April 11-13, 2023 Firearms and Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/13/2023
An interesting Mark II bomb with attributions to famous aviator Charles Lindbergh. The bomb was treasured by noteworthy collector Dr. John K. Lattimer since the day he recovered it from Lake St. Claire, Michigan, when he was a young boy and admirer of Lindbergh. The bomb is accompanied by a 12 page story titled "A Bomb That Lindbergh Dropped" written by Dr. Lattimer which tells the story of how he was able to obtain this bomb when he was a young boy. The story starts out with John narrating his admiration for the prominent aviator, and the paragraphs develop into a story of how a then young Dr. Lattimer used to watch Army aviators exercise practice bombing runs after taking off from Selfridge Field, Michigan. He states that he and his friends would travel to the base in order to watch the pilots, as they described themselves as aspiring aviators. One of the pilots happened to be Charles Lindbergh, who the boys met on the airfield one day, and the boys were also shown around the armorer's section of the air base. Lattimer remembers "On one day I remember very well, we were astonished to see Lindbergh, who we now identified and accepted as "one of us" having his Curtis Hawk fitted with single "loaded" bombs under each wing in a special bomb rack." Lattimer then goes into detail regarding Lindbergh's new skip bombing tactics and how the boys watched in awe. Afterwards they would sneak over to the lake and commandeer a rowboat and row out to where the bombs were dropped so they could obtain a souvenir by wading "around on the bottom, feeling for the rear ends of bombs embedded in the mud", stating that "Lindbergh's new maneuver of "skip-bombing," as we quickly learned it was called, provided a much greater opportunity to find unexploded bombs lying on the bottom, a short distance from the target". Lattimer and his friends retrieved this bomb after watching one of Lindbergh's maneuvers, snuck the bomb onto a school bus while the driver was distracted by a waitress, "summoning up unrealized reserves of strength" carrying the bomb, still armed, to his grandfather's house, and then stashing it into the trunk of his grandfather's 1929 Buick for transport to his parent's house. Lattimer remarked that he and his family were able to defuse the bomb and he painted it black and grey as it appears in the present. The end of the story mentions "Some 50 year later when General and Mrs. Lindbergh came to dinner at our house...I was able to chat with him in length about my treasured bomb casing." Lindbergh told the now older Lattimer that he was delighted to talk about how he was proud of the fact that he developed the art of skip bombing at Selfridge Field using this type of bomb. Lattimer then drew the conclusion "So far as I could tell, no other pilot had tried the "skip" technique before that day, so there is a reasonable chance that he had personally dropped this very bomb." CONDITION: The bomb exhibits areas of paint loss and exhibits a nice patina. This a very nice example of a documented Mark II bomb from the collection of John K. Lattimer, attributed to one of America's most celebrated aviators.
Item Dimensions: L: 38"
Paperwork
Story of Provenance.