456th Bombardment Group

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Thank you for visiting! This historical archive site is maintained as a link to the past. Please allow considerable time while here to learn about the 456^th Bombardment Group (H) through the many hundreds of photos, stories and links...

Late in 1944, 13 U.S. B-24 bomber crews bailed from their cabins over the Yugoslavian wilderness. Bloodied and disoriented after a harrowing strike against the Third Reich, the pilots took refuge with the Partisan underground. But the Americans were far from safe.
Holed up in a village barely able to feed its citizens, encircled by Nazis, and left abandoned after a team of British secret agents failed to secure their escape, the airmen were left with little choice. It was either flee or be killed.

Major Douglas Richards served as a B-24 bomber pilot in the 456^th Bomb Group based in Italy during World War II. He saw a lot of heavy combat as a pilot flying missions throughout southern and eastern Europe, including the loss of most of his crew. As he was fairly high ranking, he was aware of the larger strategic picture, but he was low enough ranking to be involved tactically in combat.
VICTORY! follows his entire World War II experience from recruitment to the end of the war. Perhaps the most valuable part of the book to a historian will be the many never before published photographs he took that are included, as well as mission briefs.

In late January 1944, thousands of young men, as ordered, arrived at Westover Field, Massachusetts. Each had recently graduated from different military schools at many different air fields around the country, and thus were now qualified pilots, navigators, bombardiers or gunners. This story tells what happened to one air crew brought together at that their training to operate as a crew of a B-24, four engine, heavy bomber; their flying a brand new one to the Fifteenth Air Force field in southern Italy; their introduction to the war; and the war as they experienced it and the aftermath.