Aircraft History
"Jane" was painted in script lettering on the cowl of aircraft, painted by the plane's crew chief. Flew on the April 5, 1944 mission against Hollandia., piloted by Baldwin.

Mission History
This A-20 was the 3rd Attack Group's only loss infamous "Black Sunday" mission to Hollandia. Sanders was assigned to "Joy Baby", after mechanical trouble in his own aircraft. He took off last and had to run his engines at high power to catchup to the group, guzzling fuel.

After completing the mission, Sanders got lost in cloudy weather, and was separated and lost. He began following the coastline in hopes of landing at Saidor Airfield.

"Joy Baby" ran out of fuel, and force landed with gear down near the Malas River. During the landing the nose wheel collapsed, and the right wing impacted a tree, but both crew were unharmed.

The crew were unaware they were behind enemy territory, and built a shelter on the beach and lit a bonfire to attract the attention of friendly forces. Using their emergency supplies they caught several fish, and then went to sleep for the night. Only a few minutes walk behind them was the north coast road, used by the Japanese moving between Madang to Hansa Bay.

Rescue By PBY
The two crew members were unaware they had landed behind enemy territory, instead believing they were within Allied lines. Spotted the next day in the early morning by four 36th FS P-38H's, lead by 1st Lt. Orville Hermann, who called in have them picked up, and orbited in the vicinity, to watch the rescue of the crew. A US Navy PBY, assigned to VPB-34 came to their aid, from seaplane tender Half Moon.

The Catalina, flown by Lt. Merritt had just collected another downed "Black Sunday" crew, and went to rescue the crew of "Joy Baby". On the way to complete the rescue, the PBY spotted Japanese soldiers approaching the crash site, a half mile away. When rescued, the the crew were still unaware that they were behind enemy lines, and Sanders invited to join them for a swim before leaving!

The PBY's nose gunners response is unknown, but this humorous incident soon reached General Kenney at Nadzab, as one of the few humorous stories of the "Black Sunday" mission, and he even mentioned it in his memoirs, recalling his reaction to the story: "That evening we got a chance to smile."

Wreckage
After the rescue, the wreck was strafed by American planes, burning the center fuselage, to prevent it from falling into Japanese hands.

References
Black Sunday

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Last Updated
October 1, 2009