February 19th is the Anniversary of the crash on take-off of the 36th Radar Counter Measure Bomb Squadron’s B24 Liberator Bomber #42-50385, R4-H, otherwise known as the Beast of Bourbon in which three out of the ten-man crew lost their lives.
To mark this occasion, on Saturday May 7, 2011, a memorial dedication event is being held, honouring the 36th Bomb Squadron and those who lost their lives, including the men in the village of Long Marston, England where the airplane crashed. A flyover from an Air Force aircraft from Lakenheath will make the occasion even more memorable. John Howarth, navigator on the Liberator when it crashed, will be in attendance with his wife Ann and son Brian along with other British and American veterans. Stephen Hutton, author of ‘Squadron of Deception’ is organising the event through Chas Jellis, who established a Memorial in England last November honouring the Gremlins. RAF 100 Group Association members have also been invited. (RAF 100 Group Squadrons flew with the 36th on operational night time missions beginning in the small hours of D-Day June 6, 1944 until January 3, 1945. After that time the 36th flew exclusively on daylight missions for the 8th Air force.)
The following is the story of what happened on that fateful day, and our next magazine will include coverage of the Anniversary event 66 years on.
On 19 February only No.1 station was occupied for the VHF Screen. Squadron Liberator #4250385, R4-H, nicknamed Beast of Bourbon piloted by Lt. Louis McCarthy and his crew were assigned to station No. 2. Beast of Bourbon crashed on take off and the other stations were cancelled prior to takeoff. The crash was attributed to instrument failure. Of the ten crew members aboard, three were killed, two were moderately injured, and five slightly injured. Killed were S/Sgt. Carl Lindquist, Pvt. Fred Becker, and Pvt. Howard Haley. S/Sgt. Robert MacAdam also received moderate injuries and was hospitalised. Aside from the regular McCarthy crew members, Lt. Victor Pregeant and Lt. Foreman, pilot and navigator of the new crews were on this aircraft. Lt. Pregeant escaped injury, but Lt. Robert Foreman, navigator on Lt. PregeantÆs crew suffered a broken hip and was grounded indefinitely. The aircraft was a total loss.
The actual crash report stated that at 0916, the time of the accident, the weather had ground fog up to 400 feet, the surface visibility was 30 yards, and the wind was south-southeast at 2mph. The temperature and the dew point were the same at 45 degrees Fahrenheit -- perfect weather conditions for England’s infamous dense fog. It was determined that the cause for the take-off accident was instrument lag (flight indicator and airspeed indicator) and extremely poor visibility.
Lt. Louis McCarthy crew
The official narrative of the accident read:
The pilot, Lt. Pregeant, after making routine cockpit check, taxied out to marshalling point for take-off. The pilot then checked everything again including engine run-up check. The B24 moved out to the end of runway 26 and took off in ground fog with visibility of 30 yards. The aircraft became airborne at approximately 105mph and cleared the end of the runway at 110mph. The pilot was immediately on instruments and held the aircraft in flying attitude to build up airspeed to 135mph. The engines operating at full throttle sounded normal and gauges indicated 43" and 2500 rpm. At approximately ½ mile west of the west end of the runway, slightly to the right, the aircraft touched ground and the mark of its path indicated that it was in a proper attitude at the time of contact, altimeter reading reached 45 feet and never reduced again. After hitting hedges and trees, the pilot cut throttles and co-pilot cut switches which possibly delayed fire and explosion which took place approximately seven minutes after the crash.
Lt. Louis McCarthy, the senior pilot giving Lt. Vic Pregeant the check-ride, spoke of the crash:
‘It was a terrible morning. Everything happened so fast. The fog was right down to the tops of the grass. They lined us up on the runway with flashlights. We should never have been allowed to take off. They pushed it and why they did I don't know. The plane just gave out on take-off. There was no power on any of the engines for some reason and that's when we hit. It was a terrible foggy morning. The thing caught fire. I don't know whether gasoline spilled on the hot engines or what. We had to duck because all the ammunition started going off. We got everybody out including the ones who got killed. I remember looking out through the top of the thing and counting the yellow May Wests to make sure everybody was out. We should never have been sent out that morning, it was so bad.’
One of the injured, Lt. Robert Foreman, navigator for Lt. Pregeant, was unable to remember much about the crash. Foreman wrote to fellow crewman Sgt. Harry Broadhead on June 24, 1945:
‘Cursed was the day of February 19th that I had to leave you boys. From what I remember of Vic's visit, it was some crack-up. One of the boys on leave from the 36th, Lt. Corder, stopped in to see my folks and told them about it. Seems that six of the boys were killed (not so, but three), including McCarthy, the pilot. Since I don't know too much about the crash, could you write me what you know about it Harry? Anyway, all I got out of it was a fractured hip. I was in a body cast up to my arm pits till two weeks ago. I'm up on crutches now and the Doc said that my hip looks good. I should be able to throw the blasted crutches away in a few months.’
Word of the crash spread quickly. S/Sgt. Ed Lampson, engineer, remembered learning of the good luck of his pilot, Vic Pregeant:
‘The only event I really remember is the feeling the whole crew had when we heard that Vic had crashed on his check ride. This is heady stuff for a bunch of 20 year olds, far removed from home and family not knowing our future. You can know the relief we felt when Vic walked in with nothing but a band-aid on his head.’
Another lucky man was Lt. James Snoddy, the regular co-pilot for Lt. McCarthy. He recalled:
‘I was fortunate to be flying with another crew and was not in that crash. Carl Lindquist was our tail gunner who was killed when our crew crashed on take-off. He was only nineteen. Carl was a good little country boy. He looked like a little elf because he smoked a big yellow crooked stem pipe. He had a girlfriend back home and every night he would come by my hut with a letter to her for me to censor. He didn't mind my reading his personal letters to her. In fact, he would bring letters he had received from her for me to read. He called her his "Little Four Leaf Clover." He mentioned repeatedly that she was his good luck charm. It didn't work out that way.’
Tail gunner Hank Parke remembered:
‘I remember that we heard the crash and all the sirens went off. We were in the barracks, me and this guy Fred Neiser. We ran right out there and went over to Long Marston and saw it. All the bullets, the ammunition was going off in the flames. We were wondering around the field there looking. You couldn’t get too close. We talked to some of the guys that were in it. But what amazed me was those medics we had. We used to make jokes about them you know. Those guys were something. They were running into that thing, pulling guys out. They were really something. I had a lot more respect for them after that, ‘cause we only knew them before, handing out the whisky after the missions you know.’
The subject of the crash was the main topic of discussion around the airbase. It also led to some debate. Cpl. William Fenster, a squadron mechanic for the Liberator Beast of Bourbon, reflected:
‘I never could figure out how the pilots could see to taxi out to the runways, let alone line up with the runway and take-off. When the Beast of Bourbon crashed, the fog was so thick. They never should have been allowed to go.’
Copyright Stephen Hutton
This article is from the Spring 2011 issue of Confound and Destroy
