My grandfather flew as a radio operator/waist gunner in B24 liberators in the South Pacific, 424th Bomb Squadron of the 307th Bomb Group, mostly out of Morotai and Wewak.  I was recently watching a documentary and saw aircraft with the 307th BG's marking on the tail, a blue dot with gold LR in it, for "Long Rangers."

Did a little further poking around and got this:



It had writing on the back, which I will post, but a couple of my notes:

The aircraft is clearly a B24J, not a D model.  The radar in question is H2X, which took the place of the ball turret on equipped aircraft.

B24D #441290 13th Army Air Force, 307th Bomb Group, 424th Bomb Squadron, based at Island of Morotai, Dutch East Indies, 2 degrees below equator.  Ship painted dark to signify it as being equipped with radar guidance and for night use.  The belly gun turret is replaced with radar dome on bottom.

We flew this ship on many missions.  It functioned well on night missions, particularly shipping, and was an excellent navigational aid.

One stormy night while returning to Morotai from a long gas consuming mission, we were socked in and radios were useless.  Our pilot, Chas. Christian, asked our radar operator, Scully, of Chicago, for help.

We were nearing Halmahera, a tall mountain chain which we had to fly through to reach our base at Morotai, 30 miles away.  Using intercom instructions, Scully guided the pilot through the valleys and over mountains until he saw the Morotai strip and landed.  As soon as the landing gear braked, two engines died as result of being out of gas.  Radar operator Scully was exhausted.

The Halmahera group was occupied by 80,000 Japs, and they had been by-passed and kept contained by P.T. boats and planes.

Although our ship 290 was worthy, I was sometimes uncomfortable flying in formation with the other planes, which were natural aluminum.  290 stood out and got holed several times.

watch for the collings foundation tour --they have a flying b24 and b 17 that travel will be in my AO in 2 months then slowly west and up the coast.  

Fuggin awesome.

I've been aboard both, never sprung for the flight, though.  Maybe some day.  

It's really cool reading first hand accounts of early "modern" technologies being used.

Neat!  Was this your grandfather's story?

Thanks for sharing!

Yep!  He wrote it in pen on the back of the photograph.  He died in 1999 and I got interested in his life since then - he's one of those guys they write stories about.

Do you have any other tales from his service time?

You should collect up what you have and try to preserve it for posterity.

I'm still working on his service time.  There's a lot of other stuff, like the time when he was in Boy Scouts and he burned down the scout hut.  Some stuff from his time as a state policeman and sheriff deputy.

There was the time his squadron sank an island, though.  They had a crew go down on one of the islands and the natives turned the crew over to the Japanese.  They spent the day bombing the island, returning for ordnance, then bombing the island some more.  He said the first run, they dropped daisycutters and napalm, and after that, it was mostly general purpose bombs.  He said that was the last time any natives turned over a US crew to the Japanese.

He was a radio operator and was good at Morse code.  So good, he was chosen to be the guy to send back the bomb damage assessments.  When he was on liberty in Australia, he bought a type of Morse code key called a "bug."  Vibroplex makes them now.  His next mission, he sent the bomb damage assessment at something like 70 words per minute.  He got in some trouble with the squadron signal officer over that.

He participated in the raids on Balikpapan and Corregidor.  Also bombed Clark Field.

Now, my other grandfather joined the Army in the 1930s.  He'd been working with the CCC on forest fires on Mt. Rainier and almost died in one.  He and his brother, Ross, walked off the job with the CCC, went straight to Ft. Lewis and joined the Army.  He wound up in the Air Corps in the Aleutians and stayed in until they forced him out after Vietnam.  I have a photo of him in front of a legitimate horse-drawn wagon, the kind like you see in the old cavalry movies, wearing the brown uniform with the riding breeches and "Smoky the Bear" hat.

Thanks for sharing

Thread caught my eye since my grandfather also flew on B24's, just on the other side of the world.

After watching some of the videos about the Ploesti raids, my grandfather said, "Those guys had it a lot worse than we did."

Very cool!

I have posted this in GD a couple times.  Maybe someone here will like it.  

Thanks for sharing!  That aircraft was a B24A which was going to be lend-leased to Great Britain.  It crashed on landing somewhere and was damaged badly enough, it had to go back to Consolidated in San Diego for repair.  It was converted to a transport variant and was converted back post-war.  If it had ever made it to the UK, that plane would have surely been destroyed.  I think it's the only flying example of a pre-war B24!

If I understood him correctly, he said his dad was a radio operator and waist gunner.  That's the exact same position as my grandfather and given the time period he was talking about, they might have even been in training in some of the same places!

My grandfather's missions were mostly over the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.  He was involved in the Battle of Corregidor and the Battle of Balikpapan.

He was on this mission to bomb Cavite Jan 24 1945.

Sounds like he had a slightly different experience with the RADAR than the fellow in that video.  

Yes.  That particular plane was stateside all of its life.  Delore wasn't familiar with that particular plane,  And being in his 90's he was sharp as a tack with his memories,  though a little slow.  But he had a hard time understanding why this particular plane was a bit different than his.  Delore was shot down over the water near North Africa.  He described having to unhook the radio equipment and toss it out the bomb bay,  then following it out.  


I met Delore on the tarmac,  I was standing under the wing of the b-24 with my camera at my side.  It is a rather large camera,  and he walked right up to me and smiled while running his hand on the prop.  His face lit up with a smile when I began to engage him in conversation,  after a few minutes he said he wants to go in the plane.  So I called over a crew member and told them Delore was a radioman in a b24 in Africa.  They cleared the plane out for Delore and He requested that I follow him into the plane and said bring the camera.  His exact words were "Are you coming in?  Bring that (pointing to the camera)".  
His wife who was a sweetheart.  She was so exited that he told a story on camera.  She said he had never spoken about his time in the war and asked me for a copy of the video.  I was more than happy to make a video for them.
I had a blast talking with him,  his story was amazing.  I shut the camera down after about 20 to 30 minutes and put it down and just listened to him and his son converse.

Getting a chance to hear his story and spend time with him, that's priceless.  I really wish I'd had the ability to interview my grandfather when I was old enough to understand what he was saying.

I really miss him.