Nicholas A. Veronico's Blog

Dirty Harry’s Aircraft Carriers
My late night, secret, guilty pleasure is that I enjoy watching Clint Eastwood’s "Dirty Harry" movies. The second film in the series, Magnum Force (1973), ends with a chase scene on board three World War II escort carriers being scrapped. For the movie’s continuity, it appears to viewers as if the ships were being dismantled along the San Francisco waterfront. Any sharp-eyed Bay Area resident knows that’s not the case.

You can see the scene here, presented in two parts:

Dirty Harry: Magnum Force – Final Battle (Part One)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJm5l...

Dirty Harry: Magnum Force – Final Battle (Part Two)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C5ZP...

Recently a couple of Internet trolls began going at it about where the scene was filmed. That motivated me to show, through photographs, where exactly the filming took place. The hunt was on!

I dug up the accompanying aerial photo of the carriers docked next to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, where the filming took place, at the USGS in Menlo Park, and my friend Roger Cain shot some nice aerials of the area and its sunken ships today. These photos appear in the article. Thanks, Roger!

My investigation into the filming location is detailed in the April 2019 issue of Sea Classics magazine. Check it out!

Featured in the March 2019 issue of Sea Classics magazine is my seven-page article detailing the World War II shipwrecks in the Hawaiian Islands – outside of Pearl Harbor.
Yes, it took many, many trips to Hawaii (how terrible for me, but someone has to go…) to see these ships by boat, submarine, and helicopter. The main photo of the opening spread is the 375-foot long, 56-foot beam, concrete-hulled, gasoline barge YOGN-42 that fueled ships in the South Pacific during the war. On Dec. 12, 1943, YOGN-42 was under tow by USS Navajo (AT-64) near Espiritu Santo when the tug was torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese submarine I-39. YOGN-42 escaped being sunk and served through the rest of the conflict.
Today YOGN-42 is locked on the reef at Lanai’s “Shipwreck Beach.” If you’re on Maui, north of Kaanapali Beach and know where to look, you can see YOGN-42 across the channel with the naked eye. The article explains how to see this and the other islands’ other shipwrecks.
The photo of YOGN-42 on the reef is one of my favorites and I’m very happy that the publisher opened the story with it.
Check it out!

Hidden Warships: Finding World War II's Abandoned, Sunk, and Preserved Warships

Air Force One: The Aircraft of the Modern U.S. Presidency

I was very honored when Zenith Press asked me to update my late friend Robert F. Dorr’s book Air Force One. His book was written in 2001 and released the following year. A lot has happened since then, and the book deserved an update. His original manuscript formed the basis of the new book, “Air Force One: The Aircraft of the Modern U.S. Presidency,” which was released in March 2018.

I was very honored by my aviation enthusiast and historian friends, and a couple of coworkers, who rooted around their collections to find the images and other data I needed.

I was very honored to be trusted by a number of folks in the Air Force One and Marine One community who shared their experiences flying the leaders of our nation. For many reasons this is a closed group, and I am humbled that they trusted me enough to allow a glimpse inside.

I also feel very honored today as I just found out that the Military Writers Society of America recognized Air Force One: The Aircraft of the Modern U.S. Presidency with a silver medal in the “History” category for books in the 2018 awards season.

Thank you to all who supported this project for your generosity in sharing your stories, photos and memories.

I am very honored.


Follow me at:
Amazon Author Page:
https://www.amazon.com/author/nichola...

Was very pleased to see the following review in the latest edition of Air Classics (March 2019). Thank you, Air Classics! The review states:

Bloody Skies: U.S. Eighth Air Force Battle Damage in World War II

"Bloody Skies: U.S. Eighth Air Force Battle Damage in World War II" by Nicholas A. Veronico is a quality, soft-bound publication comprising 208-pages and 255 illustrations. Bloody Skies is history revisited with images combining elegant as well as concise captions, told by an author with a deep understanding of both this history's import and its personal impact upon untold numbers of combatants and their people back home. The expected photos are there -- as in other books -- but, unusually with captions detailing the missions, their crews, and their fates. So many stories are told in this book -- some, amazingly, in only a single photo.

Bloody Skies shows the reader incredible battle damage, dying aircraft, happy crew faces, and how lives were lived in unforgiving skies.

The evolution of daylight strategic bombing by the Eighth Air Force is accurately portrayed and includes the largely failed experiments with the rare B-40 and B-41. Veronico describes the tactics and flying challenges presented to fighter and bomber crews in a way that leaves the reader with an intuitive understanding -- having the effect of making this history leap off the pages into the reader's imagination.

This book sits apart from most history books on the author's ability to inter-weave facts within the context of their times as well as the human dimension. In the last chapter, the author describes his serendipitous learning of the last moments of a relative lost over hostile territory during a bombing mission of the 390th Bomb Group. This Exemplifies the extraordinary final actions of an officer to save this crew in the doomed B-17G "Decatur Deb" after a terrifying brief duel marked by extreme violence.

Bloody Skies makes the statistics of the Mighty Eighth a personal experience shared by the hundreds of thousands who served with that famous unit over thousands of missions in Flying Fortresses, Liberators, Lightnings, Thunderbolts, and Mustangs. Detailed information regarding statistics and units are also significant in this book, which belongs on the shelves of anyone interested in the Mighty Eighth and World War II. (4 Stars)

Nice Nick quote in the BBC Future story "The secrets of the desert aircraft 'boneyards.'

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140...

Zenith Press published "Military Aircraft Boneyards" that I cowrote with Kevin Grantham and Scott Thompson.

Specialty Press published "AMARG: America's Military Aircraft Boneyard" written with Ron Strong.

Stance and Speed published "Junkyard Jets" that I cowrote with Doug Scroggins.

And most recently, Stackpole Books published "Boneyard Nose Art" that I wrote with Jim Dunn and Ron Strong.

I'm starting to see a pattern there...

Was quite pleased to see a nice review of "Depression-Era Murals of the Bay Area" in yesterday's SF Examiner by Jim Van Buskirk.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisc...

When I was a teen, my parents took my brother and I to see a number of the Diego Rivera murals in Mexico, and I've had a life-long interest in Depression-era art.

I took painting lessons in my youth, but thankfully for everyone's eyes stopped that. Some still survive to remind me that a day job is a good thing. :-)

Living in the Bay Area gives us access to some amazing public art -- most of which is free (public) to view. It's a good legacy from a dark time.

Yesterday, June 24, I had the opportunity to spend more than an hour with author and host John D. Gresham. He's the author of a number of books, my favorite of which is "DEFCON 2: Standing on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis" (with Norman Polmar).

Gresham is hosting "Military Monday" on the Writestream radio network (www.blogtalkradio.com) and we spent 76 minutes talking about my "Hidden Warbirds" books and lost aircraft. Check it out at:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/writestr...

It was great to have the opportunity to talk about what's going on the the warbird recovery world and all the great work that's being done. Thanks, John!

Got a note from my friend Matt Moessner in Germany to say that he saw my appearance on the TV show "Life After People." The show talked about the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and your's truly had a few minutes on camera.

Lot's of fun!

Looks like Hidden Warbirds II has been sent to those who preordered the book.

Joseph May who writes the "Travel for Aircraft" column for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer gave Hidden Warbirds II a nice review today:

http://blog.seattlepi.com/travelforai...

Thanks, Joe!

Hope everyone else is enjoying their copies.
Nick

My new book "Depression-Era Murals of the Bay Area" is out today. The Bay Area has such a rich history supporting the arts, and the bleak economic times of the 1930s were no exception.

Coit Tower, the Beach Chalet, the Aquatic Park Bathhouse, and "Art in Action" at the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939 and 1940 produced some of the most fantastic murals -- ever. This new, all-color book features many of the region's murals and makes a great travel planner for your next visit to the City by the Bay.

The authors were given incredible access to the murals and archives in the region and many notable art conservators and historians supported the writing of this book. In addition, Harvey Smith, president of the National New Deal Preservation Association wrote the foreword.

I hope you enjoy it.

I had the pleasure of attending "Before It’s Too Late: an Aviation Archaeology Symposium,” which took place at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, March 15-16, 2014.

I had the opportunity to talk about my latest book "Hidden Warbirds" and some of the aircraft lost, found, recovered, and restored that are featured on its pages.

It was also a who's-who of the aircraft recovery and restoration industry with Taras Lyssenko and Capt. Ed Ellis discussing some of the Navy aircraft brought up from Lake Michigan; Mark Allen and Robert Mester reviewing their recovery of a very early Douglas A-20 Havoc from the tundra near Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada; John Sessions discussing the recovery and restoration of his combat veteran P-51B "Impatient Virgin"; and Dr. Adrian Hunt, executive director of the Flying Heritage Collection (Everett, Wash.) giving an overview of World War II aircraft wrecks in Russia; and Dave Goss of Gosshawk Unlimited, Casa Grande, Ariz., talking about some of the many rare aircraft he and his team have restored.

Ivan Calhoun of Flight Today wrote a comprehensive report on the event:

http://flighttoday.com/ft2.php?page=....

"Hidden Warbirds 2" will be on the street on June 1. Look for it!

The next aviation archaeology/wreckchasing symposium will be held at the Travis AFB (between San Francisco and Sacramento, Calif.) on April 25, 26, 27, 2014. David Trojan is the host and more information can be found at:

http://pacaeropress.websitetoolbox.co...