wwii p-40

WWII Photo Grouping – A PTO Mystery! Who Are These Guys?

/ portraitsofwar / 8 Comments

Greetings to my dedicated readers of PortraitsofWar. I recently purchased a large grouping of 1000+ photos that was comprised of may different smaller collections. I was able to weasel out an interesting group of Pacific Theater of Operation (PTO) tactical recon group photos and do a bit of basic research. After some time on the web I’ve concluded that the following shots were taken by a unit photographer for the 110th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron. Many of the photos are signed by the pilots who flew the planes depicted in the photographs. My guess is that the fellow who originally owned these photos was a plane mechanic who knew the pilots whose planes flew for the unit.

 

But who are these men?

UPDATES

Reader Responses (Thanks guys!)

From Tim:

“We Three” was a P-51K 44-12833 flown by the Maj George Noland, CO of the 110th TRS/71st TRG. Maj Noland might have scored the last P-51 kills of the war on 14 August 1945. More details are available in: “Mustang and Thunderbolt Aces of the Pacific and CBI” by John Stanaway. (Stanaway has this as a P-51K-10 while Joe Baugher’s list has it as a P-51K-15-NT).

B.N. Heyman is likely the late Bertam N. Heyman of Youngstown, Ohio.
“Bert’s education at Miami University was interrupted by World War II, where he proudly served as a fighter pilot in the Pacific Theatre. He was a decorated veteran who flew 57 combat missions during his service in the Air Force.”
From his obituary:

Side by side comparison (Obituary photo/Portrait from collection)

 

He was listed on the MACR (#15538) for A-20G 43-9625, likely as a witness as all aboard were killed. (https://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/a-20/43-9625.html).
And another post:
Thanks for posting these; they’re handsome and worthwhile.
The photo of Major Archuleta (and presumably his crew chief S/Sgt Raver) show Rubel Archuleta, of New Mexico, who was C/O of the 110th TRS from the fall of 1944 into the spring of 1945. He was a schoolteacher before the war (New Mexico State grad, I believe) and under him the 110th seems to have taken on a new personality. They had been a longtime Air National Guard outfit from St. Louis, whose insignia had featured a Missouri mule with telescopes or machine-guns; they were now called The Flying Musketeers.
The photos of Lt. Wells I believe to show Lt. Robert Wells, who had formerly been with the 82nd TRSS on Biak. Wells was hit in the head by shrapnel and managed to fly back with a hole in his skull. Surprisingly, he recovered (although it appears that he was transferred from the 82nd TRS to the 110th.) Note that he’s in a P-40, which the 71st’s two fighter squadrons were flying in the last months of 1944, before upgrading to F-6’s and P-51’s. (Much of what I know about Wells I know through the courtesy and shared photos of Michael Moffitt, whose father, a pilot with the 82nd TRS, took many photos during the war.)
The other pilots I do not recognize off the top of my head. (Harry Johnson may have been my father’s tent mate in the last months of the war. I will check.)
The photo of the 71st TRS HQ looks very similar to photos of the HQ’s for the 82nd and 110th TRS’s at Binmaley, outside Lingayen, in mid-1945. (Taken by Fred Hill of the 17th TRS, these photos can be seen online in the small collection section of the USAF Academy Library. My father, Roscoe A. “Rocky” Boyer, was communications officer for the 71st Group and the 91st Photo Reconnaissance Wing from 1942 on, and then transferred to the 110th in December 1944. Some of the officers may be recognizable from photos.
Fuller information about Archuleta, Wells, and other officers can be found by scrolling through two Facebook Pages that I run, on the 71st TRG and “Rocky Boyer’s War,” a book that I wrote around my father’s wartime diary and that the Naval Institute Press published this year.
I would be glad to post some or all of these photos the 71st TRG page. You may also wish to contact the Facebook administrator for “Lindbergh’s Own” page, an on-line site for the 110th in its current form.