Wing and a Prayer

It was not necessarry to get a direct hit from flak to sustain serious damage. Once the artillery gunners determined the bomber formation's altitude, they would sometimes fill an area of the sky with bursts of flak placed directly in the path of the bombers. This "box" could be 2000 feet high, wide, and deep. From the ground, the box looked like dark polka dots in the sky. From the cockpit of a B-24, the "box" looked like a solid black cloud with red bursts in it. The airmen called them "iron clouds". The flak shells were filled with all kinds of steel fragments that could rip through the thin skin of an airplane tearing up control cables, hydraulic lines, fuel lines and any sort of vital part. They also did considerable damage to humans.


When long range American fighter planes came into use, the fighter escorts were finally able to protect the bombers all the way to the target. They began to see what the bomber squadrons had been facing all along.

Lt. Edward Gleed, a P-51 Mustang pilot, said:

"We didn't want any part of that flak. It was a horrendous sight to see six B-24 Liberators with all that flak starting to come up and -bang - there's only five airplanes left and one big ball of smoke."*
P-51 pilot Lt. Jefferson:
"Planes fell in flames, planes fell not in flames, an occasional one pulled out and crash-landed, sometimes successfully, sometimes they blew up. Men fell in flames, men fell in parachutes, some candlesticked (when their parachutes didn't open). Pieces of men dropped through the hole, pieces of planes.. Have you any idea of what it's like to vomit in an oxygen mask? ..These bomber guys had seen the inside of hell."*

*from The Wild Blue by Stephen E. Ambrose


Direct hits by flak shells were almost certain destruction for the aircraft.



This B-24L (44-49710 "Stevonovitch II") of the 464th BG, 15th Air Force was photographed after a direct hit in the left wing tank. The resulting fire caused the wing to collapse and the plane to flip on its back. Lt Mickey Walsh, radar operator, was the sole survivor.**



Don Pierce recalled counting the jumpers from a falling plane...

"We always counted..."

The last man out (probably the pilot) opened his chute only to fall through the bottom of the harness.
Don explained that the strap that went under the crotch was pretty uncomfortable.
"In all the excitement, the guy probably just forgot to fasten it."


Sometimes the crew had time to bail out.  Sometimes they didn't.




Six crew members escaped this stricken ship to become Prisoners of War. The pilot was shot soon afterward.

 
  **B-24 Liberator Units of the Eighth Air Force - Robert F. Dorr
 
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