43-32072 | American Air Museum

Nicknames: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Aircraft Type: AT-17 Bobcat
Production block number: Cessna UC-78-CE Bobcat
Manufacturer: Cessna
Markings & paint scheme: The aircraft's nickname "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a reference to the 1852 anti-slavery novel of the same name by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Stage adaptations of the novel helped to popularise prevailing negative stereotypes of Black people. The reasons why the 361st Fighter Group gave 43-32072 the nickname 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' are unclear, but the nickname could be a description of the aircraft's crude construction (compared to the all metal P-51 Mustang the unit used for combat flying), or to the popular derogatory characterisation of the titular 'Uncle Tom' as hardworking and excessively subservient to his masters.

43-32072 Uncle Tom's Cabin

Lieutenant Victor E Bocquin of the 361st Fighter Group with a UC-78 Bobcat nicknamed "Uncle Tom's Cabin" at Little Walden. Image via James D Smith. Written on slide casing: 'UC-78 Little Walden, LT VE Bocquin.'

media-388369.jpg FRE 6205 Lieutenant Victor E Bocquin of the 361st Fighter Group with a UC-78 Bobcat nicknamed "Uncle Tom's Cabin" at Little Walden. Image via James D Smith. Written on slide casing: 'UC-78 Little Walden, LT VE Bocquin.' Roger Freeman Collection

IWM, Roger Freeman Collection

Object Number - FRE 6205 - Lieutenant Victor E Bocquin of the 361st Fighter Group with a UC-78 Bobcat nicknamed "Uncle Tom's Cabin" at Little Walden. Image via James D Smith....

The Group's Cessna UC-78 "Uncle Tom's Cabin", 42-32072 crashed into a hillside in thick fog near RAF Halton in Buckinghamshire on 14 November 1944, while returning from Exeter. The crew of a RAF ambulance recovered the pilot, Lt. John J. Sadinski of the 376th Squadron, and his passenger, Lt. Charles R. Law, Group Transportation Officer, both seriously injured, but Lt. Sadinski later died in the ambulance.