Another story brought to you by Aerothentic

This photo encapsulates sparseness of the Pacific war for American aircrews. As far as entertainment went, this was as good as it got. Comedian Joe E. Brown leads US airmen and groundcrews in singing 'God Bless America'. Brown is appearing before members of the 38th Bombardment Group in mid 1943 who had recently arrived from mainland United States in their B-25Ds.

The stage was wooden, and behind you can see the bare grassy hills which surrounded Port Moresby, the driest place in New Guinea. The precise location is just off the main revetment area of Seven-Mile airfield, to the North of the Drome.

On this same tour Brown appeared before several other Groups assigned to the Port Moresby area including the 90th Bombardment Group whose Liberators were then stationed at Wards Drome. The 90th got him to autograph one of their Liberators on its right hand side, in large flowing letters in chalk. Unfortunately the lettering was washed off after a few missions.

Look carefully at the faces of these men.

Brown was a famous U.S comedian who had started out as a stand-up comic in Vaudeville. Brown's main attraction was what was percived as a large mouth, but actually, he had normal features. He was simply a superb contortionist. Later on he lost a son to the war, and even as a comedian he subsequently had difficulty poking fun at the war.

On 4th May 1943 Frank Hohmann's Liberator crew picked him and his entourage up at Cairns and flew him to Mareeba, Queensland, Australia. He put on a combined show for the 403rd Squadron and the Australian infantry that night and the next. Hohmann's flight log for 8th May 1943 shows his crew delivering Brown in a B-24D named Rio Rita to Port Moresby where he put on two more shows. The next day they were flown to Darwin. On another flight in a Fortress from Mareeba to Cairns to pick up Brown's same entertainment group, number three engine gave Hohmann's crew problems, so they shut it down and landed on three. Hohmann examined it until the Brown entertainment troupe arrived and they departed on all four engines to return to Mareeba. The rogue engine started to give trouble, so it was shut down. Brown wanted to come on the flight deck, and when he got there he saw the engine stopped and in a straight face said to Hohmann, " what are we doing, saving gas"?

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