Beyond the many B-24s shot down there was sudden death from accidents. Shortly after arriving in Italy, Sgt. Kenneth Higgins, McGovern’s radio operator, saw one. Right after taking off, the pilot was supposed to hit the brake pedals to keep the landing gear’s wheels from spinning as they retracted. But on this occasion, the Liberator was not yet airborne when the pilot hit the brakes and the plane nosed over and plowed into he ground. All the men in the front of the aircraft were killed. Another time, a B-24 came in to land. It had a bomb hung up in the bomb bay but the pilot, who should have checked to make sure all the bombs had dropped, had not. The bomb fell out when he landed, went off, and blew the whole plane into pieces. “The whole crew burned,” Higgins recalled. “I mean they were just charred ashes.”
Pilot Lt. Guyon Phillips saw a similar accident. Just before liftoff, the pilot hit the brakes. “A B-24 with a full load of gas and bombs just won’t get in the air without full power,” Phillips commented. This time the plane was at the end of the runway. The nose gear sheared off and the nose of the plane ground into the earth with such force that it chewed off the front of the plane, right up to the engines. All the men in the front were instantly killed.
Source:
Ambrose, Stephen E. “Cerignola, Italy.” The Wild Blue: The Crews of the B-24. Simon & Schuster, 2002. 144-45. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Higgins interview, Eisenhower Center.
Phillips letter, Briefing: Journal of the International B-24 Liberator Club 63, Winter 1997.
Further Reading:
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