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Thursday, March 28, 2024 - 04:58 AM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

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Friday afternoon, three famous World War II aircraft flew into Greenville and landed at the Greenville Downtown Airport as part of the “Wings of Freedom” Program.

The first planes to land were the P-51 Mustang and the B-17 “Flying Fortress,” and the B-24 “Liberator” landed shortly afterward.

During WWII, the B-24 carried a ten-man crew consisting of a pilot, co-pilot, navigator, radio operator, nose gunner, engineer/turret gunner, ball turret gunner, the belt-fed .50 cal. waist gunners (Browning Flexible Machine Gun) one on each side of the aircraft, and the tail gunner.

The aerial gunners were all enlisted men. After basic training, the men chosen to train as career gunners entered a six-week gunnery school. Aeroplane armorer-gunner trainees took a 20-week course in the operation and maintenance of aircraft armaments. By 1943, 91,595 gunners had graduated from Army/Air Force school. From 1941-45, 297,000 officers and enlisted men graduated from gunnery school. The course covered weapons, ballistics, turret operation/maintenance, gun repairs, shooting from a turret, and firing from air-to-ground targets and also air-to-air targets.

The B-24 was produced in greater quantities than any other US military aircraft including the B-17.

The B-24 Bomber flew in every theater of operation during WWII including the China, Burma, India theater.

Approximately 18,188 B-24 “Liberator” bombers were manufactured in the US from 1941-45. Some were even built at the Ford Motor Company plant in Willow Run, Michigan, where 6,792 were assembled. Others were built in San Diego, CA, Fort Worth and Dallas, TX, and Tulsa, OK.

B-24 is best remembered for its daylight bombing raids over Nazi-occupied Europe with the US 8th and 15th Air Forces, as well as bombing oil fields in Germany.

Great Britain (RAF), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) used various models of the B-24 during WWII.

The B-24 that landed here in Greenville, was named “Witchcraft” because the original B-24 with that name had 130 successful missions in the European Theater. This is the only B-24 still flying today.

It was found in India years after the war and restored. The Collings Foundation financed the restoration and maintenance of the B-24 and was just going to display it in a museum. But, WWII Army Air Corps Veterans wanted it to be flown around the USA for the public to see. This is the reason it flies into Greenville each year along with the B-17 Heavy Bomber and the P-51 Mustang.

Friday, media representatives (print, TV and Online) photographers were given the opportunity to board the B-24 for a short flight over Greenville County. As a contributing photographer for The Times Examiner, this reporter was asked if he would like to go on the flight.

Three of us sat on a steel-slab seat in the rear of the plane, two others had to sit on the floor and two WWII veterans sat up near the cockpit area of the plane.

After the plane was airborne and flying rather smoothly, we were told to unbuckle our seat belts and carefully walk around to take aerial photos. The photographers were given freedom to take pictures out of the waist gun windows on each side of the plane.

Soon it was time to return to our seat positions and buckle up for the return flight to downtown airport.

 

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