B-26 Ditching 14th.Sept.1943

[Brian Bines]

On a site about the 386th BG it reports the ditching of a B-26 of the 387th BG off the North Foreland at 1746 hrs on 14th.Sept.1943. Is there any record of this and if so were the crew rescued, I tried a few searches but had no luck,

Thanks

Brian Bines

[FrankieS]

Hi Brian !
No 387 BG losses stated for that date here:
http://www.387bg.com/387th%20Bombard...htm#1943-09-14

bye,
FrankieS

[Brian Bines]

Hi Frankie,

Thanks for the posting, this is the site I got the info.from http://www.b26.com/historian/chester_klier/022.htm which seems to give a positive id on the ditching. I would have thought the distinctive tail markings of the 387th would have been seen, however none of the sites I can find on the 387th confirms the loss. Perhaps the ditched aircraft was from another group,

Regards

Brian Bines

[RSwank]

You can look up information on the following site for activity on on 14 Sept 1943.
http://www.hellothomas.org/eighthaf/...ns_by_date.php

From that you can see the following.
VIII Air Support Command Mission 57: 108 B-26s are dispatched to the Woenisdrecht Airfield in the Netherlands and Lille/Nord Airfield in France; they are recalled due to weather; 18 B-26s are damaged; casualties are 3 WIA.

Scroll down on the page and you can see what groups flew the mission:
the 386th, 387th and 322nd. Also no "losses" are recorded.
If the mission was scrubbed, it may be that it was not considered a "combat mission" for all the participating groups. Note that you can click on each of the groups in turn and get all their missions listed and also all non-combat losses for the war. While each of the groups shows non-combat losses for the war, none of them show a loss on that date. Since the description given in the 386th log seems so "definitive", it may have happened.... but the records just don't seem to support it.

Note also that a P-47 was lost that day (following down in the fighter group activities). That turns out to be 42-22531, which was lost at sea. Lt William H Alm was KIA. He is still listed MIA. Based on some times given in the MACR, Alm's loss seems to have happened after the the ditching recorded by the 386th, so it does not appear that they somehow witnessed him going in. So..... still a mystery.

[Brian Bines]

Thanks for the reply, I suppose its possible that they saw a B-26 preparing to ditch which then got over its problem and flew back to base,

Regards

Brian Bines