Beach collector – Mementos of War
A-11 leather and AN-H-15 cloth Army Air Corps flight helmets. Photos (CivicCouch.com) By Christopher J. lynch C.E. Daniel lifts the small shadow box and studies the contents inside. To the casual viewer, they are nothing more than a dozen or so small paper tags with strings attached, items as commonplace and innocuous as something you would purchase at an Office Depot. It’s only on closer inspection that the tags take on a more ominous role; inscribed with the mission number, date, and the target city, they were the last things that a bombardier removed from his 500 pound weapons before they were released to rain death and destruction on German landscape below. “It’s mesmerizing,” Daniel muses as he holds the box. “Who was this guy, what was it like the moments before he removed them from the bombs? It’s this sort of mystery that has kept the WWII collector, a lifelong Redondo Beach resident, interested in a hobby that has consumed him for the better part of his life. But his interest in the war, and specifically in collecting aviation memorabilia, had a rather serendipitous beginning. Bomb tags from alla 26 missions flown by T/Sgt. Jaes O. Morris of the 336th Bomb Squadron. “I…
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