B-24 TERMITE CHASER
From Number to Narrative: How a Serial Number Uncovered the Mystery of a Sunken Bomber and Its Crew
Authors:
- ZORAN DELIBAŠIĆ I MISLAV PODNAR - WHA
Underwater photography:
- MICHELE FAVARON
Photos from the archives
- MARK WORTHINGTON
With the change of fortunes of war on the Mediterranean battlefield in the winter of 1942 and the spring of 1943 and the German-Italian complete loss of the front in North Africa, the balance of power on the Mediterranean battlefield changed significantly.
Allied Air Forces in the Mediterranean
The opening of a new front by the Allied landings on Sicily, and later on the Apennine peninsula, hastened the capitulation of Italy's political and military leadership. In preparation for the landing in Sicily, that is Italy, the Allies formed the Mediterranean Air Command (MAC), which united the existing air forces for air support for the landing, as well as other planned operations. At the end of 1943, that command was renamed the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces (MAAF). All Anglo-American air forces in Africa and the Mediterranean were subordinated to this command. They had a variable composition and united all types of air forces. It consisted of: Strategic, Tactical, Fighter, Coastal and Transport aviation.
Strategic aviation included the American 15th Air Force with about 1,200 heavy bombers and long-range fighters and the British 205th Group with about 850 heavy and medium bombers. It operated with a focus on targets on the territory of Austria, southern Germany, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia. The Tactical Air Force consisted of the Desert Air Force, the 12th Air Support Command, the Tactical Bomber Force and the 9th Air Army. A total of 267 squadrons were formed, of which 146 were American and 121 were British, with 4,900 aircraft. In the following months, with the movement of the front line on the Apennine peninsula to the north, the establishment of Allied military bases and airfields followed. They were most often positioned on former Italian military and civilian airfields where some kind of infrastructure for that purpose already existed. With their establishment, many targets of the critical infrastructure of the Third Reich came within the reach of the Allied Strategic Aviation, essential for the continuation of the war and the maintenance of the enormous war machine. One
of the components of the US 15th Air Force was the 450th Bombardment Group. It was formed on April 6, 1943 for the purpose of supporting Allied activities in the south of France, the Balkans and Italy.
The Birth of the 450th Bombardment Group
The group's first base was in Alamogordo, in the American state of New Mexico, where the 720th, 721st, 722nd and 723rd B-24 Liberator bomber squadrons were formed. At the end of November and during December 1943, planes and crews set off on a journey through Herrington, Kansas and Florida, South America and Africa, to Manduria, the city in the very heel of the Italian boot. The old base of the Italian Air Force from the 1930s became the base of the 450th Bombardment Group until its disbandment in May 1945. Combat operations from Manduria began on January 8, 1944 with the bombing of the airfield in Mostar. By May 1945 and the return to the USA, this bomber group had completed a total of 265 combat missions. Its largest number of missions was aimed at bombing railway infrastructure. →
→ With the advance of the Red Army in Romania, the strategic importance of railways in German supply lines to Hungary and Romania grew even more.
Good Friday Mission
The bombing mission on April 7, 1944, on Good Friday, in extremely beautiful and sunny weather, aimed to bomb the marshalling yard in the Italian city of Mestre, from which all traffic to the industrial zone and the port of Venice was controlled. On that day, a group of 35 B-24 Liberators of the 450th Bombardment Group took off from Manduria at 10:03 a.m., armed with 12 227 kg (500 lb) bombs each, and at 10:18 a.m. joined the 98th Bombardment Group, which led the attack. The bombing took place at 1:11 p.m. from a height between 6,100 and 7,000 meters. The resistance of the German forces was minimal, with weak and imprecise fire from large-caliber anti-aircraft artillery. The two formations of Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter planes that were spotted by the bomber crews did not attack the formation of the bomber group. A B-24 of the 722nd Squadron, flying in position 2 of the first wave, fell behind and
dropped its bombs and returned to formation. Soon, the same aircraft again left the formation with a right turn and at 1:16 p.m. began to rapidly lose height in a spiral over the enemy's territory. As the aircraft fell out of the formation it could no longer reach, the aircrew took a return course to the south. In the official report, Missing air crew report - MACR 3886, no problems with the engines were noted, although the notes of other adjacent aircraft crews in the formation noted the appearance of smoke from the outboard left engine.
B-24 Liberator Aircraft - Termite Chaser
The Liberator lost was a B-24H version, serial number 42-52141, nicknamed the Termite Chaser by the crew. The mentioned aircraft was manufactured at the Ford plant, Willow Run, in the state of Michigan and had the tail number 43 on the vertical stabilizers. This aircraft with a total of 10 crew members was commanded by 2nd Lt. Robert W. Nutt, and this was his crew's first combat mission. When it became evident that the plane became unmanageable, the decision was made not to go for a risky landing on the
surface of the sea, but to save the lives of the airmen by jumping out with parachutes. All ten crewmen were able to parachute out and land on the sea surface, however the plane's navigator, James H. Paulsgrove, drowned on this occasion, and the gunner, George W. Williams, was not found during the rescue, due to malfunctioning or improper use of life jackets. The other crew members were captured by the crew of the German seaplane. Although it is not clear from the official report, it was probably a captured Italian hydroplane Cant - 506, of the German VI. rescue squadron based in Puntižela near Pula. This made these airmen prisoners of war and were transferred to the transit prison camp for airmen Dulag Luft I in Verona, and then to the camp for airmen prisoners of war - Stalag Luft I, near the town of Barth on the shores of the Baltic Sea. All surviving Termite Chaser airmen saw the end of the war with the liberation of the camp by the Red Army and were retired after the war. Interesting records, which support a technical malfunction as the cause of the crash, were left by members of the 722nd Squadron of the 450th Bombardment Group, Adam E. Wood and →
→ Walter J. Kostro who were part of the original crew of the Wreck Hunters Adriatic identified B-24 42- 52141 Termite Chaser.
The Secrets of the Adriatic Depths
According to their notes, on April 4, 1944, the aircraft had an engine replaced, and on April 5, it did not fly a mission due to problems with the oil pressure in engines number 3 and number 4. There was no combat mission on April 6, 1944, and on the 7th. In April 1944, a new crew took off on their first mission, from which the Termite Chaser did not return. The original crew took over the B-24 serial number 42-99805, tail markings 47. It was the plane of the lost crew named Madame Shoo Shoo. After the loss of Liberator 42-52141, that aircraft was redesignated Termite Chaser II. Our story about the sunken US Air Force plane started a few years ago. The wreckage of the then unknown plane, located west of the island of Unije, was discovered by our friend Davor Buršić from the partner diving center Shark diving, and he kindly shared this information with us. Although the location of the wreck is
included as a diving position in the tourist offer of this famous Medulin diving center, the number of divers who have visited the wreck of the plane is relatively small. There are several reasons for this, and some of them are the considerable distance from Medulin, diving "into the blue" in the open sea, usually poor visibility due to the action of fishing trawls and sea currents that raise the surrounding sediment to a greater extent, as well as the depth of the site of 51 meters, which is sports divers without gas mixtures beyond all safety standards. In order to identify the aircraft, part of the Wreck Hunters Adriatic team made two very demanding dives in poor visibility conditions, with specially prepared gas mixtures and adapted equipment configuration for the occasion. In the first dive, upon arriving at the site, we determined that the wreckage of the plane was devastated by trawl nets beyond recognition - it represented a field of scattered and bent sheet metal. In the pile of that metal, we were able to identify some parts characteristic of the B-24 aircraft, and we were lucky enough to find a complete Browning machine gun lying on the sand not far from the
wreckage. During the second dive, we cleaned the part of the machine room where the factory number is positioned with wire brushes with the utmost efforts, constantly changing. This effort bore fruit, and towards the end of the second dive we managed to clear the serial number of the engine room - 1150494.
Aircraft Identification
By knowing this information, the possibility of identifying the aircraft became open. Our friend Šime Lisica, an aviation enthusiast from Petrčani, played a key role in the identification of the aircraft using the serial number of the machine gun. After a few days of our waiting for the results of Šima's research into the documents of the lost aircraft over the territory of today's Croatia, his search bore fruit and spawned the whole story about the fate of the fallen Liberator. By the way, the method of identifying a lost aircraft according to the number of the machine room or the plate with the serial number of the aircraft inside the cockpit is also the most accurate method of identification due to the precise reports available today. Scraping and reading the written aircraft serial →
→ number from the vertical stabilizers as a method of identification does not necessarily correspond to records in military archives and could lead the identification in the wrong direction. Namely, due to heavy losses and damage to aircraft during the war, which strained the military industry to the limit, it was often not possible to keep up with the pace of supply of spare parts in field conditions, so aircraft were often repaired and assembled from several of the same type by service crews at aviation airfields. On the other hand, the weapons were recorded by the American Air Force with great precision, so each piece with a serial number and position was recorded
in their already mentioned MACRs, a database that contains information about the fate of missing American planes and airmen. On the basis of that document, we determined that it was a B-24 that, interestingly, the Americans believed had fallen near Portorož in what was then Italy. However, the serial number of the Browning that we managed to clear says that Unije is the place where the B-24 fell into the sea due to a technical engine failure, as evidenced by the reports of other aircraft in the formation, but not the report of the surviving crew members of this Liberator. Following the events, we informed the office of the Military Attache of the
American Embassy in Zagreb about our discovery of the fate of the sunken plane. After our application, they started the mechanism of further verification and confirmed our statements. They praised our work and initiative and asserted, like us, that there are no remains of crew members among the remains of the plane. Once this is known, there is no interest in further searching for the remains of the airmen. The authentic identification and the fate of the aircraft and crew in this case are more impressive than the damaged find itself, but such finds also deserve to have their stories told if possible.
