A Bad Day For Flying: The story of a WWII B-24 Commander shot down over Hankow
By Alan Foster

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“It should have been a thrill, but this changed man was no longer reassuring,” my dad said. Sheldon Chambers, Belle Starr’s usual co-pilot, would be staying behind that day, and dad moved to the right seat to make way for Major Ellsworth. Ed Uebel, a darkroom technician who had volunteered to take bomb damage photos, would replace assistant engineer Jack Miller for that mission.

Clustered fragmentation bombs were loaded aboard Belle Starr, and long belts of .50-caliber ammo were fed into each gun position. Without any greeting, Ellsworth bounded onto the flight deck, took his place in the left seat and began flicking switches. To dad’s amazement, the squadron commander abruptly started two engines at once, violating normal checklist procedures.

Soon the seven Liberators were roaring down the runway and into the air. The formation slowly climbed and turned left, with Belle Starr on the right, or outside, of the others as one by one they faded into a cloud layer. But when Belle Starr emerged, the other planes were not to its left anymore, but to the right. It had flown through the entire formation in the clouds!

Dad’s uncertainty about Ellsworth increased as they flew on: “He seemed oblivious to me as though absorbed in a world of his own. He wrestled, at times angrily, with the plane, jockeying the throttles back and forth and profanely cursing our plane’s ‘lack of trim.’ In truth, our plane with its belly turret was new to the theater, and it was a heavy addition to the tail, but he seemed to have unusual trouble keeping in formation.” (Much later my father learned that Ellsworth had had a premonition about the mission, telling his roommate that he knew “his number was up.” In an effort to calm Ellsworth, the roommate had shared a bottle of whiskey with him the night before—finally getting the major to bed only about an hour before he had to get up for the briefing.)

As the bombers flew on, word came over the radio that their sister squadron, the 373rd, would not be joining up—they were fogged in at their base in Yankai. Just as Major Beat had to decide whether to continue without fighter escort or to abort, now Major Horace Foster, leading the formation in Sherazade, had to call the shots. He too decided to continue on.

The weather was beautiful, with bright sun and high cumulus clouds. Feeling rather useless in the right seat, my dad started thinking about Changsha. He wondered whether he would ever see his childhood home and beloved Amah (Chinese for nanny) again.

Suddenly four P-40s appeared off to the right. The pilots of the shark-nosed fighters flew alongside for a bit, saluted, then snaked on ahead. “At least,” thought my dad, “it is reassuring to know the P-40s are out there somewhere.”

Major Foster in Sherazade, leading A Flight, was flanked by new planes and their novice pilots, Lieutenant Clarence Robinson in the unnamed “938” on his left and Lieutenant Linus J. Austin in Star Dust to his right. Leading B Flight in Chug-a-Lug, Captain Leland Farnell (ordered to command that aircraft by Major Foster, who had displaced Farnell in his usual position in Sherazade) had 1st Lt. Joe Hart on his left in Glamour Gal. On the right of B Flight was Belle Starr. Below and behind them was Cabin in the Sky, piloted by 1st Lt. David W. Holder.

After five hours the Liberators approached Hankow and its twin city of Wuchang along the Yangtze River. The bombers lined up on their target, the second of two airfields. Flak started bursting around them, and then the little red light flickered on the pilots’ instrument panel, indicating bombs away. But instead of rapidly turning away from the target, they continued straight ahead, eventually beginning a slow turn to the left. Then came a cry over the intercom: “I see fighters taking off!” Meanwhile, the 30 P-40 and eight P-38 escorts that had been promised were nowhere to be seen.

Tags: Aerial Combat, Aviation History, World War II

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