The World War II Gallery in the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio includes several displays of memorabilia relating to World War II.
Oxygen
According to the display:
“At 25,000 feet, a crewman without supplemental oxygen passed out in 3-5 minutes, followed by death soon after. At high altitude, crewmen needed supplemental oxygen at all times—malfunctions, such as blocked hoses and frozen oxygen masks, killed some airmen.”
Patches
Link Trainer
According to the Museum:
Crude pilot training aids had been designed even before World War I, but none had any significant training value. Edwin A. Link provided a giant step forward when in 1931 he received a patent on his "pilot maker" training device. He had perfected his design in the basement of his father's piano and organ factory in Binghamton, N.Y. Organ bellows and a motor provided the means for the trainer, mounted on a pedestal, to pitch, roll, dive and climb as the student "flew" it. Ironically, most of his first sales were to amusement parks. In 1934, after a series of tragic accidents while flying the air mail, the Army Air Corps bought six Link trainers to assist in training pilots to fly at night and in bad weather relying only on instruments.
The World War II era brought orders for thousands of Link trainers from the United States and many foreign countries. Although Army Air Forces aviation cadets flew various trainer aircraft, virtually all took blind-flying instruction in a Link. Movement of the trainer is accomplished by vacuum operated bellows, controlled by valves connected to the control wheel (or stick) and rudder pedals. An instructor sat at the desk and transmitted radio messages which the student in the Link heard through his earphones. Inside the "cockpit," the student relied on his instruments to "fly" the Link through various maneuvers while his navigational "course" was traced on a map on the desk by the three-wheeled "crab." Slip stream simulators gave the controls the feeling of air passing over control surfaces and a rough air generator added additional realism during the "flight." The trainers were realistic enough that a humorous but unlikely story circulated that one student, told by his instructor that he had run out of fuel on a night flight, broke his ankle when he leaped from the trainer as though parachuting to safety.
The complexity of flight simulators has grown with that of military and civilian aircraft. No one knows how many lives, aircraft and training dollars have been saved by flight simulators, but those savings can be traced back to Link's "Blue Box," which pointed the way to today's highly sophisticated and complex trainers.
Doolittle Tokyo Raiders
According to the Museum:
In the spring of 1942, America's morale slumped from numerous Japanese successes, and the country desperately needed a victory. Capt. Francis S. Low, a U.S. Navy submariner, suggested an attack against the heart of Japan using U.S. Army Air Forces medium bombers flown from a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. The difficult task of training for and leading the raid went to Lt. Col. James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle, a brilliant aviator and compelling leader. The top secret plan called for the B-25s to take off about 450 miles from Japan, bomb selected targets at such locations as Yokohama and Tokyo, and then fly another 1,600 miles to friendly airfields in mainland China. The operation was risky -- medium bombers had never been flown from a carrier, and sailing so far into enemy territory endangered the U.S. Navy task force.
At dawn on April 18, 1942, the task force, commanded by Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, was steaming west through rough Pacific seas, about 650 miles away from Japan. On the deck of the USS Hornet sat 16 B-25s. Unfortunately, the task force encountered an enemy patrol boat, and no one knew if it had radioed a warning to Japan before being sunk. Col. Doolittle and Admiral Halsey discussed their difficult choice -- cancel the raid or launch earlier than planned and risk running out of fuel. Doolittle chose to attack, and all 16 aircraft took to the air. Upon reaching the Japanese homeland, the Raiders dropped their bombs on oil storage facilities, factory areas and military installations, and then headed out across the East China Sea.
As their fuel gauges dropped, the Raiders knew they could not reach their designated airfields. One by one, they ditched at sea, bailed out, or crash-landed in China (one crew diverted to the Soviet Union). Fortunately, with the help of the Chinese people, most of the Doolittle Raiders safely reached friendly forces (Japanese forces later executed as many as a quarter million Chinese citizens in retaliation for this assistance).
When authorities released news of the attack, American morale zoomed from the depths to which it plunged following Japan's many early victories. Although the brilliant strike caused relatively little physical damage, it stunned the Japanese population -- their embarrassed leaders had promised the mainland would never be attacked. The Japanese transferred four fighter groups from the front lines to defend mainland Japan. To prevent future American attacks on the homeland, Admiral Yamamoto ordered the disastrous attack on Midway Island, which became the turning point in the war in the Pacific.
Cushman Airborne Scooter
According to the Museum:
In the late stages of the war in Europe, Allied paratroopers used scooters like this one to maintain contact between units, increase their mobility and haul small loads. The Cushman Motor Works designed the Model 53 Airborne Scooter to be airdropped by parachute or carried by glider, and it had a hitch to pull a model M3A4 general-purpose utility cart. By adding certain equipment, the cart could be converted to carry a .30-cal. or .50-cal. machine gun or an 81mm mortar, though the scooter often could not pull a heavy load. The M3A4 cart on display has original hand-ropes for manual towing by up to four men.
Cushman made nearly 5,000 airborne scooters for the military beginning in 1944. The rugged, simple Model 53 could travel through a foot of water, climb a 25 percent grade and had a range of about 100 miles.
More World War II
Air Force Museum: World War II flight jackets (photo diary)
Air Force Museum: World War II guns and bombs (photo diary)
Air Force Museum: World War II bomber crew protection (photo diary)
Air Force Museum: World War II German Planes (photo diary)
Air Force Museum: World War II Japanese planes (photo diary)
Air Force Museum: World War II American fighters (photo diary)
Air Force Museum: The Memphis Belle (photo diary)
Air Force Museum: North American B-25 B Mitchell (photo diary)