Tidal Wave Footage Photos, 15th AAF and Luftwaffe, 'Black Sunday', 1 August 1943

The Sandman was s/n 42-40402-W in the 345th BS, 98th BG. It was flown to Ploesti and back by Robert Sternfels and is perhaps best known as the plane banking slightly as it emerged from the black smoke over the White IV target in the well known photograph. On the far side of the smoke Sternfels caught a balloon cable in his No. 3 propeller as he banked to avoid it. The cable broke and whipped the nearby fuselage side leaving a scar which I tried to reproduce on this model. The model was built for Bob soon after the 60th Anniversary Ploesti reunion in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2003. The model was built with the bomb bay doors open to show off a load of 500-pound bombs and a bomb bay tank.


Bill

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Utah Man was s/n 41-24226-L in the 330th BS of the 93rd BG. It previously carried the name Joisey Bounce.
Its pilot Walter Stewart, who was previously the co-pilot to Hugh Roper in Exterminator, named his plane Utah Man to honor his university, the University of Utah, whose fight song is Utah Man and to draw attention to his church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly referred to as Mormon) which is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah... Walt was serving a church mission in England when the war broke out and continued his missionary zeal in the desert. Walt was appointed the 93rd's Deputy Leader the night before Ploesti by the Group CO, Addison Baker and it was his job to fly right wing on Baker until they began their bomb run at which time he was to lift over the top and assume a new position on Baker's left as a signal to the following planes "This is the bomb run." When Baker went down just short of the target Stewart took over and delivered the first bombs on Ploesti (though two 1,000 pounders hung up in the racks). Utah Man limped homeward with fuel problems and was one of the last to make it back to Bengasi. When the medals were handed out all Force Leaders were to have received the Distinguished Service Cross (second only to the Medal of Honor) but though entitled to this medal as the force leader replacing Baker the medal was awarded to George Brown (later to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff). In October 1995 Walt finally was awarded the DSC he earned over Ploesti in a ceremony I was invited to at the University of Utah and later in the afternoon at the start of a football game between Utah and the Air Force Academy as F-16s passed overhead the Utah Marching Band saluted Walt as the crowd roared in approval with its rendition of Utah Man.

Dopey, s/n 42-40268-Z, 343rd BS, 98th BG was not a Ploesti airplane but is included here because the same man who painted the nose art on the original plane in 1943 hand-painted Dopey on this model as a kindness to me. His name is Amos Nicholson and he painted the first generation of Snow White characters on the 343rd BS's aircraft (except The Witch and the first Snow White which were painted before the 98th left the US for overseas duty). Amos was also the crew chief of this airplane. It was shot up badly coming off the target at Catania on 9 June 1943 and with wounded aboard it crash-landed at Malta never to fly again. On each of its 12 missions Clarence Gooden was the pilot; Gooden was killed in action over Ploesti in s/n 42-41007, another a/c crewed for its only combat mission by Amos Nicholson.

Bill


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Chattanooga Choo Choo - The Flying Boxcar was s/n 42-40782- X- in the 567th BS of the 389th BG. It was flown to Ploesti by Robert O'Reilly III of the 565th BS but this wasn't O'Reilly's regular airplane. O'Reilly normally flew 42-40768-T named Pistol Packin' Mama but it had been out of commission since the 389th's first mission on 9 July. Chattanooga Choo Choo belonged to Lewis Ellis of the 567th BS but Ellis was loaned to the 98th for Ploesti, and flew Daisy Mae 41-11815-G, after being assured his Choo Choo airplane would not go on the mission. So the powers gave Choo Choo to O'Reilly and he left it parked on the estate of Princess Caradja in Romania. O'Reilly told me that when he was interrogated by the Germans they didn't believe he crashed in the tail letter X- aircraft because their book on O'Reilly had him as the pilot of the letter T aircraft... and the Germans grilled O'Reilly over and over on this point. When Lewis Ellis returned to England he was given O'Reilly's airplane Pistol Packin' Mama... which I guess was only fair.

Trouble was s/n 42-41013-D in the 506th BS of the 44th BG. It was flown to Ploesti and back by Gordon Stevens. This was the first combat mission for Trouble but not the first for Stevens. Stevens had originally selected a B-24 named Texan when he arrived in the squadron but insisted that the name Texan be removed before he took ownership. Following the Rome mission on July 19th this unknown or unnamed aircraft needed an engine change and on the requisite slo-time test flight to check out the changed engine the aircraft blew a tire on takeout and crashed. No one was hurt but Stevens' regular aircraft was totaled. Thus Stevens ended up with a virgin airplane, Trouble, for Ploesti which had been flown down to Bengasi from England in late July as a replacement aircraft.

Bill


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Hail Columbia was s/n 41-11825-V and was flown on the low level Ploesti mission by Col. John R. Kane, CO of the 98th BG. This airplane had several names during its career and moved through two different squadrons so it is well to account for each change.

The name Hail Columbia, suggested by Kane's wife, was painted on each side of the nose originally, with a small piece of art on the left side as well. This was Kane's personal aircraft when he commanded the 344th BS in the 98th BG. When Kane moved up to 98th Group CO and didn't lead missions as much as he once did, he gave up his beloved Hail Columbia to another pilot in the 344th by the name Herman Lewis, whose nickname was BIG DOG. Lewis had the Hail Columbia name removed from the right side and painted his own preferred name there, it was Little-Chief Big-Dog. Lewis was lost in combat while flying another plane, Alice the Goon, and soon after his LCBD plane was transferred into the 343rd BS, known as the Snow White Squadron that had a directive that all their aircraft would carry a Snow White and the Seven Dwarf character on the left side of the nose with anything the crew wanted on the right side. So, Grumpy (one of the Seven Dwarfs) replaced Hail Columbia on the left side. Just prior to the Ploesti mission Col. Kane came to crew chief Wilfred Brann and told him he was taking his old airplane back to the 344th BS to prepare it for the upcoming Ploesti mission. So, once back in the 344th the 343rd Grumpy name came off and was replaced by new Hail Columbia nose art -- completely different from the original Hail Columbia nose art. The airplane had an engine shot out over the target on 1 August and headed for Cyprus. Kane made a night landing on Cyprus worn out by fighting the engine-out condition all the way and touched down a little short of the runway doing much structural damage to the plane. Old Hail Columbia was abandoned on Cyprus while Kane and his crew hitch-hiked a ride back to Bengasi.

Bill

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Al,

This odyssey to find the nose art started when I received an email from Blaine in late '02. Blaine knew that my project was in the works and he wanted me to be aware of the fact that it was believed Hail Columbia may have carried artwork on the right side of the nose. I had never heard this before and so it became imperative to me that I get this right.

As you touched on in your post, this may never completely die so I'll show all my cards and people can come to their own conclusions.

I have interviewed four individuals that have first hand knowledge of this plane at the time of TW and all of these men were present at RAF-Nicosia while HC was there. While there is evidence that Little Chief/Big Dog was another airframe entirely (I have a picture of the Herman Lewis crew posing with it), that's not the real issue; the question is, what did 41-11825 look like on 1 Aug 1943? Joe LaBranche, Norm Whalen and Victor Genereax all stated that they did not remember any artwork on the right side. Art Plouff is adamant there was no artwork there and he spent the most time around the aircraft. I think it can best be summed up by a comment made to me by Norm Whalen as we sat at the table with the models at the reunion. I had been quizzing him on the nose art issue when he said,

"...the Colonel (John Kane) went to the trouble of having that eagle painted on the plane just for that mission. The John Kane that I knew was not the kind of guy to leave another fellow's name on his plane."

Myself, I'm convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that Kane's a/c carried one and only one form of nose art on Tidal Wave.

Hope this helps,

Pat

Hi Al,

Good to hear from you. I'll try to cover most of your questions in this email. Yes, the Hail Columbia crewmembers I have visited with are Norm Whalen and Joe LaBranche. I looked at my interview notes and I last spoke to Joe a year ago this month. He was doing well and had a pretty clear recollection of the events of 1 Aug. I spoke to him on a few occasions prior to the reunion and he was headed to the Caribbean as opposed to Salt Lake!

The Pyramider flagship would have been hard to economically repair as it had well over one hundred holes in it and a damaged right wing spar and that's prior to the landing. Joe LaBranche said the RAF engineers couldn't believe the plane even flew. The record card shows it as salvaged 8/4/43 although record cards don't always tell the whole truth. Victor also shared the story of his souvenir with me in Salt Lake and Joe had the clock from Harry Korger's panel. He took it home along with a captured Italian pistol but his mother threw both of them away during a house cleaning many years ago!

Art Plouff is the 344th line chief that went to Cyprus to help salvage Hail Columbia. At the time of TW he was assigned to Rowdy II but helped out wherever he was needed. Art has a great memory and one of many stories he shared with me is that Hail Columbia had a reoccurring oil leak and that Kane wasn't going to take it on this mission. Art had just returned from an engine school at an RAF facility and was enlisted to take a look. Later R-1830s had a felt washer fitted on the starter and Art adapted one to fit HC and you know the rest.

On the topic of wing tanks, I include here an excerpt from my interviews with Joe:

".....flying home, we were up to about 7,000 feet and Colonel Kane told (Norm) Whalen to let him know how high we needed to be to get over these mountains. Whalen checked his books and told Col. Kane we needed 10,000 feet so that's where we started to throw things out of the plane.

Anything we could grab went out. Our engineer (Harvey Treace) siphoned what gas there was left in the two big tanks we carried in the bomb bay and dropped them out through the bomb doors."

Had I known there was a question, I would have asked Joe to clarify if there were one or two tanks but I am confident my notes are correct. FYI, there is a good pic of BB tanks installed on the upper right of pg. 21 in the B-24 Detail & Scale vol. 64 and pg. 55 shows a BB tank laying on the flight line.

Best wishes,

Pat

Alex and all, i started to find anything related to the mid-air collision of ARR pilot Lt. Carol Anastasescu with one of TW B-24.
From romanian archives ( jandarmeria) the place where Anastasescu ( badly wounded) and his IAR 80B nr 222 was found is near Concordia-Vega refineries north Ploesti. Below you have this document. ( courtesy Denes Bernad)


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Only two B-24 were crashed near Ploestiori village at north of Concordia-Vega refineries :

B-24 THE LADY JANE / BERTHA Sn 42-40804 ” X” 93BG, 329BS Pilot William E. Meehan, 10crew , 9KIA, 1POW .

B-24 JERSEY BOUNCE Sn 42-40609 “I” 93BG, 330BS, Pilot Worthy A. Long 10crew 6KIA, 4POW.

I mark the aprox. position of the 3 crashes places on the map.

This post has been edited by Cantacuzino on February 07, 2005 09:53 am

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Below it's the color profile of "Jersey Bounce". ( courtesy Dan Melinte)


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Lt.Anastasescu story for 1 august’43

“In the morning of 1st August 1943, I was on duty on the Pipera airfield, replacing my comrade Teodor Nicolaescu, who was at his sisters' wedding. After we took the planes out of the hangar we sat down in lounge-chairs relaxed and calm, because usually, the alarm duty was boring. At 10:25 we received the order to exercise "extreme caution" and at 11 o'clock we were in our seats. We sat there for two hours strapped in our seats and in the flying suits under a killing sun. At 13:20 we took off, but our orders were to fly at 200 m, which was very unusual, because at that altitude dog fighting is very difficult, if not impossible. It was a big surprise for us to see a compact formation of bombers underneath us: there were American B-24s.They were practically flying wing next to wing, like they were at a parade. I ordered the attack. When we got close to the bombers, a stunning tracer barrage unleashed. I had the impression that all of them were aimed at my forehead and I felt cold drips of sweat on my back. At 100 m I fired at part of the left wing where I knew were the fuel tanks, but nothing happened. To avoid the incoming fire from the machine-guns of the Liberator, I dove quickly and I almost crashed. When I managed to recover, the bombers were already under heavy fire from the AA artillery around Ploesti and some refineries were in flames. It was like hell. I closed up on the same B-24 and aimed for the same area of the wing, but still nothing happened. I came in for a third time and fired. In the same time I felt a powerful hit in my airplane. As I pulled up I saw the bomber going down in flames, but I was in the same situation. I opened the cockpit, but I was at 50 m and couldn't jump. I started to climb slowly, expecting to simply blow up in any second. I saw a B-24 coming at me, probably to give me the final blow. I was passing through horrible moments and couldn't bear any more. I didn't have any way out, so I decided to ram him and finish it quickly. He tried to avoid me, but was to late. I felt a powerful heat and then I woke up in the hospital"( English translation Victor Nitu)


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Alex, from the 2 B-24 crashed near Ploestiori north of Vega, were some survivors. Maybe you can find somewhere their stories about this issue if it match the Anastasescu story.
Btw., it looks that all 3 planes ( included Anastasescu IAR) probably were also hit by AA from NE.

Dan.

This post has been edited by Cantacuzino on February 07, 2005 09:55 am

Nice models Bill, i believe they are at 1/72 scale. Soon( from a common friend) i will get a 1/48 model of B-24 D model and i will make it Brewery Wagon. Btw. there are more photo details found in romanian archiv with complete markings for this specific plane. So i decided to do it because was also the first B-24 arrived at Ploesti on 1 august '43.

Below it's a picture from a friend of mine with TW sand B-24 1/24 scale model from a contest at Pucioasa village ( north of Targoviste). Unfortunetly i don't know yet the name of the builder.

Dan.

This post has been edited by Cantacuzino on February 07, 2005 09:51 am

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Dan

Thanks for the stunning art work you prepared and the the reports regarding Lt Anastasescu. You contributions are greatly appreciated by me and by the my TW mates at the US side . I expect to get some photos from the TW not yet seen or published anywhere from Joe in TX which were sent by airmail as he couldn't scan them.

Regarding the story of Lt Anastasescu TARAN, I simply didn't believe his story from the first moment on and thats from the pilot point of view and unless proven I won't regard it as reliable but rather fabricated . I saw his Rumanian TV inerview too as well red in the books. In addition from all my TW documents of the survivors and their testemonies all B-24 were lost due to A/A, being intercepted by fighters and due to a mid air collision . None of the TW survivivors and reports points out at a TARAN !

Given the fact his aircraft was burning, the impact and speed of both aircrafts its a event which which can not be survived just with broken bones and facial injuries ......I rather tend to believe that this pilot has landed his aircraft or jumpped out ...there are no details on where exactly he was found in or out of the aircraft, photos of his wreckage nor confirmations from the US side.

Technically given the speed impact and the fire cunsuming the aircraft his survival story after making a TARAN is totally out of credibility nor it has any reliable proofs , it has similarities to the story of the ARR pilot who shot down a HALPERS /HALVERSTON B-24 in June 1942 over Rumania and sounds to be fabricated be fabricated by him.


Alex

In some respects i agree with you. That doesn't means Anastasescu didn't shoot and hit scores at one B-24 but his plane ( no 20mm gunns on IAR 80B ) with only 7,92mm machine gunns were not enough to shot down a B-24. I agree that the 2 B-24 from Ploestiori were AA victims. And probably also Anastasescu was hit by friendly fire by mistake been closer to those 2 B-24. But i also think that probably Anastasescu tryng to bail out from his damaged plane he could colided with one of the 2 B-24. There are some reports that AA gunners had seen both planes in a mid air collision.
It is posible that the collision was in the same direction of flight and only touching, but enough for both planes were out of control at low altitude. And i know a case of american pilot Barrie Davis (325FG) who was hit by Lt.Dobran on 6 june'44, and wounded was black out for several minutes and then he wake up wondering why his plane didn't spin to the ground but gliding without pilot control. Maybe this was the case of Anastasescu IAR 80 gliding to the ground after collision with the pilot wounded from the shock.
Maybe it will remain a mistery but ofcourse the Taran version i can't believe it too.( It was used as a propaganda issue by romanian authority in war newspapers)

Dan.

This post has been edited by Cantacuzino on February 07, 2005 12:17 pm

Dan

Its good you agree because, I saw this pilot comments on the ROM TV interview and they were as unprofessional like anything else he described about his flying carrier too.

He has fabricated the story and no military pilot who was ever in combat would take his 1001 nights story serious.

In comparison with the WWII memories of other ARR pilots which sounds very reliable and professional, this guy stories are totally out of line and out common sense....I certainly believe he saw the bombers but he was shot down either by the bombers or by flack before he even saw combat and in order not to come back as a loser he came back with this story he's fabricated which at that time ARR needed for glorifying purposes as only Russians were doing the TARANS in Eastern Europe at that time.

I wasn't impressed either by his general personality which most of the other military pilots and his mates still bear it on their face throught their lives and till the end.....and to be frank with you I wouldn't even bother to clarify this event with my American friends because I would make a fool of myself by just going into that nonsense claim of this former ARR pilot who's lacking any credibility whatsoever.

I am off topic regarding this pilot but I will continue to ask my US friends regarding the crash site map you just postred today which I am grateful ,thanks

Alex

This post has been edited by alexkdl on February 07, 2005 01:27 pm