| In 1998, I was driving with my Dad to Reno, Nevada to an airshow featuring the only flying example of a B-24 bomber. A few weeks earlier, I'd had the amazing opportunity to actually fly one of these awesome machines for several minutes (see 1998 newsletter). This was the same type of airplane my Dad piloted during World War 2, flying with the 15th Air Force, 450th Bomb Group (the "Cottontails") out of Manduria, Italy. During our drive, my Dad recounted the following incident: While returning from a bombing mission over northern Italy, the formation began encountering heavy ground fire (flak). For reasons he could not recall, he turned to say something to the flight engineer who occupied a position behind and to his right. At that exact moment a piece of shrapnel from an exploding flak shell burst threw the cockpit floor between his feet and exited the ceiling behind him. Later when he returned to base, he took some line and ran it from the shrapnel's point of entry to the point of exit. The line showed that had he been sitting facing forward in his normal position, the shrapnel would have passed through the base of his throat and upward through the base of his skull, most likely killing him instantly. I was born 8 years later in Fresno, California...
He also told me that the bomber he flew was named "Bottoms Up". When I asked why it was given that name he said that on an earlier mission in the plane, the formation encountered some very severe weather while flying over mountainous terrain. So severe that some planes were even lost. At one point a severe wind shear took hold of the plane and flipped it over and my Dad (apparently having demonstrated in flight school that a B-24 could in fact be barrel-rolled) smoothly guided it back around and thereby earning it the name. The B-24 in the above photo is from the same bomb group and carries the nose art/name "Bottoms Up", but I have no way of knowing if it is the same airplane. |
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