Hornsby felt the plane begin to buck and want to dive due to the sudden unbalance of power. He had to gain control and with Casper working the other engine’s power output he told him to set off the fire extinguisher to put the fire out.
As Hornsby began to regain control, Casper told him it was not working and the fire was growing. If it continued, it could break into the wing, melting the wing and setting the fuel on fire. The wing would then break free and they would fall to their death. Hornsby hollered at the radio operator to get back and warn the crew in the airplane to get ready to bail out, as the intercom was as dead as the generator. Then, he was to go to the nose and tell the men there to be ready to bail out. He and Casper then made the decision that their only hope was to dive as quickly as they could and build up their airspeed to a point where the fire would be blown out.
At that time, their eyes were beginning to adjust to the lack of light, however, the phosphorus dots on the instruments were beginning to fade and if he could not see their altitude he might dive them into the ground. Casper got the flashlight to shine on the instruments so Hornsby could see them. Due to the engine being out, and the interference of the air stream, the bomber had been bouncing up and down and rocking back and forth. However, he started the dive and as Casper called off the lowering altitude they were able to blow the fire out. Both of them had to pull back on the controls to stop diving and regain as much altitude as they could.
While they were doing this, engine #4 began acting up probably due to damage occurring at the same time the #3 had been destroyed. Until Hornsby was interviewed by the author, he had always believed what he had been told by his commander when he got back to his unit. They had flown so far to the east that they were over the Rhine River when the German anti-aircraft artillery had destroyed their #3 engine and damaged the #4.
He remembered seeing the moon reflected off a big river and he believed the lie he was told. The pilots got the bomber under control, however, they were in a pickle. With no lighting in the bomber, the engine #3 dead, and the other hurting, Hornsby knew they did not want to try to cross the Channel. A B-24J did not fly well with an engine gone, it was worse when the remaining engine on the same wing was failing. So, they had to bail out before they got too far to the west. He told Danahy to go back to the nose compartment to check with the navigator to find their location and to tell him he was going to keep the bomber in the air as long as they could fly west willing to bail out and crash the plane in Liberated Europe.
Casper had to keep the flashlight on the instruments as the blow buttons would dim very quickly if the light was taken away. The only problem was that he accidentally flashed Hornsby a couple of times and each time he lost his night vision.
Unknown to the pilots, Sgt Bartho, in the hydraulic-driven nose turret had immediately rotated his turret to the right to see what had caused the explosion. Then, when the power went off all of a sudden, he had no hydraulic power and he could not turn the turret. Bartho was a taller man and when the author interviewed several B-24J nose gunners they told him that if you were tall it was impossible for you to follow the emergency instructions in case of such a failure. The gunner was supposed to bend down, reach toward the rear of his seat then disengage the hydraulic drive from the gear drive. He had then to reach an emergency handle that was clipped to the back of his seat. Once he had the handle, he had to insert the end in a small hole in the bottom of the turret. This would then allow him to hand crank the turret back to its neutral position and allow him to open the turret door to exit the turret.
At the same time, in the nose of a B-24J, one of the crew had to be inside the nose near the turret and he had to open an inside door that had to be open so the hatch door could open and the gunner could get out. At some point, Lt Grey had to have realized Bartho was not able to move the turret and with the intercom out he could not communicate with anyone to help. I believe, as the only man who knew what the top-secret equipment was capable of doing, he had been ordered, not to be captured. In the cockpit, Hornsby and Casper agreed it was time to bail out, as they did not want to accidentally fly out over the Channel. They knew they did not have the ability left to cross the Channel and they did not want to die in the cold salty water. It had been about a half hour since the engine damage had happened and when Danahy returned, he said the navigator had no lights other than a flashlight and he actually had no idea where they were, except they had to have flown far enough to the west. He added it was time to bail out.
Hornsby then gave the order to bail out telling Casper and Danahy that he would stay in for five minutes or until the plane had less than 10.000 feet, and then, he would follow. Casper immediately stood up, opened the escape hatch above the pilots and bailed out. Danahy and the flight engineer went to the waist. Everyone had their chutes on and they started to drop out using the waist emergency exit. The flight engineer headed for the nose, hollered for them to bail out and he went down into the nose escape hatch, and fell free.
Back at the waist hatch where Danahy had sat down on the edge with his feet out in the slipstream, Mears asked him if he had seen Bartho. Mears and Bartho were good friends and tonight they had exchanged their normal positions. Danahy hollered no, he had not and Mears hollered back, that he was going to the nose to check on Bartho. Danahy really did not want to bail out by himself and he tried to pull himself back up but the slipstream would not let go and it pulled him down and out.
That was the last time any survivor saw Mears, the following being based on what must have taken place in the B-24. Mears arrived in the nose and it is obvious that he and Grey continued to work to help Bartho. One has to question the actions of Lt Grey. He knew they had been told to bail out, he had his parachute on and yet, he did not drop down and out of the nose escape hatch. Mears arrived and realized that Bartho must have turned his turret away from its home position just as the hydraulic power went out. With the intercom out, they would have been unable to communicate. Even though they had been told to bail out both had parachutes on and both were a couple of steps from an escape hatch.
Both were staying in the nose and both had to know they were going to die when the B-24 crashed. The author believes that Lt Grey stayed with the bomber as he was the only one aboard who knew exactly what the electronic equipment was capable of doing and it is most likely that he was ordered to end his life if he thought he might be captured. In the cockpit, Hornsby looked at his watch and when the time was up, he climbed up out of the pilot’s escape hatch, slid down and off the bomber, and pulled his zip cord.
In the nearby countryside, the French woke up to the sound of laboring engines and a sudden shriek as the aircraft went into a dive, followed by an explosion. The sound of the bomber hitting the earth and another explosion. Then, all was silent.
At the nearby, A-72 American Air Base, the home of the 397-BS, Pvt Barney Silva woke up in his bunk as he heard what sounded exactly as the movies portrayed the diving crash of an airplane. There were two explosions and then silence. He had just pulled the covers up over his head when the intercom speaker came alive with the announcement, ‘Pvt Silva, get your ambulance and report to the headquarters at once‘. He checked the time and it was just 0230 in the morning of November 10, 1944.
(Note: The photo shown is the actual photo of the crash site of the B-24. The Photo bellow, is the forward landing gear of the B-24, the largest part of the plane found at the crash.)
Lt Casper had been the first one out and as he was higher and the wind was blowing he landed the furthest to the west. He had been falling through the sky when he saw dim lights and suddenly he landed on the slate roof of a building. He began to slide down one side and his parachute went down the other. Inside the building, the office of a sugar factory, the night fireman heard something on the roof and sliding tiles. He had been looking out a window to the northwest after hearing the approaching plane. When he heard something land on the roof, it was sliding down the roof, along with some loose tiles.
He started toward the door and heard a knock. Casper had slid off the roof and was falling straight down when his parachute shrouds tightened and he came to a stop, standing in front of the door. At the same time, his parachute slid clear and as it fell, he collected it. When done, he knocked on the door, which was immediately opened by a Frenchman. The man could speak enough English to understand Casper and he went to a telephone and made a call. In a few minutes, the telephone rang and the Frenchman told Casper, that the nearby American base was sending a vehicle to pick him up.
Danahy and Chestnut had bailed out very close together and landed in a pasture. They immediately got together and heard people talking, a short distance away they saw the doors of some houses open and they walked over, they were invited in and told they were sending someone to a house with a telephone, who would call the nearby American air base to have them picked up.
Just before the men began to land, they had been tracking their bomber by the sparks blowing out of the damaged engine, then the sound changed and it was diving to the ground. Looking in that direction, the most they saw were two flashes and heard the explosions. There was another flash fire and they knew the 226 had met her end.
Danahy landed near a road and the bomber appeared to have crashed a short distance away. He decided, the safe thing to do, to walk away from the crash site until he knew he was safe. He soon came to a stream and heard someone crossing the stream, whistling ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’. He hollered and Chestnut came over and they discussed their situation. They decided they would go back to the road and walk down it, away from the crash site. They had gone a short distance, when they heard someone coming from the other direction. The crash site was still providing a little light and they saw a boy on a bicycle riding toward them. Danahy told Chestnut, he had studied French in school, so he would try to talk to the boy. He stepped out spread his arms apart and began speaking French.
He later told the author, that the boy’s eyes opened up to the size of a plate, he leaned over and peddled as hard as he could, skirted Danahy, and rode as fast past as he could, down the road.
They continued to walk down the road and soon saw a man coming toward them carrying a lantern. The man approached them and they told him they were Americans and he motioned they should follow him. Soon, they approached a small village and the man went to a house opened a door and invited them in where the man’s wife offered them coffee with bread and butter. Unknown to them, the boy that ran away earlier was hiding in an outbuilding. The man went out and told him to go to the next village and tell the policeman about the two men. After a while, the boy came back and told the man to take them to the village hall where the policeman would be. He indicated the two should follow him and he took them to the village hall.
There, they were told that a man who had a working car would pick them up and take them to the next location. In a few minutes, a small car kind of like a Model T Ford pulled up and Danahy remembered it had the most chrome he had ever seen on a car. The fellow drove a few minutes, stopped alongside a small hill, and indicated the men should get out. As he left the car, Danahy realized the man was carrying a pistol and instantly wished he had his own Colt 45. However, after a couple of missions the crew realized they were just in the way and they never went where a gun would be needed.
The man came around the car, pointed the gun at them, and indicated they should start up the hill. Danahy told the author that he was certain the man was taking them to the woods on top of the hill to kill them.
As they approached the hill they could see the trees had a lot of camouflage draped in them and there were several American trailers. As they approached an American came toward them and asked if they were from the crash he had seen. They told him they were and the man told them there were only two men on duty and they were the radio unit for the nearby airbase. That way, if the Germans flew down their radio beams and dropped bombs, the base would not be damaged. He told them to wait a minute and he would call in and report they were there.
A couple minutes later, he came out and asked the Frenchman if he could take them to the base. Now, that he knew they were real Americans and not German spies, he was all smiles and the gun was put away. He agreed to do so and the radio man gave them instructions. Follow the road they were on, turn left where the burned-out tank was located, watch for the plane crash site, and turn left again and they would arrive at the base.
When the Frenchman returned to his home, he told his story to his family and his nephew, Gaetan Chaulieu, a main part of his story was the men telling him and the American radio operators, that they were flying in a B-24 and not a B-17. He had asked them about being in a ‘Fortress’ when they told him there was a great difference and they were B-24 men.
Hornsby had landed near a small clump of brush and he went to the ground to wait to see what might happen. His parachute shroud lines had sliced his face when his parachute opened and he realized he had been cut fairly deeply. He saw a growing amount of traffic on the roads, mostly heading toward the crash site, where the fire was dying out, to be replaced by vehicle lights glowing in the dark.
The geographical layout of the area where all this took place, is such that it was a low valley area with higher hills to the north and south, so from his position, during the daylight, he could have seen the air base to the south and the crash site to his east. As it began to get lighter, he recognized all the vehicles were American and decided to walk down a nearby road and flag one down. The driver picked him up and immediately drove him to the airbase. He was the last one to arrive and when the base commander told him that they had found three dead at his crash site and gave him a list of the names of the men who had been brought to the base, Hornsby felt sick in that, he was certain he had stayed in long enough for all of them to get out.
It must be remembered, no one had informed the pilots that Bartho was stuck in the nose turret. Then, the base commander demanded that Hornsby, like his crew, tell the base commander everything they knew. All Hornsby would tell him was his name, rank, and squadron. Having seen Hornsby’s facial cut, the commander told him he was going to be taken to the base hospital to have the cut sewn up and he would be given a basic check to make sure he was okay.
When he arrived at the hospital, they took a quick look at him, assigned him a bunk, and gave him a sedative to prepare him to go into surgery. When he went to sleep, all the beds in the ward were occupied, then when he later awoke, he was the only one in the ward. In a while, he heard two people talking outside the ward’s closed door. One was telling the other about the coward that was in the ward. He was the pilot of the plane that crashed and as it had been flying to the east when it crashed proved he was a coward as he had landed further to the west than any of the survivors. He was the pilot and he had to have been the first man to bail out leaving three men to die in the crash. Hornsby told the author, that he got absolutely furious because they thought he was the first out instead of the last. But, that was the order, he could not say anything. So he bit his lip and waited to be released.
When Hornsby was released, he was taken to the isolated barracks where the rest of the survivors of his crew were living. Due to the constantly stated orders to never talk about their job, the survivors never discussed the crash between themselves and when they returned to duty at their base in England, no one talked or asked them about what happened in France. As the hours passed, all the survivors had been taken to the air base where the Base Commander insisted they tell who they were and what they were doing. Each of the men refused to tell him anything, no matter what punishment he had threatened them with his Officer in Charge, had reported up the chain of command, that the crash had happened nearby and within a half hour the commander had been gotten out of bed to directly communicate with the telephone calls from their commanders.
In effect, the crap had hit the fan and spread. He was bewildered as he reported the arrival of the men, how they would not tell him anything other than their name, rank, and serial number. He was told to place them in an isolated location and limit their contact with anyone. Then, he received a call from his highest commander, informing him that he was to expect the arrival of a Colonel from Eisenhower’s staff and he was to do exactly what the Colonel told him to do and if he wanted to question what he was to do say so now and Gen Eisenhower would be placing a direct call to him to discuss the situation. For a career military person, it was obvious something was going on, that was way above his position in the chain of command and he sure was not going to do something stupid.
About now, the reader is wondering how the hell this fellow knows about any Colonel and where and what he was doing. During the research and discussion, all the locations with many involved people, such as Silva talked about this young Colonel who arrived, talked to their officer, and left. Then, the officer ordered them to do things that they knew were against Army regulations. Each was told then ‘to never question about what they were doing and never to question what they were doing, they were also ordered to do what they were told to do as well as they would never tell anyone what had happened. Even when back in the civilian life, if it is found out they had discussed they would be subject to a death sentence!’
In the early 2000s, when the author was seeking answers, he began to receive a series of emails from an unidentified person. Over the period of communication, the person refused to identify himself. However, the researcher was told that their father had been a driver on Gen Eisenhower’s staff and he would never talk about what he had done. After he had died, they found a diary that described a period in November and December 1944. Their father had sealed it tightly and placed a note on it, ‘Do not open until I am dead!’
The father had recently died and when they opened the diary, their father had been assigned as a personal driver for a Colonel on Gen Eisenhower’s staff. During that time, he laid out their travels including the various stops. When they had Googled the locations, the author’s name came up for all of the locations and they wanted to compare what their father had written and what the author knew.
After a series of emails, when the diary entries had been covered the email address became inactive. He had gotten out of bed early on November 10, 1944, after a quick breakfast, he was issued with a group of trip tickets authorizing him to go where ordered and when ordered; he had been issued a group; he went to the motor pool and picked up a staff car; then he went to the mess hall and picked up what would be ready then he met a Colonel outside the operation center. They provided orders, that whatever service the vehicle might do, it had priority over anything else. There were open passes, that authorized him to drive anywhere in France, where his passenger ordered he could expect to be gone for several days at a time and he would continue in the assignment until directly released by the Colonel. He arrived at the operations center, an unnamed Colonel, but an officer he recognized, had him load some luggage and told him, to get to St Quentin as fast as he could. He was authorized to use the siren when needed and if required, he (they) could command any military police to help them break through traffic.
When they arrived at the base hospital in St Quentin, the Colonel went in and came out soon with another Colonel. The driver was told to take them to a nearby building. There, a cart arrived with three bundles on it and he asked for a couple of extra blankets to put on his trunk floor so the messy bundles would not stain the floor. The other Colonel seemed very unhappy but waved after as he left the staff car at his headquarters. They left the hospital and went to a nearby air base with small recon planes. One of them was running, they pulled up and the Colonel got out and talked to the pilot. Minutes later, the driver helped load the three bundles into the plane and as they drove off, the plane started to taxi.
The Colonel told him to take the road toward Amiens and make the best time he could. They arrived at an airbase with B-26 bombers parked around it and when he drove up to the headquarters, a Colonel was waiting for them. His Colonel got out, asked the other where the mess hall was then told the driver to go have a delayed breakfast and if they gave him any crap, tell them to call the base commander at once and as soon as he was done, return and wait for him.
November, 9, 1944. Discussing this posting before publishing by EUCHM, (Doc Snafu) and the author stated we should add, that after his 33 years of research he believes that both Gott and Metzger of course deserved the CMOH for their actions in the last few minutes of their lives at their true crash site. They could have saved their lives by landing at two places before their fatal crash. They did not do so, because the crash would had endangered American personnel on the ground as well as the last of the three survivors who had bailed out of the B-17G. They truly gave up their lives, so others may live!
The driver of the Colonel had been served a personal breakfast by very unhappy mess hall people and was soon back at the headquarters. He had only been there a few minutes when both Colonels came out and got in the back. His Colonel told him to head for the gate and their passenger would give him directions. In about 15 minutes, he drove through a small village, over a crossroads, and arrived at an obvious aircraft crash site.
The whole time, the two Colonels were holding serious discussions. He was told to park by the hole and they got out. Both went into a close by small woods, relieved themselves and then came back out and watched a long line of civilians circulating the crash site. They walked off to see scattered parts of the plane and came back, and talked to the officer at the ambulance. They only talked for a couple of minutes and the Colonels got back in the car and the driver was told to head for the base.
There, the Colonels went into the headquarters for some time then his Colonel came out, got in the car and told the driver to head toward St Quentin. It was mid-afternoon when they cleared St Quentin and the officer told him to pull over, he had some maps for the driver to see. They were all French road maps and much better maps than he had seen to date. The Colonel explained they had to make their way from where they were to a small village to the southeast of Verdun. As the driver knew the main roads were full of military convoys and it was impossible to make any time using them. The Colonel told him, he had been born in America to French parents who had become American citizens. He had spent a lot of time in France visiting the families and touring with them the World War lines. What they were going to do, was to use the small roads that spider webbed across France from village to village.
If one knew how to do it you could cover a lot more distance than you could following the Roman roads which were still the main roads of France. The rest of that day and until just before midnight, they had arrived at a village named Hattonville. The Colonel had told the American Sergeant of the Guard to take good care of him and for him to hit the sack and get rested for tomorrow. The Sergeant of the Guard sent him off with a soldier who took him past the mess hall and to a home where he would bed down. Then, as he was walking off, the Sergeant of the Guard had driven the Colonel off to the house where three Majors, the Commander, the Executive Officer and the Doctor were staying. When he arrived, he was met by the Majors, and November 10, ended for them.
State of play November 1944
The question is ‘What is this all about?’ For those who wonder where this story is leading them, it seems to me to summarize a little the state of affairs in this month of November 1944 as well as the multitude of incomprehensible things that will follow. First the map (actual) and the location of the crash sites, the B-24 Top Secret (top left); the B-17 Lady Jeanette (bottom right). Then, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor, Saarbrucken (further east).
