Miracle B-17 Makes It Home After Nose Blown Away

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To have collected the port fin of the Halifax on the port wing of the F5 would have been difficult in a ground collision? The fin looks quite new (!)

Exactly...the Fin looks 'Brand New',the stbd prop looks like it was not turning when hit (only 1 blade bent) and the Fin appears to be behind the port prop.
I am open minded about it really,if it was a mid air then it was a really skilful piece of flying to keep her airborne and land her safely.
But to me some of the damage (as noted above ) is not consistent with an airborne collision.
Also as I mentioned previously,I am pretty sure that if any service pilot managed to land an a/c in that condition he would have been awarded some sort of medal...unless of course it was deemed to be his fault !! :D
The new looking fin is a tenuous link to Speke,a ground collision is possibly more difficult to research,especially if a new Halifax a/c under test.

rgds baz

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P-38--F5B after mid-air collision with H-P Halifax.
Air collison. Tyre tracks indicate a straight landing. If hit on ground either moving or stationary, tyre track would have been slewed if plane had be moving, or knocked back if stationary showing track in front of tyre.

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P-38--F5B after mid-air collision with H-P Halifax.
Air collison. Tyre tracks indicate a straight landing. If hit on ground either moving or stationary, tyre track would have been slewed if plane had be moving, or knocked back if stationary showing track in front of tyre.

Hi Richard
Yes I had looked at the tyre tracks also and tbh- I still cant figure that side of it ! unless it had been dragged clear by ground crew after the collision.
The trouble I have with the mid air is that it appears to me that when the collision occurred - both engines would have had to be stopped,only one blade on the stbd prop is bent and the Fin 'appears' to be behind the port prop and almost looks like it is touching it.
The other thing which I have alluded to previously is that if it was a mid air then the Pilots name would probably be well known ...as with Thomas Smith and 'his' 109.

rgds baz

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The damage to the lower fins is more consistant with the F-5 tipping back onto its tail in a ground collision as there is no other apparent damage to the undersides.

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To have collected the port fin of the Halifax on the port wing of the F5 would have been difficult in a ground collision? The fin looks quite new (!)

To be fair, it would be equally difficult - if not more so - to do so in an air collision.

If the Halifax was - as per Badger's quote - written off I would suggest that the Halifax was either taking off or landing with the F5 stationary in its path. Thus it had sufficient momentum to lose a fin and do some serious damage to leading edges and upper surfaces of the F5, and also the bottom of the tail as it was rocked backwards by the impact. This explains how the fin stayed there (as per my previous post, unlikely in the air) and why the props were not turning. The wheel tracks only show the F5's most recent movements - almost certainly it was trundled away from a place where anything was likely to hit it again!

It would be lovely to believe the P-38 had miraculous powers, but I suspect there has been some myth-making going on over the years around this incident (the tale conspicuously lacking one thing - as bazv points out - a hero), and the truth is rather more mundane. However, I would be very happy to be proved wrong!

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That sounds quite plausible.

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Apparently, this site has more info... and it was indeed a mid-air!

http://forum.armyairforces.com/Lightning-Collision-with-RAF-Bomber-December-1943-m168150.aspx

Another site has this:

http://rmena.org/bulletin-june09.pdf

forum.armyairforces.com doesn't confirm anything about it being mid-air, however. What it does (through a heated discussion) reveal is that the aircraft had no visible service record, just a very short spell (Nov - Dec 1943) in the UK, before one source quoted there has the aircraft as "salvaged non battle damage at Speke, Lancashire on 22nd December"

The aircraft MAY have been repaired and sent back into service - it wasn't written off until June 1944, apparently.

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WOT!!!, No nose?

Pics shamefully pinched from the Nanton Museum site.
Cees

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Another amazing tale

Charlie Brown's story

Charlie Brown was a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot with the 379th Bomber Group at Kimbolton, England. His B-17 was called 'Ye Old Pub' and was in a terrible state, having been hit by flak and fighters. The compass was damaged and they were flying deeper over enemy territory instead of heading home to Kimbolton.

After flying over an enemy airfield, a pilot called Franz Steigler was ordered to take off and shoot down the B-17. When he got near the B-17, he could not believe his eyes. In his words, he 'had never seen a plane in such a bad state'. The tail and rear section was severely damaged, and the tail gunner wounded. The top gunner was all over the top of the fuselage. The nose was smashed and there were holes everywhere.

Despite having ammunition, Franz flew to the side of the B-17 and looked at Charlie Brown, the pilot. Brown was scared and struggling to control his damaged and blood-stained plane.

Aware that they had no idea where they were going, Franz waved at Charlie to turn 180 degrees. Franz escorted and guided the stricken plane to and slightly over the North Sea towards England. He then saluted Charlie Brown and turned away, back to Europe.

When Franz landed he told the c/o that the plane had been shot down over the sea, and never told the truth to anybody. Charlie Brown and the remains of his crew told all at their briefing, but were ordered never to talk about it.

More than 40 years later, Charlie Brown wanted to find the Luftwaffe pilot who saved the crew. After years of research, Franz was found. He had never talked about the incident, not even at post-war reunions.

They met in the USA at a 379th Bomber Group reunion, together with 25 people who are alive now - all because Franz never fired his guns.

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What an absolutely wonderful story. Thanks for sharing and making my new years day.

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http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2632/3968644495_3e028c6482_b.jpg

Looking at the pic a bit closer the right wing is pushed back quite a bit. Look at the gap in the leading edge wing root fairing and the flap and rear wing section pushed downwards. Also note the big hit in the leading edge of the right wing as well. That would appear to be where the other vertical tail hit the aircraft?

The fact that one blade is only bent could be because the engine stopped instantly it was hit?

I wouldnt dispell the picture as some sort of myth or fakery yet......

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Sorry Sam but props do not normally stop instantly,they usually keep turning for a little while and also are bent in more than one direction,neither prop shows any 'twist' as it would if it had been under power from the engine.
I have not mentioned this yet but also both props are set at exactly the same angle in true tiddly military fashion,ie as if somebody with a tidy military mind has placed them both at a symmetrical angle.
This also may support the argument that the F5 was parked on an airfield minding its own business.
The 'sweep back' of the stbd wing I believe was approx 26 deg.

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Quote:
Originally Posted by bazv View Post
As regards the F5/Halifax photo above,after looking at it again,I thought hmmm ... possible to fly with that damage ??
So I did a bit of googling and there has been some discussion on at least one website as to whether it might have been a ground collision at Speke !!
Anybody know anything about it ??
Wouldn't surprise me!

About the only place I can think of Halifaxes (churned out of Rootes) and P38's (being assembled in the Hangars on the other side of the field) operating in close proximity in daytime.

Also the picture has been retouched to remove any background detail, so the location is clearly sensitive - I wonder if it had something like Garston gasworks in the background!

One other thought then, can anyone tie it up with a Halifax loss in December 1943? The date coming from some reserach on the internet.

Jon

Call me a cynic by nature if you will, but every time I look at that picture, I can "see" the rest of the Halifax behind it, that the photographer had to, or chose to, censor out for whatever reason.

The angle of the Halifax fin and its height off the ground, all seem about right for it to have been a (fairly fast) ground collision in which the two became entangled.

I imagine the Halifax looked pretty rough after the collision, too.

Whether the Halifax was censored out for security as JonH suggests, or whether someone thought that it would make a good propaganda story if the facts were "adjusted" in the F5's favour, or whether it was just a prank by some bored official photographer, I don't know. I'm fairly sure it wasn't an airborne collision, though.

I think it may have been me who suggested Speke as a location. I just made the connection between a Lockheed F5 and a Halifax write-off that apparently couldn't be traced in RAF records. I hadn't seen the photo at the time. Now I have, my vote goes to accident on the ground, not in the air.

Just an after thought. The Americans had lots of film for their cameras. They would have photographed that aeroplane from every angle. A shot from the port side showing just how and where the Halifax fin was embedded would almost certainly have been taken. I suspect the reason we haven't seen it is because it would show the whole airborne collision story to be fake.

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Sorry Sam but props do not normally stop instantly,they usually keep turning for a little while and also are bent in more than one direction,neither prop shows any 'twist' as it would if it had been under power from the engine.
I have not mentioned this yet but also both props are set at exactly the same angle in true tiddly military fashion,ie as if somebody with a tidy military mind has placed them both at a symmetrical angle.
This also may support the argument that the F5 was parked on an airfield minding its own business.
The 'sweep back' of the stbd wing I believe was approx 26 deg.

The "curling" of the blades is typical when an aircraft comes in contact with the ground during forward motion in a gradual type decent... like when landing wheels up.

The blades wouldnt have curled hitting the thin skin of the wellington.... And yes it would stop instantly if it hit an object hard enough, like a wing spar, engine.....

The fact the blades stopped in the same position means nothing.... The light twin i used to fly many years ago would stop both blades in the same position 99% of the time, so i would never have to "park" the blades at night!

If something hit the F5 while on the ground it would unlikely be on its undercarriage anymore....

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Hi AM
Apparently (sources websites) the F5 was 'written off' at Speke,but I suppose that could have been the admin side of it since it was a U.S equivalent of an RAF MU.
However I did tentatively suggest that if the collision did occur at Speke and looking at the 'newness' of the Hali fin then I speculated that it might have been a new Hali under test from speke.A new a/c pre delivery might not be so easy to trace on normal RAF accident reports.
Even something simple like a brake failure etc could cause a 'coming together' like this

rgds baz

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Sam...it was a Halifax...they were built like a brick 'outhouse' :D,trust me the prop blade would have 'twisted' if the engine was under power at the time.
All of this is pure conjecture but did you look closely at the positioning of the fin behind the port prop,it looks like it is actually touching the trailing edge of one of the blades,but it has no damage apparently.
And also as AM said previously you can almost 'see' the rest of the Halifax sitting at its normal ground angle :D

rgds baz

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Just an after thought. The Americans had lots of film for their cameras. They would have photographed that aeroplane from every angle. A shot from the port side showing just how and where the Halifax fin was embedded would almost certainly have been taken. I suspect the reason we haven't seen it is because it would show the whole airborne collision story to be fake.

I also touched on this on a previous post,it would be much more interesting to see a pic from the other side,but hey why ruin a good story by letting the facts get in the way :D

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:) An interesting thread but anyone wonder why the thread starter makes a copy/paste posting then never replies or adds any input.
I wonder whether he has any personal interest in his posts [all 4 or 5 threads ] at all.
Most people ask because they want to know or have a tale to tell about something related.
Some fascinating answers so thanks to everyone for their searching and some horrific damage photos.
When designing war planes was damage resistance built into them or was it luck of the design?.

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Lets look at another option, the P38 had engine failure was coming in for emergency landing, unfortunatly he chose the runway where the Halifax was taking off from.

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Sorry, to my eye the P38 was stationary on the ground. Note that the starboard spinner and upper engine cowling are also damaged, possibly the fuselage nosecone as well. A mid air would have curled up the prop, not just a simple bend, and the resultant landing would have been catastrophic. Taxying accident for sure.