Warbird Information Exchange

Hello again. While I'm at it, let me clear up this bit of mis-information. There have been a couple other of my photos posted here on the "Warbirds" website, probably taken from my old Navy squadron's website (VP-2). One shows me leaning up against what is left of a B-17 on Shemya in the Aleutians. I mistakenly put "B-29" down and never caught it. Some of you sharp-eyed chaps DID spot the mistake. My apologies. Also there is a picture I took of the Buldir Island P-38. All taken back in 1962-63-64. If you want to see more Navy pictures, go to www.patron2.com (there is a link to go see the restored Buldir P-38).

Dave Bowen

Could it be LB-30 AL557 that is now sitting outside in Ft. Collins, CO? The timing sounds about right.

Sax - I was thinking the same, but the LB-30 was still in Alaska in 1989, according to my data. I've checked all the Libs I could think of, Hill, Castle, etc., and none of the dates of retrieval seem to be in this 1982-85 time frame. Hope someone can figure out which one JBoyle saw.

Dave - Thanks for your post. The survey I cited was done by AFTER THE BATTLE, a professionally-done publication that has always seemed to research their subjects thoroughly. Could there be another Lib on Ilak besides the one blown up in the 40s, or would you have seen it when you flew over (I don't know how big this island is)? Also, did you see the A-20 at Kiska? Thanks again for the info you posted.

[/img]http://B24 Ilak higher altitude.jpg[/img] George, here I hope, is another picture of the B24 on Ilak. I am no computer whiz so bear with me. Ilak is a SMALL flat island. The pictures shows about 3/4th of the total island (IF I remember right after 40 some odd years). I doubt that there was another B24 there. If they blew up one, why would they leave another intact? (Note the numerous bomb craters). Much of this I was told back in '63, but I did see the destroyed a/c and did take pictures as best I could. As for Kiska, two or three different times we made passes across the harbor. The half submerged Japanese ships were clearly visable. Much wreckage could be seen of the Japanese emplacements. The sub pen, the runway, many, many bomb craters. We did not see, nor knew of an A-20 wreck. There was/is a fairly intact PV-1 on Agattu if I remember correctly although we did not see it either. As you know, aircraft wreckage up there is not uncommon, much of it unidentifiable from the air. We also did not know about the Attu P-38, but did find the Buldir P-38 and got a distant picture. That was a tough place to put an a/c down. Great job of flying. Again, hope this helps. Dave Bowen

Pacific Wrecks website only one B-24 on Ilak Island. The photographs shown on their site seem to correspond, in terms of remains, to those shown in Dave's photographs with the big difference being the placement of the wings (now parallel to one another). I had heard that this site had been worked on prior to the recovery by another crew recovering parts for a B-24 project. Perhaps the wings were moved together to gather the parts before removal... only for that removal to not occur for some reason. Any ideas?

http://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/b-24/41-23908.html

Cheers,
Richard

Thanks, Dave. AFTER THE BATTLE obviously got it wrong.

Richard - that link is confusing to me, i.e., the mixup in the Lib serials. I thought it was agreed that the Hill Lib serial from Great Sitkin was correct.

Adak had so many P-38s, P-39s and B-24s, you would think something would still be there, probably buried. And Shemya is supposed to have a huge burial pit of P-38s, but I think it is a restricted area.

George and Richard, Obviously my picture never came through so somebody please give me a few clues how to post a picture. I am computer illiterate. In the meantime I went to Pacific Wrecks as Richard suggested. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong a/c but that looks like a different B24, I guess on Great Sitkin, about 100 miles NE of Ilak Island. The information I got from the relative of one of the Ilak B24 crewmembers and things I gleemed from a news clipping, etc., is that this a/c is Ser #41-11850, nick-named "Li'l DeIcer". The pilot was Capt. Corbin Terry and it happened on August 12, 1944. The crew was rescued by boat within hours. Dave

For posting pictures, it's best to use a free photo-hosting site like http://photobucket.com/. I've been using it for two or three years, and it works great. You upload the picture to the site, then paste a link to it on your posts in the forums. Most forums don't allow direct posting of images anymore, due to the danger of viruses and hackers.

SN

My garndfather was the radar operator with the Ilak crew. There is a PacificWrecks page devoted to this wreck:

http://pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/b-24/41-11850.html

There some more information on there for you. I am very interested in seeing some more recent pictures if anybody has the ability/connections!