Lloyd (armorer-gunner)
Barksdale Field, LA
5/12/43

The nose of the plane they’re standing in front of reads “OL’ LIZ”.



Another picture shows a nice profile of a B17 in flight, and the number of the tail is all I can see : 2106984, with three skinny, long rectangles below.

I can’t see the big number or letter above that, but what I can see looks like the bottom half of a heart with what appears like the bottom half of a letter I (without the serifs).
There’s no guarantee that this is his plane ... It was a good pix of a B17 in your grandfather’s stuff.


As for the supposed “Char Baby” photos:
Upon closer inspection of the photos — the “Char Baby” appears under the right window, so it’s not the plane’s name, but the co-pilot’s or pilot’s nick name ... The nose art shows a zoot-suit wearing wolf saying “HALOOOOOOOOOOO” in a speech bubble.

The plane’s name is not terribly readable — I’ll put underscores for each letter I can’t read:
_ _ _ _ E R N
D E S T _ _ _ (I was never good at Vanna’s letter-flipping show! Maybe you can decipher this.) Western Destiny? Eastern Destiny?


Again, many thanks to you all.

Scotty Ann

Hello again, gentlemen. I called my brother and shared this forum exchange. It jogged his memory and he was able to email me a scanned signed picture that he has from my grandfather of B-17s in formation. As he noted in his email:

Attached is a scanned image of a formation of B-17's from Grandpa. My memory is that this was his aircraft, but that is probably a false memory. I have higher quality scans (64M tiff and 26M jpg) if you need them.

Love,
Kord

Hopefully this will be helpful as well.
Thank you again.

Scotty Ann

[image]local://upfiles/14325/2B96D2FCF50740E7ABA48FE86109FD30.jpg[/image]

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Scotty Ann..the aircraft 2106984 was B-17 42-106984   in the 346th BS of the 99th BG.
 
The other B-17 photo with the large K2 has to have been training aircraft in the US....no combat B-17 had those markings.  The markings of the B-17s in the 15th AAF used variations of the Y....the Y standing for the 5th Wing...the 99th was a Diamond Y..hence the term "Diamondbacks"
 
I will contact an individual who has the list of  99th personnel and see if William Joseph Quinliven was a member of the 99th.
 
Jim :-)

James S. Peters Sr. T/Sgt
B-17 Flt Engr, 27 missions
99 BG, 348BS, 5th Wing, 15th AAF
Tortorella, (Foggia#2), Italy
My Tour was from 12/03/44-06/19/45
M/Sgt USAF (Retired)

SA , Jim
# 42 - 106984 " Glittering Gal "
assigned 99th BG , 346th Sq. 3/31/44
Assigned 5th Bomb Wing HQ 10/8/44
Transport for General Charles Lawrence
Returned U.S. 5/45
Scrapped 4/46
With his rank of Lt. Col. , sounds like he was General Lawrence's Personal Pilot ?
B - 17 # 42 - 102654
Training B - 17 , never left U.S.
McDill Field 4/44 - 2/45
Avon Park 2/45
RFC Walnut Ridge 12/45 Scrapped
Mike

Mike..Nor necessarly....he stayed in after the war and was in until at least 1956....he was in the Berlin Airlift. so he could have been a Lt and then worked his way up to Lt Col.
 
Jim :-)

James S. Peters Sr. T/Sgt
B-17 Flt Engr, 27 missions
99 BG, 348BS, 5th Wing, 15th AAF
Tortorella, (Foggia#2), Italy
My Tour was from 12/03/44-06/19/45
M/Sgt USAF (Retired)

My father says "Your grandfather was not a Lt Col during WWII – that came much later.  He was probably a 1st Lt.  Secondly I believe he was in Africa and Italy before March of ‘44.  Maybe the picture with the plane was taken at the end of his campaign?"

Bill Quinlivan was my mother's father ... but my dad has the best memory of the few bits of information we do know about him :)

Thanks to you both for your help. You are great! - If we confirm that my grandfather was 99 BG, I will absolutely purchase that Turner Pub Diamondbacks book and read more. But would much rather have an oral history from someone who knew him, so I am still holding out hope for connecting with a crewmember or friend...

Scotty Ann

ps - do you know about how long it takes once the paperwork is submitted for receipt of military records?

Scotty Ann,
 
Go to the top of the page and click on the research tab for information about obtaining service records.  Turn around time is approximately 12 weeks.  Note however, many records were destroyed in a fire years ago.  What are the odds that your aunt can have the photos in her possession scanned?  Would love to see them.
 
Hal

The photos she's looking at are framed in presentation style with medals, etc. She will do her best to scan them, but it will be tricky as the photographs cannot be removed from the frames. When I asked after the memorabilia she mentioned having given my mother a small book of photos from my grandfathers WWII days. This book is, however, 'someplace safe' (ie, ?????). Anything I can get my hands on personally I will scan and share, though!!  All that I have in hand is a very beautiful portrait of my grandmother, Patricia Moreland (until she married my grandfather and became Patricia Quinlivan), who was in the 3rd AAF. This I know from the patch on her uniform in the portrait.

Scotty Ann

I am looking at "The Diamondbacks" right now and I'm sorry to say your grandfather's name is not listed in the roster in the back or in the index.  That does not mean he wasn't in the 99th though because my uncle was in the 99th BG, 347th BS and his name is not listed either. 
 
In the book all the assigned A/C are listed and ironically Glittering Gal comes right after the A/C my uncle was KIA, 2102925.

Dave Sandruck, USAF Ret
Nephew of Irvin Wentz, KIA 9 Dec 1944
99 BG, 347 BS
Tortorella (Foggia), Italy

Alas ... but even so, if he is 99th I'll buy the book and read up. I'm always hoping for a glimpse of him in some un-captioned photo. 

There was a short film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year called Spitfire 944. It was 14min of sheer - I don't know if joy is the word, but basically a man came across some personal 8mm? footage and the filmmaker was able to track down the pilot of the spitfire who'd been filmed. Secretly I suppose that's what most of the families who haven't a lot of information wish would happen for them - that one day some nice person will knock on their door or mail them a letter with information that makes the history personal and not just statistics.

To that end, with regard to the picture of the B-17s in formation above, in case it's useful for someone else... I looked at the high res scan and these are the numbers I could make out:

Foreground: K2 2102654 (we think this is my grandfather's plane, but do not know for sure)
Plane at right: J2 337720
Tail below lead plane: X1 ???712
Furthest right Tail: D3 ???2738
Top Plane: L2 2102814

- Scotty Ann

ps - do you know about how long it takes once the paperwork is submitted for receipt of military records?

 
My last requests for personnel records were processed and returned in nine (9) and nineteen (19) days. 
This was an unusually fast response time.

Scotty Ann...the B-17s with the K2,  L2,  etc are from a base in Florida...those aircraft never went overseas. Most probably from either Drew Fld or McDill Fld.
 
42-102654  Del Cheyenne 23/3/44.  McDill `8/4/44; 326BU McDill 2/2/45; Avon Park 15/2/45;
RFC Walnut Ridge 11/12/45
 
42-102814  Del Cheyenne 7/4/44; 488 BU McDill; 21/4/44; 327 BU Drew 4/5/45; 310 BU Drew 22/10/45;
RFC Altus 5/11/45.
 
Jim :-)

James S. Peters Sr. T/Sgt
B-17 Flt Engr, 27 missions
99 BG, 348BS, 5th Wing, 15th AAF
Tortorella, (Foggia#2), Italy
My Tour was from 12/03/44-06/19/45
M/Sgt USAF (Retired)

Scotty Ann...with the new Digital cameras. she can take a photo of the framed (as long as she does not use the flash),then put them on the hard drive and then trnsfer them to Mail Recipient, and email them.
 
Jim :-)

James S. Peters Sr. T/Sgt
B-17 Flt Engr, 27 missions
99 BG, 348BS, 5th Wing, 15th AAF
Tortorella, (Foggia#2), Italy
My Tour was from 12/03/44-06/19/45
M/Sgt USAF (Retired)

hello
 
i think L2 B17 is 42-102824
(it's career is very similar to 102814...) McDill 
Delivered CHEYENNE 8th april 1944
488th BG Mc Dill 23rd april 1944
326 BU Mc Dill 28th feb 1945
330 BU Dyersburg 16th march 1945
RFC Walnut Ridge 17th dec 1945
 
greetings
 

Sandruckd,
Thanks for your reply. I am one of the people who can't wait to get my hands on the Diamondbacks book once it's re-published. In the meantime, thanks to Jim, Marty and Jules ... and Google :) I've been able to amass a bit of scoop with regards to the planes my grandfather flew and the crew he flew with. So if any of the following leads to connections, I'll be forever grateful.

Per the mission log (note that the plane names are from the Diamondbacks book or the Hess book B-17 Flying Fortresses of the MTO book, based on serial number. I do know that plane names changed, however one I am sure of - War Eagle - as my uncle is clear of that name from a photograph I haven't seen):

Serial # 229467 - Flak Dodger (8 missions)
Serial # 2106995 - Anthony J (1 mission)
Serial # 25817 - Wonderbird II (4 missions)
Serial # 124378 - War Eagle (2 missions)
Serial # 23058 - ? (3 missions)
Serial # 238084 - ? (7 missions)
Serial # 229527 - ? (3 missions)
Serial # 23178 - ? (1 mission)
Serial # 25135 - ? (1 mission)
Serial # 232069 - ? (1 mission)
Serial # 2107016 - ? (1 mission)

The crews changed as well, but he flew multiple missions with the following gentlemen:

Barlow, Kenneth R - Co-Pilot
Mulcahy, W J - Navigator
Lockwood, Glenn R - Bombardier
Bruce, Robert L - Engineer/Top Turret
Evenson, Paul A - Radio Operator
Lloyd, Marion E - Ball Turret
Beard, Paul L - Waist Gunner
Lawless, G W - Waist Gunner
Winebrenner, W W - Tail Gunner

Thanks in advance for any information.

Scotty Ann

Finally got a picture scanned of my grandfather. Hoping for plane pictures at holiday time. 

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