I Am Lucky to be Alive

After reading John Knox's tribute to his dad, I decided to post an account of a collision involving my dad's B-25 and the flight leader's B-25 during WWII. My dad passed away in 1984, and he rarely talked about his experiences in WWII, and I never knew about this accident until I was web surfing one night and found this. When I read this account the hair on the back of my neck stood up as I realized how lucky I am to be here. Dad flew in the 822nd Squadron of the 38th Bomb Group in the Philippines; they were known as the Sun Setters. He flew in the 822nd from early 1944 until the end of the war. Dad made a career of the Air Force, and retired in 1969, the last aircraft he flew was the RF-4C (although I did take him for a ride once in a Cessna 150....oh boy!). Lt. Mealka in the account was my dad's best man, and they remained life-long friends. Later in the war my dad was instrumental in saving the life of Lt. Mealka and his crew, but that's another story.......

Tragedy struck the 822nd and the 38th Bomb Group again on 18 August 1944. Eight crews were briefed on a simulated mission to bomb the Gona Wreck near Buna. They took off and dropped their bombs. Lieutenant Mealka (who gave the account below) was again involved in this practice operation. In less than three weeks time, during practice flying, he was to see another tragedy unfold.

"On the return from the target, the Group Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Lausman, made passes at the formation in his B-25 as a Jap fighter might do to give the turret gunners practice. Colonel Lausman made two passes from the left coming very close each time. On the third pass he pulled up about 300 yards at 8 o’clock and bored in. I remember thinking at the start ‘That crazy son of a bitch is going to try and fly between me and the lead ship.’ Skimming across the top of the formation in an attempted climbing turn, he barely missed the lead ship. His wing struck Shannon’s ship, flying number 2, on the fuselage above the bomb bay."

“Immediately after the crash, the Colonel’s plane lost half the left wing and peeled up and over into a half roll to the left. The ship then nosed straight down still turning to the left. Before striking the water the tail assembly disintegrated, presumably weakened by pieces of the broken wing hitting it. The stricken plane plunged into the water at a high rate of speed sending up three plumes of water not unlike three bomb bursts. This was caused by the two nacelles and fuselage. No one was saved. Lt. Shannon, in 869, reduced airspeed and flew straight on. Strangely enough his life raft, loosened by the impact, flew out and landed fully inflated directly where the Colonel’s ship had crashed. The formation broke up to return to base. A large hole had been torn in the top of the fuselage. He was extremely lucky as a hit anywhere else would have put him out of control and I would have lost another good friend. As it was, all the formation planes landed without mishap.”

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Lucky you are. Lucky to be around, lucky to have had a father with such a history, and lucky to have found the article. It may well be too late, but I would attempt to find some of those on the crew. It might amaze you what else you might learn. There are so many stories yet untold. Thanks for sharing this, and I am glad your father knew of your love for flying. I would guess he was proud.

Bob Kelly

Yeah, it makes you think.

flickroll said:

When I read this account the hair on the back of my neck stood up as I realized how lucky I am to be here.

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That sort of butterfly effect thinking has always intrigued me. It's an interesting mental exercise. How did he cheat death? Was it fate? Luck, skill, and training?

Besides being on a plane where only half the guys made it off, there was at least one other holy **** story my dad had from the war. A few weeks after they were shot down and captured, he was still at the "hospital," which was some sort of Catholic facility or something. He was there with at least one other soldier, who was also a non-comm. They were guarded by one Italian guard.

There was another bombing mission over Foggia, and they could see the bombers, and bombs, headed their way. Some of the bombs hit the hospital. It wasn't the target, but it got hit anyway. As the bombs were falling the guard took off, and after the bombs stopped falling there was no one there to guard them, but the section they were in was partially destroyed.

The way I understand it is that the 500 lb bombs don't fall exactly straight down, but carry some of the forward speed they had when released. Apparently, one bomb had landed directly under the room my dad was in, but was a dud. They had to eventually climb over it as they were climbing through the rubble.

So yeah, it makes you think.