460th Aircraft
Courtesy of Duane 'Sparky' Bohnstedt
760th Squadron "Q"
Courtesy of Mike Brey
Damaged 460th aircraft 'M' identified by Sead Vrana as 41-28698 of the 763rd Squadron.
Courtesy of Mike Brey
460th aircraft 'K'
Courtesy of Mike Brey
460th aircraft 'C'
Courtesy of Mike Brey
Three 460th aircraft on hardstands
Courtesy of Mike Brey
More 460th aircraft
Courtesy of Lewis J. Miller
A crew works on the No. 4 engine of a B-24 at the base in Spinnazola. There were usually two, sometimes three men assigned to work on an engine. The plane sits on a steel mat to keep it from sinking into the mud.
Courtesy of Lewis J. Miller
This photo shows a B-24 just coming in off the runway from a combat mission. If you look carefully, you can see the top turret gunner exultantly popping out of the escape hatch with his arms out. The caption on the back of the photo says, "Ah, ground at last and safe in the hardstand."
Courtesy of Lewis J. Miller
This is young Lewis J. Miller of Chester, Pennsylvania, looking for one of his tools on a snowy Spinazolla afternoon. The tools were stored in used 50 gallon drums.
Courtesy of Lewis J. Miller
Conditions were often very tight when working on the nose of a B-24. This particular plane sports an original piece of nose art that Pvt. Miller painted. The plane was christened "Agony Wagon." Agony Wagon was not a unique piece of creativity on Pvt. Miller's part. Knowing what lay ahead for the crews, whenever another B-24 was delivered the men would sigh, "Here comes another agony wagon."
Courtesy of Duane 'Sparky' Bohnstedt
Cuddles with early style tail marking.
Courtesy of Duane 'Sparky' Bohnstedt
Red I 761st Squadron showing final tail marking.
Courtesy of Duane 'Sparky' Bohnstedt
Rough Rider 760th Squadron Q showing final tail marking.
Courtesy of Duane 'Sparky' Bohnstedt
Rough Rider 760th Squadron Q, 44-49392, B-24L-5-FO
Courtesy of Duane 'Sparky' Bohnstedt
White C 762nd Squadron showing second tail marking.
Courtesy of Duane 'Sparky' Bohnstedt
Hangar Queen of the 763rd Squadron
Courtesy of Gerry Kersey
After dropping its bombs on an enemy airfield, this Consolidated B-24 Liberator of the Fifteenth Air Force was hit in one engine by flak, but limped home with smoke and flame pouring from the injured engine high above the waters of the Adriatic.
Courtesy of Mickey Gregory
This appears to be the same aircraft as the one above. The larger version of this photo indicates the name of this aircraft was "Patricia Ann" or something like that. I can't quite make out the last three letters. Taken by David Howard Wray, Mickey's father.
Photo courtesy of Chuck Parsonson
Following caption courtesy of Mike Weber
It was indeed a 460th Bomb Group aircraft and it belonged to the 763rd BS. An uncropped version of the image is used in Bohnstedt's 460th Bomb Group History book and appears on page 55. There is some additional information about this aircraft receiving significant damage (no lost crew members) on June 26, 1944. The aircraft is referred to as Yellow X of the 763rd Squadron Hanlon crew. Hanlon is Charles W. Hanlon. No aircraft number is provided. The battle damage received on that mission consisted of 40 flak, machine gun, and cannon holes, the No. 2 engine was shot out and its cowl flaps were gone, and one of their vertical stabilizers had been hit and partially sheared off by an enemy fighter. To add to that damage, the nose wheel collapsed during landing and the aircraft skidded off the runway.
In addition to the image on page 55 of the history book Bohnstedt drew and included a full-page, post-mission color drawing of the damaged aircraft on the side of the runway as page 99.
Target for Tonight, 44-48977, B-24-J-20-FO