For those who may not know, James (Jimmy) Stewart was the operations
officer for the 445th bomb group which flew B-24's.

At a lodging banquet last week, I ran into an old gentleman who flew B-24s
in the war. He now owns and operates a very successful B&B.

Naturally, we gravitated to his table for dinner, where he regaled me of
tales of flying over occupied Europe. He is in remarkable physical
condition for his age, having spent the last 35 years leading whitewater
rafting tours throughout the desert southwest.

My favorite story was when he was assigned to fly a Liberator to a
maintenance facility for landing gear work. The plane had been "red-X'd"
(as he called it) due to a hard landing, and the nosegear was secured in the
down position with wire. (!)

He grabbed a flight engineer -- not his usual guy -- and proceeded to fly to
the maintenance field which was on a river in Italy. On the way, without
any real navigational beacons or decent maps, they became lost. After
floundering around for over an hour, flying up every river they could find,
they eventually found the field.

On final approach he realized he was too high. Probably something to do
with being so light, or maybe he just screwed up.

Over the years my new friend had discovered that, with the wheels down, the
B-24 simply would NOT fly faster than 180 (?), no matter what you did. So,
as he had done so many times before, he simply pointed the nose down at the
runway and waited. His flight crew was used to this radical approach, but
this particular flight engineer was holding on for dear life, and appeared
to be praying as the ground rushed up at him...

My friend pulled out at the last second, made a normal landing -- and the
flight engineer departed the plane in a dead run as soon as he slowed
down...

Boy, I'm really going to miss these guys when they're all gone. What lives
they have lived!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"