Mystery relic

If the date and cause are right, how the location came to be wrong is a puzzle. But as we all know, these things happen.

Somehow, I missed that thread, Geoff, otherwise I would have suggested the B-24 could have been the one ‘near Liverpool’. It was actually across the Mersey on the Wirral Peninsula. The location was in fields near Landican, a hamlet close to Birkenhead. As for the location on your relic, there is nothing in the area which is phonetically anywhere near close to ‘Castle Dykes’.

Spent an idle evening doing some Google research on this incident recently & came up with something interesting. Could this piece of fabric have come from a B-24H 42-50347, from the 703rd BS, 445th BG, which was lost with all 24 on board when it exploded in mid-air near Liverpool. Apart from the location written on the fabric, the rest of the inscription fits.

I did find an image on Google which is said to show 42-50347. The image shows the upper surfaces which are olive drab except for the flying surfaces on the wing which are silver.

Any thoughts?

Geoff (formerly von Perthes)

Skipper,

Nothing new I’m afraid. Plenty of people have read my post on the Army Air Forces forum, but no replies. When I get the chance to visit Motor Books, I’ll try looking in a few of their B-24/17 books. If I get nothing there I’ll try the D.Certs as a last resort.

Geoff.

Any news on this front yet, Geoff?
I have just studied one of the photos I took at the mixed B-17/B-24 crash site and am now convinced that the control surface speciment I should you was in fact from the B-24 – from one of its vertical stabilisers. Don’t really know if that helps our investigation any!
Regards
Skipper

I’m 99.9% certain the the USAAF never operated B25’s in the UK and the silver doped fabric would count out an A20 as all UK-based ones were camouflaged as far as I can recall.

If William F Price had finished his tour on the 9th May 1944, I wonder if he & the others could have been on their way back to the states, or did he just go along for the ride on a cross-country or air-test?

No other news yet.

Getting back to an earlier post of mine, could the fabric have come from a twin-engined USAAF bomber, i.e. A-20, A-26, B-26 or B-25, or could it only have come from a B-17 or B-24?

Geoff.

Geoff

The plot thickens!!!

Just hope that after all this that these four guys are the one’s we’re after!

Very strange regarding the four crewmembers not being recognised by the 445th, particularly as all four are cleary recorded (on the AMBC website and the American World War 2 Memorial Website) as being assigned to the 445th, 702nd on the day they were killed.

I have found that some of Bomb Group records are not always 100% accurate – reporting restrictions and an apprent lax in the clear and concise reporting of the most basic of facts have led me up many blind alleys in the past. Particularly, when non-operational flight, eg NAVEX, Whisky Runs, etc., are concerned.

As an aside, I personlly know two veterans who flew with different Bomb Groups during two seperate tours. Conincidently, the actor Jimmy Stewart did just that with one tour being with the 445th at Tibenham!!!

Please let me know how you get on and I shall a further think.

All the best

Skipper

Skipper,

This is the reply from Mike Simpson:-

‘The B-24 had fabric control surfaces (rudder, ailerons, and elevators). I was scheduled to take a ride on the Collings Foundation B-24J “Dragon and His Tail” when the plane was grouned in Dallas, Texas as a result of damage from a hail storm…it holed all of the control surfaces.

The 445th Bomb Group did not lose any aircraft on the 18th of October, 1944. 1st Lt William F. Price was a navigator with the 702nd Bomb Squadron and flew 34 missions with the group, his last on May 9th, 1944. Unless he came back to fly another tour with another bomb group (unlikely), I can not account for why he would be buried there.

I’ve put a request for info in to the 44th Bomb Group who did lose 3 aircraft on 81 Oct 44 and will forward their reply to you.

Thank you for your inquiry. Good luck in your search.

Mike Simpson
445th BG webmaster’

Geoff

Skipper,

Have also posted on the forum as you suggested

Geoff.

Skipper,

I have emailed Mike Simpson at the address you gave, so we shall see if the link is still good.

If I don’t get a reply by Saturday am, I shall try Motor Books (an old haunt of mine), and if no joy there then I will go for the D.Certs.

Will let you know what transpires.

Geoff.

Geoff,

The 445th BG “expert” seems to be:

Mike Simpson
Homepage: http://445th-bomb-group.com
Email: [email]445bg@cox.net[/email]

Webpage seems to be out of use but hopefully he can be contacted at the given address.

Personally, I would contact him and/or place a messgae on http://www.armyairforces.com/forums/gforum.cgi?forum=43.

Not sure about the death certificates – if you can get them for US crew then go for it!

If you are in London then why not go to Motor Books near Leicester Square – they have a large range of US Unit Histories – I seem to remeber one pertaining to the 445th?

Hope this is of help

Skipper

Skipper,

Many thanks for your detective work on this one. The 702nd BS B-24 sounds very interesting. If you can’t pin this one down to a crash location, I’m wondering if it would be worth getting copies of the death certificates for a couple of the crew. I’ve done this with RAF & Luftwaffe aircrew so I assume a D.Cert would have been filled out in the normal way. I can probably go into London on Saturday, and order the certs from the Family Records Centre, unless you can come up with a location for their crash before then?

If you can’t come up with a location for the 702nd BS B-24 crash by Friday evening, let me know on this thread, and I’ll try & order the certs on Saturday (6th Dec).

Geoff

Some wonderful detective work there Skipper, but as you say, there’s nothing which really puts an aircraft in that location on that date.

Going off on another tack, I’m thinking that perhaps the date is slightly out. If an aircraft went in on a particular date, presumably the crash site would be sealed off and guarded until suhc time as the investigators and salvage crews have gathered up whatever they can, say a week or so? And only after that’s done would the local populace be able to gain access to the area.

So perhaps 18th Oct 1944 is the date on which the piece was found, therefore the crash could have happened anything up to two weeks before? Or conversely, the piece was found a while after the crash, and the date marked on it is what the finder *thinks* was the actual crash date?

Just trying to put myself in that person’s shoes; if I saw something two weeks ago, I can probably remember what it was, where it was, etc, but there’s a possibility that I’d get the exact date wrong. Just a thought….

Geoff,

No B-24 combat missions that day.
Therefore a cross country flight of some sort?
Might explain, if it were a ’24, why a 445th BG aircraft was so far away from Tibenham?

Running short of ideas now, I’m afriad!

Skipper

Photos recently taken where a B-24 and B-17 crashed next to each other (in seperate incidents) and their debris intermingled. As the B-24 was olive drab and the B-17 “silver” then I would strongly believe it was from the B-17.
If “your” a/c was a “silver” one then it could still be from a 1944 era B-24, or then again a 1944 era B-17…!!!

hhhhmmmm….

And this?

Recognise this?

Flood,
I agree with you on the multi-crewed a/c idea.

Geoff,
Last night I trawled numerous databases and came up with the following from the Cambridge American Cemetary records.
On the day in question, 4 aircrew from the 445 BG, 702nd BS, based at Tibenham, Norfolk were killed. This group flew B-24s!!!

Those recorded as still buried at Cambridge are:
* 2nd Lt Ralph G Wills, Jr
* 1st William F Price
* 2 Lt Richard M Blake
* Flight Officer Roy W Sechler

My experience of researching heavy bomber crew is that, on average, there is a 50:50 split of those men reinterred stateside in a private burial and those who remain in Cambridge – this might confirm that it was a B-24 with approx 10 men onboard.

Still, no MACR exists. This might suggest that a MACR was only raised when a ship was technically “lost” and therefore where it was KNOWN to have crashed and the crew recovered within 24 hours (the time after which a MACR was raised) then a MACR would NOT have been issued. I therefore suggest that a collision in the middle of the English countryside, particularly amongst all those airbases, would have been such that rescue teams, etc would have been there within minutes.
However, this situation might bring the B-17 back into contention!!! Another however, though, is that I haven’t seen any burials at Cambridge which relate to a B-17 group.

An Accident Report would, however, still have been raised for such aircraft. I’ll see if I can come up with anything on this!

It might also have been a B-17/B-24 on a delivery flight?

I’ll see what else I can come up with

Skipper

If I just stick my neck out and say that I feel that it was a multi-crewed a/c – if the person writing on the wreckage had witnessed the incident, or had first hand knowledge, then surely they would have written ‘pilot killed’, and not crew unless they were sure that there was more than one death?
I suppose an aircraft on delivery would also be on the check lists too?

Flood.