With both engines feathered the crew were most likely at a decision point between most or all of the crew bailing out if needed or just trying to make the field if possible. The props clearly weren’t turning when the plane reached the ground, no chord-wise scratches and only a bent tip or two on the low side. We don’t know if the engines were damaged separately or if possibly they both suffered fuel starvation. Whatever caused the last engine to stop turning, the crew was able to feather it while they still had oil in the prop hub, which greatly increased their glide range, options, and chances of survival.
The B-26 has 3 gear levers on the back side of the center pedestal. The first lever is the normal gear extension/retraction lever, the second is the Emergency Nose Gear lever, and the third is the Emergency Main Gear lever. The 2 Emergency levers operate shuttle valves between the normal and emergency systems. Normal operation of the landing gear, flaps, and brakes is hydraulic, and pressure is provided by 2 engine-driven pumps, one in each engine. If these both fail and pressure falls below 130 lbs., emergency pressure can be provided by a hand pump to operate the doors and locks of the nose gear and mains by 2 separate emergency systems. Emergency procedures are to use the nose gear lever first and hand pump the nose gear down and locked, then using the main gear lever the hand pump only needs to provide enough pressure to open the doors and release the uplock and gravity will cause the mains to drop and the air load will lock them into place. After the nose gear is down and locked if the mains don’t come down the extended nose gear will minimize fuselage damage. If you were to put the mains down first and then the nose gear wouldn’t extend, loss of ship and crew injuries were more likely. If the nose gear won’t come down first, you would never put the mains down but would belly land.
So it looks like the crew did a great job and were able to feather both engines and then get all 3 gear down and locked but then broke the nose gear on landing. They would have been on emergency hydraulic systems so may have had little or no control of brakes and flight surfaces and suffered a runway excursion. The B-26 doesn’t have nose wheel steering, the wheel can swivel 45 degrees left or right of center and is controlled by differential braking and engine power at speeds below rudder effectiveness. I’m guessing that the photographer from the 1361st Photographic Squadron who took this shot may be standing at the edge of the runway or it is out of frame to the left side.
Descriptions of many of the 386th Bomb Group missions are online but I haven’t seen any for the day in question. The 386th BG B-26s were bombing some important targets during this period and for every real invasion target they attacked they were instructed to bomb 2 targets in other areas to act as diversions from their actual intended purpose.
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