"The Lady Corinne"  

Flew 155 Missions Before Being Taken To Russia

Painting by Robert Carlin 

(sorry - its a bit hard to scan a painting!)  

More on The Lady Corinne HERE and HERE.

This page is dedicated to Bob Carlin, director of the "Houston Zeppelin Works" and a friend. Bob passed away in October 2000, but his wit and charm will live on in memory much longer...

The following is text from “The B-24 LIBERATOR – Famous Aircraft Series” by Steve Birdsall, Arco Publishing Company, Inc., 1968. This is text by Bob Carlin as told to Mr. Birdsall at that time, and retold to me and used with the permission of Mr. Carlin.

Bob Carlin flew thirty two missions with the 747th Squadron of the 456th Bomb Group between December 1944 and April 1945.

Bob’s first ride in a B-24 was in Smyrna, Tennessee.  Says he:
    “Everything was so metallic, and reverberated with solid sounds. The brakes hissed like a huge truck, and we bobbed stubbornly as we taxied. I couldn’t believe the damn thing was going to aviate.
     “We were really busy- too darn busy- and had a gang of meters to read, always at the wrong times. It was customary for the flight engineer to stand between the seats and call out the air speed; otherwise it would mean eyes off the runway, on the air speed, back to the runway, etc., and getting that bird off was an eyes-out-front deal.
     “Once airborne the airplane assumed a certain grace and didn’t behave badly at all, but this changed again when formation flying started. It was a brute force handling for all minor adjustments. As a matter of fact, one day I was outside our tent in the spring sun shaving and my copilot suddenly noticed I was all lopsided. Sure enough, I had developed a sizable muscle under my arm on my left side only. This was my flying arm, while my right arm was used for throttles- no effort.”

Once Bob was overseas:
     “On my first mission to Brux in Czechoslovakia, I flew old 293, the ‘Worry Bird,’ the worst airplane ever built. Came back with one dead engine, and another at 25% and vibrating. It finally went down six weeks later with a different crew.”

Of his time spent in Liberators during his missions:
     “In all we lost sixteen engines, but not to battle damage. One out was OK. Trim or autopilot could hold against the turning impulse, but two out on one side was a horror. We went through this once. We had dropped our bombs and were just making it on the other two, but were pushing it. But both the trim and auto wouldn’t hold it straight. I put both feet on one pedal, but when my legs began to burn I used my hands to push down on my knees to keep them from buckling. For three-and-a-half hours we struggled, going down hill all the time. It was all tension and teeth-gritting agony. We made the three-and-a-half hour approach to our field and I had to be helped out of the seat. For a week after that I kicked down oak trees for fun . . .
     “The nose wheel doors on our B-24s were pushed open by the emerging wheel, and very minor springs snapped them shut as the wheel retracted. We lost a bombardier who put his chest pack chute up for pillow en route home and settled back for a comfy ride while reading some magazines he had taken along. The chute was right on the doors, and we saw him go as the doors opened beneath his weight. He was spread eagled, pants flapping, and magazines fluttering behind him. The unwary were claimed quickly.
     “The Liberator would not land wheels up. It would squash. Also, if ditching, the top turret would tear loose and hurl down between the pilots’ seats.
     “Towards the end of the war we got B-24s with ball bearing controls. I went down and picked up a replacement at Bari and on takeoff I damn near turned a loop. I was expecting the usual wrestling match but the controls were a feather light.
     “We finally learned how to land the 24. Just before flare out we would crank the nose up with trim and then hold against it if necessary. Sure beat massive manual effort.
     “But I think I can truly say that I’m glad I had a chance to drive one of those old agony wagons, they sure made pots and pans out of them in a hurry after the war.
     “Naturally in our own right we were pretty hot pilots. Our formation flying got so good that the lead ship’s tail gunner would depress his guns, the slot man’s would elevate his, and they’d screw them together. And no one ever changed a wingtip light on the ground. We would put our wingtip in the open waist window of the ship next door and the gunner would perform the task.
     “Two fighters came up at six o’ clock low, punched a few holes, and shot by. Both were standing on their right wingtips and the leader was a Spitfire! His wingman was an Me 109. The Spit was lustre black, with crosses. Wonder who he was? One day we headed back to base after takeoff- we were leading the mission- a B-24 from another group had taken off, cleaned up all gear and flaps and started to bank towards his squadron. He just kept going until it became a vertical turn; and then so gracefully arced down to a thunderous crash right below us. He had a belly full of frags and when we got home at 4 p.m. they were still smoking in hundreds of little fires.
     “Just thought of how we lost an engine on takeoff, pruned an olive orchard, threw the bombs right through the bay doors- the added drag of an open bomb bay at thirty feet altitude would have finished us. We were too busy to be scared. Back in the tent we spent a day in solid silence.”
 

Bob also provided the following words (in quotes) to Steve Birdsall for “Log of the Liberators”, which was published by Doubleday and Company, Inc., in 1973.

    The 456th Bomb Group had set out with 157 Liberators on a mission to the Saint-Valentin tankworks in Austria on March 23rd, 1945. At the time a Lieutenant, Bob recalls that “ the brakes hissed like those on a Greyhound bus as we waddled nose-to-tail toward the runway. The taxi strip was narrow, and high in the middle. We watched Q for Queen (Bob was in G for George) carelessly taxi near the edge. The plane listed heavily with its five-ton bomb load. Our squadron pet dog, Tracer, playfully running along the line of Liberators, was suddenly bisected by the propeller of number four engine, dipped low by the preoccupied pilot. No one said anything.”
    Once they approached the target, Bob remembers: “We could see the target clearly as we turned to start the bomb run. It was a biting clear day, and intensely cold at 26,000 (feet), making for flawless visibility. Black boiling curls appeared at once. We were eleven minutes from the target and already the shells were exploding all around us. They were huge, meaning they were close. The flak these days was so bad that we were being forced to split up the mission. The first wave would suppress the gunners, hopefully allowing the second wave to approach and bomb with greater accuracy.”
    “Like roll-top desks the doors went up the sides of the swollen Liberators. Able Three was already hit; oil and smoke poured back.. He stayed in close formation. Loud, close flak, bursts overlapping, continued. Looking ahead we could see what was being prepared for us. A rectangle of flak was laid out directly in our path. All gunners would now keep merely filling it. And we would go through it.”
    “Our fear of going so close to Linz, one of the greater areas of hell, turned out to be correct. Somebody in Able Box broke radio silence to report wounded aboard, a futile gesture born of panic.”
    “ Nine full minutes to bombs away. We heard the ting-tong of metal fragments resonating in the metallic hollow of the fuselage. Seven minutes to go.”
    “One minute to go. But Able One dropped his bombs right now. So did we, so did everybody else. Radio silence ended as we broke into a hard right turn. Down steep, hard right. We leveled off only to find more flak awaiting us. Hard left, and dive. Able Box dropped beneath my vision. The horror of sliding into them gripped me in sudden panic. They appeared again, but it was an effort to release the steel grip I had on the yoke.”
    “The Alps came into view dead ahead. B-24s began to appear from above, from far out. They joined us for protection. Some had feathered engines, others streamed oil. One was trailing the gummed rubber of his self-sealing tanks. Able Box was minus a ship that had been hit early. Baker was hurt but incredibly intact. Charlie Box was asked to report in, wherever they had scattered. There was no response. It dawned on us that Charlie Box had been eliminated. Able Seven had moved up for the downhill ride home. We could see the red smear of blood from our dog, Tracer. It sparkled in frozen crystals near the name Agony Wagon on the nose.”
 

Late in the war another Lady Corinne arrived: The Lady Corinne II.

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