USAAF
13th AF
11th BG
2001
Wartime History
Crashed off New Caledonia.
1st Lt. James B. Story's a B-26 pilot who circled the wreck recalls:
"We had a big search mission day before yesterday,
A General and a Colonel went down in a B-17 and we were
out with with a drag net trying to locate anything that
looked like life boat, etc. We flew about 4 hours and
were ending our mission when our bombardier sighted what
he thought was a life raft so we circled around for another
look and saw several more little orange spots in the
ocean and we jumped up and down as we Figured it was
them. We circled around and around our speed of 200 mph
and at low altitude of 300 feet made vision very difficult
and we strained our eyes to see each little piece that
we saw. Some time " swore I saw men on them other
times I wasn't sure. Some looked like boxes but at that
speed and altitude they whizzed by so fast that its'
almost impossible to tell what it was. After we saw about
7 of them we started a large circle with all the little
dots on the middle, it was almost like a merry go-around
and after so long you felt like you're spinning in so
we went around in another direction. We decided to radio
in about it and we got the answer keep circling and relive
would be sent to take our place. About 30 minutes later
another B-25 came and relieved us and we went home as
our gas was very low. The navy PBY went out there later
and looked around but didn't land and reported nothing
out there. Maybe I'm wrong but I still believe there
were something more than boxes out there and I don't
believe the PBY ever saw the place where we circled."
Wreckage
Wreckage suspected to be a B-17 Flying Fortress was discovered underwater off Koumac during June 2001.
References
Thanks to Aerothentic
Publications for this information.
