Carbine

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by sheepherder

I watched the Lowell Thomas Special back in the 50's when it first aired. I also bought the book, which goes up as far as 1982. Quite interesting. I should check and see if anything more has been investigated, now that Qaddafi is gone.

There seems there is not much more or much left to investigate.

The saddest thing is that if the crew went South instead of North they would have had better chances of survival. They would eventually have found the plane which had water and food supplies even the radio was still operational when the plane was found 17 years after the crash.

That said, they had no way of knowing that their base was so far North that it was beyond their reach.

By the way. Any thoughts on flight 19?

[nukem556]

From what I recall without re-researching, Taylor, the flight leader of Flight 19, was known for being weak in navigational skills, and had convinced himself that the flight was somewhere in the Gulf, west of Florida, and he was wandering to the north and east hoping to hit land. Actually, he was somewhere near Bermuda, and expended his flight's fuel, fate unknown. The weird thing is , 5 TBM Avengers were found on the ocean floor in that very area a few years back, and none of the serial numbers matched the lost flight, nor was there ever an explantion by the Navy how 5 similar planes came to be lost in the same area.

I remember years ago, when Spielbergs "Close Encounters of the First Kind" came out, the opening scene was of the 5 Avengers found in a desert, brought back by the aliens......gave me chills...

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by nukem556

The weird thing is , 5 TBM Avengers were found on the ocean floor in that very area a few years back, and none of the serial numbers matched the lost flight, nor was there ever an explantion by the Navy how 5 similar planes came to be lost in the same area.

You can say that again.

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by kurusu

There seems there is not much more or much left to investigate.

The last chapter of the book details recovery of one complete engine from the wreck in 1968 and "dismantling it found fragments of a single 20mm cannon projectile. With the altitude and position of the flight path it could only have come from a head-on pass by an enemy night fighter, since there were no holes in the cowling." [From the book].

What is interesting is that the plane flew with a single crew for it's short wartime life, until that last mission. The original crew was forced to take another bomber, and therefore missed Lady Be Good's last flight.

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by sheepherder

The last chapter of the book details recovery of one complete engine from the wreck in 1968 and "dismantling it found fragments of a single 20mm cannon projectile. With the altitude and position of the flight path it could only have come from a head-on pass by an enemy night fighter, since there were no holes in the cowling." [From the book].

Maybe the plane was bounced in a previous mission, the engine cowling replaced but the fragments where either missed in the repairs or considered unimportant.
Until the plane was removed from the crash site it was sort of a tourist attraction and it was much tampered with. My guess is there is not much left worth investigating.

Originally Posted by sheepherder

What is interesting is that the plane flew with a single crew for it's short wartime life, until that last mission. The original crew was forced to take another bomber, and therefore missed Lady Be Good's last flight.

That I didn't know. They were lucky, I would not wish the journey on that last flight to my worst enemy.