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A
LOT HAPPENING AS ‘O4 WRAPS UP
TEXAS HOLD EM POKER
TOURNAMENT
at the hangar on the Friday
12th & Saturday the 13th of November. We can use people
to help with it. Let us know if you can. We’ll also need
your help for the set up and clean up afterwards.
We’d
like to wish a speedy recovery for Jim Baldwin
following his recent surgery. The
Lancaster Veteran’s parade will be Thursday Nov. 11.
We will meet at the hangar at 9:00 am and form up with Wayne’s
staff car and a couple jeeps for the 10:00 am form up at the
fairgrounds and a 10:30 am departure for the parade. If you
are interested be at the hangar at 9:00 in the morning.
FA-18 Hornet US Navy photo
DIANE
McDANIEL is spearheading a program to collect used
printer toner cartridges for resale to vendors and thus
raise money for the Squadron. Bring in your used cartridges
to the hangar for her.
No.
761 aborts with a gas leak
story material provided
by Dick Debevoise HAS
S/Sgt. Arthur T. Stanford, gunner on Crew 32, Pilot
Trowbridge, sent us this brief story. “It was not until
the 3rd of December 1944 that we really had a hair raising
experience. We were to make a raid on the upper island of
the Palaus, an ammunition dump on the big island of
Babelthaup. As usual, on take off, all six of us airmen were
sitting in the waist gunners position in the waist. All six
of us smoked, but would never light a cigarette until the
plane left the runway and the landing gear was up and
locked.
“On this particular day we were
just fixing to light up when I smelled a strong odor of
gasoline. I hollered for no one to light up. We jumped to
the waist window and looked out at the wing and saw the
worst thing that could happen. When the ground crew gassed
up the wing tank, they left the cap off and gas was
streaming off the wing and engine. I called Lt. Trowbridge
and told him of our predicament. We were caring 4 five
hundred pound bombs and had gas spraying all over our plane.
We could not use any electrical switches to open the bomb
bay door or drop our bombs because an electrical spark would
blow us all to hell. Instructions from operations were for
us to return to base and land.
“In order to be able to land, we
had to lower our landing gear. Fortunately they were
operated by hydic fluid and we were able to lower them
manually. With wheels down and locked, we still had to land
in a B-24 with four big bombs, two bomb bay tanks full of
gas, and most of the wing tanks full...on a runway that was
just long enough to land an empty B-24. Everyone was holding
their breath, and praying.”
“We were all relieved when the
wheels touched down and nothing bad happened. We thought if
only we can stop before we run off the end of the runway.
Lt. Trowbridge fought the brakes.
As I Looked out the waist window, I could see the wheels
starting to smoke and turn black. The end of the runway was
getting closer and the wheels getting hotter. Then about ten
feet from the end, the plane came to a stop.
“Everyone got the hell out as
fast as they could. As I looked back at the wheels they were
now glowing red. By this time the fire trucks were there,
wetting the plane down. We chalked up our first abortive
mission. No one seemed to mind, as we were all still alive.”
This is a good place to note that a
1,00 foot extension of the runway was authorized before the
end of November. But it was a long way from being
completed...in fact not until early January. Ten days after
this incident, aB-25 from the 5th Bomber Command did run off
the end of the runway during a heavy rain squall. No one was
injured according to the Island Garrison Command
History.
Number 761 was ready to fly a
mission to the Philippines on December 7, 1944. No further
problem. That mission went with no problems. 761 was
scheduled for 66 missions. Although Lt. Trowbridge and crew
32 were not with her by that time. Number 761 was attacked
over China on a Shanghai mission by an interceptor and the
pilot and a gunner were killed. The co-pilot and crew were
able to bring he back to base.
THE STORY BEHIND THIS STORY.. In
the early 90’s veteran 866th Gunner Clayton Porter struck
up a conversation with a man at the Wright Field museum and
quickly found he was talking to Lt. Trowbridge’s son in
law, Richard L. Debevoise. Bill Trowbridge had died of a
massive heart attack in April 1975. After the war, Bill had
a successful career as a business manager for Owens-Corning
Fiberglas. Bill had given Debevoise a photo of he and his
crew and said, “This was my crew and they were all heroes.”
he also sent copies of some pages of a diary that had been
apparently recovered from the personal papers of Norvell
Cain, tai gunner on his crew, and a casualty on the Shanghai
mission.
If there is a message here for all
of us, it is to take advantage of the years, months and days
left to us to tell the story of our experiences in WWII to
all who will listen or will read. And the corollary is to
enrich our own lives by listening to the stories of others.
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