Aircraft History
This B-24 had the squadron's "Moby Dick" paint scheme on its nose with the whale's eye and mouth painted on the nose.

Mission History
Took off on a mission to bomb troops at Daraga. Damaged by flak over Legaspi that damaged the hydraulic system but was able to returned and crash landed without flaps or undercarriage at Hollandia, crashing into a pile of 55 gallon fuel drums, that were luckily empty. In the crash, the nose turret completely dislocated from the fuselage, and both propellers torn from the engines #1 and #2.

Carl Thien writes in Pacific Island Odyssey:
"One day, returning from a ride in an A-20, I was passing a fuel dump near the airport when a B-24 returning from a bombing run, was unable to reach the Sentani Strip and crashed into hundreds of empty fuel drums. A few other nearby soldiers went into the dump to do what we could to help the downed flyers. Some of the empty drums were exploding, and others were starting to burn, but we could see the flyers trying to get out of the plane. We managed to bring three of them to the edge of the dump before a regular crash crew arrived and got the rest out. Several had been wounded before the crash, and couple more were badly hurt when when the plane grounded. The B-24 was still repairable after it was dragged out of the area and back to the airstrip, and we saw it the next week being worked on. We heard that most of the crew survived even though being severely wounded."

References
The Forgotten Fifth by Michael Claringbould, page 76
Pacific Island Odyssey by Carl Thien.

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Last Updated
October 1, 2009