Hudson Song, A

DESCRIPTION: "Our Flight Commander got the D.F.C. For finding a U-boat in the Irish sea," but he celebrated rather than sink it. The navigators miss their targets, the wireless officers struggle, the gunners miss, "But we still come rolling home"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1967 (Ward-Jackson/Lucas-AirmansSongBook); supposedly sung 1940-1941
KEYWORDS: pilot technology home
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ward-Jackson/Lucas-AirmansSongBook, pp. 155-156, "A Hudson Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "John Brown's Body" (tune) and references there
cf. "The Fortress Song" (subject of the Hudson bomber)
NOTES [106 words]: The "Hudson" was the Lockheed A-28 (and A-29) Hudson, an American commercial plane adapted to serve as a reconnaissance bomber. According to Kenneth Munson, Aircraft of World War II, second edition, Doubleday, 1972, p. 111, it was the first American airplane to see "operational service" in World War II. A two-engined plane with a crew of five, it wasn't especially fast (253 miles per hour top speed), but it had a long range (2800 mines) and decent armament (five or seven machine guns, and up to 1400 pounds of bombs), so it was a good patrol plane; the British used it as their primary coastal patrol plane starting in 1939. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: WJL155B

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