[VINTAGE]B-24 force landed[mod ed]

[Mgawa]

This is image of B-24 force landed on Yugoslav island Vis, Adriatic Sea, 1944.

[Flat 12x2]

Please Edit & put the date in the subject line as per 'Sticky'"Words not to use in your subject line" info at top of page.

[Connery]

Something is fishy about that photo. Why are all of the bent props on the starboard engines transparent?

[Jerry O'Neill]

Something's not right with that photo.
I would say if it is original, then it's been heavily re-touched.
Cowls are weird looking and there is absolutely no definition on the sides of the aircraft.

If I was home I could check on the 449th BG losses to see what might match. I'm also not sure that later B-24's with the Emerson nose turret carried those tail markings with the 449th. Those are early tail markings, somewhere around the Ploesti mission dates. My Uncle was a crew chief in that group so I have a lot of info on it.

The only B-245 from the 449th to "land" on Vis is:

"Ole Faithful" 42-64388 #717 13-Oct-44 Mission:Vienna M/Y
A replacement aircraft received into the 449th in March '44. Damaged by flak. Enroute to friendly field at Isle of Vis, two jumped as ordered. Ship landed at Vis with rest of crew. 2 Evaded. MACR 09216

A picture of "Ole Faithful":
http://www.norfield-publishing.com/Nose ... QGroup.htm

Jerry

Last edited by Jerry O'Neill on Mon Dec 22, 2008 1:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Shay]

I've never seen a liberator that bellied-in remain that intact. B-24s were known to take a beating in doing so. I don't see a single wrinkle or bit of distortion in the fuse. Possibly a photoshopped model or retouched image?

For comparison:












Shay
____________
Semper Fortis

Last edited by Shay on Mon Dec 22, 2008 2:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Mgawa]

Except of resize I did not take any other action on this image. It has been printed long time ago in one local newspaper and I don't know anything about the original. You are right that image does look very fine.

[Jerry O'Neill]

I never ment to implicate you doctored the image. It was obviously done some time ago.

BTW I mis-spoke about the Bomb Squadron.
Double checked when I got home and the "4" on the vertical stabilizer is the 350th BG, not the 449th ("3").
I'll have to see what aircraft were lost from that group in Yugoslavia.
Jerry

[Nathan]

Could it be a wooden mock-up?

[tulsaboy]

Nathan-

It could be a mockup, but I doubt that someone would have gone to that much trouble to make it look good. You would think that there would be some obvious spots where they just got 'er dun.

I've seen other photos of aircraft on the strip on Vis, and the background looks right. The strip there was a British fighter strip constructed to support Tito's partisans, and it was then enlarged/another strip built adjacent to it to serve as a last-ditch place for damaged B-24s trying to return to Italy to crash land on. It was so short, though, that bunches of the guys trying to land just careened off into the hillsides/mountain that surround the strip. George McGovern landed there on Vis (it's in the book Ambrose wrote about him, Wild Blue). The airplane I've researched, the Tulsamerican, was trying to land there and just couldn't quite make it to the island. It crashed just off the coast. But I digress.

Here's a couple of shots of aircraft operating on Vis (including a couple of B-24s.

kevin

[groundpounder]

it could just be my 43 year old eyes, but do the cowlings on the starboard side look a bit too round as compared to the ones on the port side? number 1 engine seems to look normal but as they get over to number 4 they seem to look very round to me.

[Chief]

It is a painting by some artist.

[tom d. friedman]

nobody is imagining that the engine cowls are wrong.... they are, & not oval shaped.