Consolidated B-24 Liberator - Notable B-24 Crewmen

Notable B-24 Crewmen

• Don Herbert, television pioneer "Mr. Wizard", flew 56 missions as a Liberator pilot over northern Italy, Germany, and Yugoslavia, winning the Distinguished Flying Cross.
• American Senator and 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern served as a B-24 pilot in missions over Italy as a member of the 455th Bomb Group of the Fifteenth Air Force; his wartime exploits and some of the characteristics of the B-24 are the focus of Stephen Ambrose's book The Wild Blue.
• Brigadier General Jimmy Stewart USAF Reserve, flew B-24s as commanding officer of the 703rd BS, 445th BG out of RAF Tibenham, UK, before a promotion to operations officer of the 453rd BG. From 1943 to 1944, Stewart was credited with 20 combat missions as a pilot, including one over Berlin. Stewart flew several more (possibly as high as 20 additional) uncredited missions, filling in for pilots as duties and space would allow. Stewart's leadership qualities were highly regarded; the men who served under him praised his coolness under fire. He entered service as a private in early 1941 and rose to the rank of colonel by 1945.
• Former Speaker of the House, Jim Wright, served as a B-24 bombardier in the Pacific. He recounts his experience in his book The Flying Circus: Pacific War – 1943 – as Seen Through a Bombsight.
• William Charles Anderson, author of BAT-21 and Bomber Crew 369, piloted Liberators based in Italy as a member of the 451st Bomb Group of the 15th AF.
• B-24J Lonesome Lady, 494th Bomb Group, 7th Air Force, piloted by Lt. Thomas Cartwright, was shot down 28 July 1945 over Kure, Japan. Eight crew members survived; Lt. Cartwright was taken to Tokyo for questioning, and the remaining seven were taken to the military police facility in Hiroshima, fifteen miles away. They died there nine days later, 6 August 1945, when the atomic bomb was dropped on the city.
• Film director Robert Altman was a B-24 co-pilot flying over 50 bombing missions in Borneo and the Dutch East Indies.
• Stewart Udall, author, conservationst, Arizona Congressman, and Secretary of Interior during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, served as a waist gunner on a B-24 in 1944. He was based in Southern Italy; 15th Army AF, 454th Bombardment Group. His Liberator's nickname was "Flyin' Home." He is credited with 50 missions. The 454th received a Unit Citation for leading an attack on the Hermann Goering Steel Works in Linz, Austria on 25 July 1944. Udall's crew suffered one casualty on the mission. The dead crew member was serving at the waist-gunner position normally manned by Udall; by chance, the Pilot assigned Udall to the nose gun for this mission, saving his life.
• Olympic runner, and later war prisoner and hero Louis Zamperini, served as a bombardier on two B-24s. The first, which the crew named "Super Man" was damaged and they were assigned the B-24D "Green Hornet" to conduct search and rescue. On May 27, 1943, the aircraft crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Eight of the 11 crewmembers were killed. Zamperini, pilot Russell A. Phillips, and Francis McNamara survived the crash. Only Zamperini and Phillips survived their 47 days adrift on a life raft on the sea.