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A Citizen Soldier in the Air.Wewak Bee’s Nest - cont.Col. Faulkner ordered the formation to follow him down, helping to keep the Zeros off the wounded plane in hopes that he could reach the shore or maybe ditch safely. Charlie also believes they all jettisoned their bombs at this point (another report says that Faulkner dropped his bombs with the bay doors closed, damaging the doors - Charlie doesn’t remember this, but there was a lot going on at the time!). The badly damaged B-24 was lost on this mission, though Charlie does not recall seeing it hit the water. The formation got down as low as 2000 feet, flying east in a running fight with the Zeros. Charlie’s B-24 took many hits, and the flight engineer (top turret gunner) had a close call when he ran out of ammo and climbed down to get more - at that moment a Zero hit the top turret, damaging it badly - but the engineer was not hurt.The nose turret lost hydraulic power. Gunners from all the planes claimed twelve enemy fighters definitely shot down in this engagement, with six more as 'probables', and the Zeros eventually broke off their attack. None of Charlie’s crew was wounded. His plane also lost its #3 engine on the flight home, but he was light enough to make it over the mountains and return safely to base on two engines. |
In that account, the bomber that was downed was piloted by Lt. Jim McMurria and had been on a scout mission that was not part of the formation that launched from Port Moresby. But Charlie distinctly remembers that the lost bomber was part of his formation (and was probably McMurria, since his bomber was shot down that day, and he and his crew were captured by the Japanese). The accounts are otherwise substantially the same, and in any case, the courage of the men on this mission is the important thing.
READ ON
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