Info? on Baltimore IIIA FA314 crash St Vincent West Indies 12/04/43

eyewitness account

Hi D Richard.
I came across your post during the Christmas break.
You will find a lot of references to operations in Ocean Bridge” by Christie.
Still available on Amazon.
However in the meantime there is a very good eyewitness account of what was going on in 1943 by Simmon Eddy who was on operations there.
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/11623/9a1/
Hope this is of help/interest
Regards

Dear D Richard,

The first Baltimore deliveries were done in fact by sea, however U-Boats action led them to be prepared for the South Atlantic air ferry route by installing a long-range belly tank onto the bomb bay.

See what Tony O’Toole says on his article ‘Martin 187 Baltimore’, at Hellenic Wings, by Mihail Solanakis:

Whilst Baltimore deliveries were being shipped to West Africa by sea two ships, the S.S. Thursco Bank and S.S. Loch Don had been sunk by U-Boats taking at least 41 Baltimore’s down with them, but with the arrival of the Mk.IIIA came a new means of delivery as from now on all new Baltimore’s were to be flown directly across the South Atlantic to West Africa instead. To do this they would have to stage through airfields in the Bahamas and Brazil and in order to make such long range transit flights a new overload long range fuel tank was developed which was so large that the bomb doors had to be left open in flight and due to this a lightweight aerodynamic fairing was fitted in front of the bomb bay during delivery. (see drawing).
Losses still occurred however and by the time aerial deliveries had finished in late 1944 at least 17 Baltimore’s had been lost during their ferry flights.

The FA314 of course had such configuration to be ferried through The Caribbean and South America; in this way it would be even more difficult to control it in a single-engine situation.

Take a look at the attached file, showing the extra belly tank after a crossing of the South Atlantic.

Merry Christmas from Brazil.

* Picture available at the Imperial War Museum website.

Routing

Gus and Air Ministry

Many thanks for your input on the crash. Sorry not to have responded long before. Something desperate was taking place on this aircraft which created an urgent need to land. Being familiar with the sea along that coastline I can say that in April it is usually extremely rough with the tradewinds blowing at 20 kts. ditching was not a pleasant prospect and they may have thought what appeared to be a strip of grass was the safer option. Sadly it was not. The suggestion that they were sight seeing makes a lot of sense to me.
Gus. Your memory of the routes flown are extremely valuable. Did you recall ever meeting any of the crew involved. I think I have tracked down the civilian pilot to Prince George, BC, Canada. His name appears on a war memorial there.

Hi Gus and welcome to the forum.

Here are a couple of extracts from the Baltimore Operating Manual describing the fuel system and the engine fire extinguishers.

Hope they’re of interest!

a P.S. to page 2

Duncan: I see that I made a few typographical errors in my message…sorry…and one wrong statement…I said that I thought the pilot had just strayed too far “west”. I should have said “too far EAST”.. Gus Harris

page 2 Baltimore FA314

It may have been that 314 was flight planned for Edinburgh field in Trinidad, as some crews liked to break up the leg into two sections, and on the way, deviate to look at Grenada, and fly thru the heavily fortified Dragon’s mouth entrance to Piarco..especially if it was a first time crew…I am sort of wondering why the 314 captain did not order the nav and r/op to bailout over the island then try and b/o himself…as what happened to Captain Rowe in an FA over the Amazon estuary that season..the nav and r/o were rescued, but sadly Rowe’s chute failed to open in time..so..o..that leaves us still with no positive answer re 314..but my guess is that they just strayed west of track.
(that was flight planned for either Edinburgh or Atkinson.. Hope this can help you if you do further research…best regards Gus Harris Mississauga Canada

Baltimore FA 314

Hello Duncan: Just found this URL by accident and as a new member can shed some light on 314 crash on you island…I was an RNZAF/RAF ferry command navigator operating out of Nassau in 1943 and had delivered 4 or 5 of the FA series to Accra on the African coast early in that year..from Nassau our first stop was Borinquen field in Puerto Rico..next leg was to air turning point either at Guadalupe or Montserrat, then south between the Grenadines and Grenada, making landfall on north Trinudad, over Waller field and direct to Atkinson field in British Guiana..then next leg to Belem Brazil..next to Natal, our jump off forAscension Island, then to Accra, terminating our delivery assignment…from there I understand, other RAF ferry crews took them up to Cairo via Kano, Maiduguiri, Khartoum etc for delivery to the front lines.We deadheaded back to Nassau..Now our A30’s were fitted with a large 600 gal plus bomb bay tank to get us across the longest leg to Ascension..from a pilots view,making for difficult takeoffs due to swing..FA 314 would have been so equipped..Sometimes pilots would stray from the planned flight track just to “sightsee” or they had strayed to far west( if this was their first trip down the leg)..Beane field was a legal alternate but I don;t think they were headed there..Can’t remember any fire suppression systems on the A30’s, and they don’t fly the best on one engine which I know from experience..if fire demanded immeditate landing then the ocean would have been our choice..what with a .75 load of fuel aboard.

PM for Duncan

Duncan: check your Private Messages. I just sent you one.
Laurence Garey

Laurence

This new information does tend to strengthen the transport by ship question. I had made the following note about crossing the Caribbean Sea.

The Baltimore had a listed range of 950 miles or 825 Nautical Miles. The choices of flight path from Puerto Rico (Roosevelt Roads being the extreme North West possibility) where the last fueling stop was probably made to Trinidad could have been direct at 577 NM, along but West of the island chain to St Lucia then East to Trinidad 693NM or East of the island chain the longest route being 750 NM (overflight of Martinique or Guadeloupe may not have been permitted)

I suspect that Option 2 was the most likely route and one that I have utilised myself on trips to and from Puerto Rico to Trinidad so the distance was roughly 700 NM with about one hour reserve

If the range figures are not correct, flying the long arc above they could still have made intermediate stops for fuel.

If my range figures are correct then they would have been able to fly down to Brazil but then Belem to Dakar was 2100 nm nonstop over the Atlantic so apparently out of the question but some aircraft did go to Natal then Ascension Island (1420 nm) and on to Monrovia (860 nm.) Was that possible with the extra tank? If no then the aircraft must have been dismantled at some point, and shipped around Africa to Alexandria or Basra.

We know it was being ferried somewhere and the only area of operation I know so far for the Baltimore was North Africa and the Med so where was the last point on this ferry stage? More research to be done.

When next you speak to Tony could you confirm the range quoted and see if he remembers the added range with the extra tank. Range in terms of a one way flight and not range of operation.

You have provided a lot of valuable information and Tony does confirm my thoughts on aborted landings.

Best regards
Duncan

Baltimore go-arounds

Duncan:
For your information Tony says thank goodness he never had to test either fire suppression or an aborted landing with one engine out on the Baltimore. Nor does he know of anyone who did. He imagines a go-around like that would have been extremely interesting.

Further, he doubts the Baltimore could have crossed the ditch. To give them the range to go up into the Aegean they welded up 400 gallon ‘tin’ overload tanks, no self-sealing, that they hung in the bomb bay. That gave them about seven hours. There was no contents gauge, so they used them first until the motors faltered, then switched to wing tanks!! Dodgy stuff!

I said before that the Baltimores were assembled at Basra. In fact those were the ones destined for Russia. The RAF ones were assembled outside Alexandria, to where the 203 Sqd boys would fly a used one for maintenance and get into a new-smelling one, “bit like a new car”.

I hope this helps you recreate what it was like in 1943, and maybe gives some insight into the crash in the West Indies. Were they at the extreme of their fuel endurance, I wonder? Did they attempt a “precautionary” landing with maybe an engine out?

Laurence

Laurence
Very interesting information on your friend and superb pictures of the Baltimore and the junkyards. Looking at the Baltimore numbers FA314 falls closely in between them. She may well have been destined to his very squadron. Perhaps he knew of some that failed to arrive and what became of them.
Thankyou for that.
Regards
Duncan

Going round in a Baltimore

Hello Duncan
I have asked my friend. I have not given you his name as he has not yet said I can! But if you look at my web site you will probably catch on!
I am sure he will remember the procedures for going around in the Baltimore. He has a very good memory of those days.
He told me about take off:
Their very strong u/carriages would put you on your back if you blew a tyre on takeoff.We had several of those.I had one,360 degree wheelie,reared up almost to the point of balance and then it banged back onto the tail.The overload fuel tank in the bomb bay usually burst if you went right over and the lot went BANG
I shall be back as soon as I hear from him.
Laurence Garey
http://l.garey.googlepages.com/benghazi1943

That is interesting garey. I know this one was flying towards Trinidad which was a major assembly point for convoys coming over from the Indian Ocean and up from South America (and the reverse) the Sea Bees had built a good highway between Piarco and Waller airfields to the main port so it is well worth looking in to.

It would be interesting if your pilot friend could say how well the engine fire suppression systems worked and how easy or difficult it would have been to make a go around after aborting a landing at a late stage with the critical engine dead.

Regards
Duncan

Baltimore deliveries 1943

I asked a friend who was a pilot on Baltimores in Benghazi in 1943. He tells me their aircraft were delivered by sea, so I wonder if FA314 was on its way to a port of embarkation. According to my informant they were shipped to Basra and assembled there. A hairy story is that one batch came without the upper turrets. When they tried to test fly them without turrets, two pilots were killed in the attempt.

Laurence

Richard – try posting on the RAF commands website forum (use google to find it!). I’m sure you will get a response there.

Thank you very much for that advice Kev and a big help in determining crew positions. I will see what RAF Hendon can give me.

I’ve always thought this case intriguing because it happened enroute, not takeoff or landing. At that time of the year the weather is ideal for flying and if they had developed a problem Beane Field on St Lucia was 33nm away which they would have passed abeam of about 8 minutes earlier. Had they been flying the direct route, with the way the island chain curves back West to Grenada, it would not make sense to me to head for St Vincent which would have been no closer than Grenada where I believe Pearls may have already been built.

The other point is that ditching in the very calm waters along the Western or leeward side of the islands would have been a far safer proposition than trying to set down on unknown terrain. I’m inclined to believe they were following the island chain, keeping to the less turbulent Windward side as we all still do when something more than an engine failure took place. It would have to be an uncontrollable fire that required an immediate return to earth and the circuits people may have seen were their rapid descending 360’s leading to a commited landing.

Thanks again
Duncan

I’ll try and help but it might just be a case of me giving you more ideas on where to look.

I presume the crew details you have are taken from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website?

Geoffrey John Hamilton Carter was indeed Australian, aged 21 and from Yass in New South Wales. He enlisted on the 22nd of June 1941. The CWGC has him as with 45 Group transport Command at the time of his death. This is also true of the Roll of Honour Circular from the Australian War Memorial website. However, the nominal Roll from the Australian War memorial website has him as still on strength with 31 OTU, RAF Debert, Nova Scotia, Canada. This is where he would have trained, I suspect as a Wireless Operator / Air Gunner. I further suspect that he was part of a scratch crew brought together to ferry this Baltimore to the Middle East. As Faulkner was Captain and presumably pilot and perry was Navigator I reckon it is pretty certain that Carter was flying as Wireless Operator. Sorry I can’t help more with the other two.

As it was wartime I doubt that anything other than the most cursory of investigations would have taken place. I would suggest that your best bet is to try and acquire copies of the aircraft movement and loss cards for FA314. These are held by the RAF Museum at Hendon and the contact details are provided on the link below.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/london/contact/

The movement card will tell you very little as the aircraft presumably had a short life. The accident card may hold information which is useful or confirm an eyewitness story. There may even be a short note regarding the Court of Inquiry into the accident. They are very helpful and due to your location may be able to conduct your query via email.

Sorry I can’t help more but if anything else comes to mind I’ll let you know.

Regards,

kev35