B-24 Liberator

Petrock said:
I would love to see some photos of her 50s if you've got them. How did they hold up after all those years exposed? Did you get any photos of ammunition?
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Sorry Petrock, no pictures of the guns. They were removed several years ago by University. They were rusted, bent. Most wrecks around here after discovery by Mil pers, they removed (for lack of better nomenclature) the breach block then dented the receiver with a mallet then left then gun insitu. Remember it was wartime and the loss of men and material was an every day event and in a very remote area. The recovery team on the crash to my understanding went in by dog team and snowshoes led by the trapper that first discovered it... This next picture may give you some idea as to the violence of this particular crash. Crew seat. What is left of the fabric seat belts is still on the waist attachments and indicate tensile separation.


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Petrock said:
I would love to see some photos of her 50s if you've got them. How did they hold up after all those years exposed? Did you get any photos of ammunition?
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This is the closest thing to ammo or guns.....the feed guide(i'm guessing at the name but you will recognize it for what it is).....just as shiny today as they were 60 plus years ago
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B-24's turn up id odd places--in May of 1977 I was waiting in the departure lounge at Edmonton International airport and a B-24 came in and landed. 4 0r 5 guys got out of it with briefcases and went into the terminal building. It was in the evening and I couldn't get a clear look at the markings but it was of couse non-military at that time.
 
This morning I walked into the office and received the following e-mail:

Hi John,

My niece has just informed me of the Canadian gunnutz website and sent me the link to the B24 Liberator thread.

To say I’m gobsmacked is putting it mildly. The pilot in the pictures of the crew and the cockpit is my father, Frederick William (Bill) Thorpe. He has a copy of the pic of himself – and your father – in the cockpit, but I’ve never seen the crew picture before.

I see in the caption to the crew picture, you ask how old those guys were……well, coincidentally, yesterday was my father’s 90th birthday, so if the crew picture was taken in early 1944 he would have been 20, going on 21. He’s still alive and kicking by the way…..and this coming weekend we’re taking him to Rand Airport here in South Africa where we’ve booked him a flip in a Tiger Moth, the plane he learned to fly on back in 1942 or thereabouts.

South Africa you ask?… well after the war, my dad went back to university in Nottingham – where he met my mother – and both qualified as architects. He decided he was tired of the cold and wet – and the politics – in England, and the family emigrated to SA in 1970. He and my mother still live in their house in a place called Halfway House, appropriately halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria. My sister and I live in Pretoria and Johannesburg respectively.

Best wishes – and hope to hear from you….

Jeremy Thorpe

I leave for SA on 14 July, the thought of meeting Dad’s pilot leaves me speechless.
 
Great story in every way. "The Caravan...", that's an interesting address. The man who was the Flight Engineer on Churchill's Liberator ended up dying in a caravan. That was his last home.
 
I just added an up to date photo of my meeting with Dad's war time pilot. William (Bill) Thorp, I am not ashamed to admit that some tears flowed, it was very strange. I know the bonds formed in combat are the strongest possible, but I was surprized at the closeness and strength of feeling that I felt to this great gentleman, a stranger to me from an earlier generation.
 
Thanks for putting these back up. My father was RCAF Ferry Command; I'll have to ask him if he ever flew a Liberator.

Ferry Command sounds nice and safe -- deliver new aircraft from Canada to Europe and beyond, never even see an enemy aircraft. On Dad's first flight, six planes left Canada and refueled in Greenland, five landed in Iceland, and four made it to Scotland. One of the missing aircraft was found the following year fifty feet below a mountaintop in Iceland; the other was never heard from again.
 
Mr Wolverine said:
I just added an up to date photo of my meeting with Dad's war time pilot. William (Bill) Thorp, I am not ashamed to admit that some tears flowed, it was very strange. I know the bonds formed in combat are the strongest possible, but I was surprized at the closeness and strength of feeling that I felt to this great gentleman, a stranger to me from an earlier generation.
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Thanks John for sharing such a rich history. Your dad would've been & is proud of you for Carying forward his legend.
 
Thank you so much for posting your dads sacrifice and service it brought a tear to my eye my dad was with the Winnipeg rifles during d day ....less we forget ....and thank you
 
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