12th AIR FORCE
57th
BOMB WING
340th
BOMB GROUP (M)
MISSION JUNE 10, 1944
486th, 487th, and 489th Squadrons of the 340th
Bomb Group on June 10,
1944
Fano, Italy today
340th
BG 487th BS - SN 43-27556 - 7D
From Charles Cook’s 487th
Squadron Album dated June 1944
Photo credit: Dominique Taddei
487th Veteran Capt. James
Littlefield: “I was given the DFC for getting back from my
10th mission on one engine and we ran out of fuel, brakes shot out and my good
engine quit 1/4 of the way down the runway. We crashed, but no one was hurt
badly. Everyone else got the Purple Heart. [Your father’s album had] one of the
pictures of 7D [after the landing]. I made Captain after I returned to the
states.” [I asked James for some details on this skilled
emergency landing.] “ In regards to 7D,
It's been a longtime since that happened, I can't say that it was my skill and
determination that got us back. I did what I had been taught to do to get the
plane and crew back. It was something a lot of pilots did from time to time. We
were hit [by flak] over the target and lost the right engine and on this
mission we were breaking left and down after we had dropped our bombs so I lost
a lot of altitude. We were leaking fuel but we couldn't see it. The B-25 could maintain altitude on one engine but
couldn’t climb. We tossed out some equipment that wasn't tied down in order to
clear the mountains on Italy’s west coast. We had no
problems and made clear approach, with the meat wagons waiting on us. I lowered
the nose and checked the brakes and they seemed OK. I then pulled the nose up
to kill some speed. When the nose came down, the right brake gave away and the
left brake locked. I hit the left throttle to bring the ship to the right and
the left engine ran out of fuel, taking us left. I told the copilot to pull the
emergency air lever. He pumped the hydraulic pump instead. We hit an old bomb
casing, knocking out the nose gear. The mission [target] as have it noted in my
log book was Fano [M/Y June 10, 1944 NE coast of Italy- a long way to limp back to Corsica!]. I didn't keep very good records. 7D had no
name or nose art. “
486th BS Mission sheet credit: Herman
Voss
(Crew sheet from Harry George)