The Forgotten Liberator Survivor
By Nicholas A. Veronico
Wide angle aerial view of B-24D 40-2367 on the beach at Bechevin Bay, Atka Island.
The bay is located to the right of the photo, 200 yards from where the fuselage came to rest.
The aircraft's remote location, the island's unpredictable weather, and protection of the wreck by the
Aleutian Islands National Wildlife Refuge have prevented vandals from damaging the wreck.
Ted Spencer photo courtesy Alaska Division of Parks
Although 15 Consolidated B-24 Liberators survive today, one aircraft has been virtually forgotten. This aircraft currently rests on a remote island in the Aleutian chain, part of the state of Alaska. Although this Liberator's career against the Japanese was brief, its significance is extremely important to military aviation history.
During the opening days of World War II, the 21st Bomb Squadron flew anti-submarine patrols off the west coast of the United States. On Jan. 9, 1942, the 21st Bomb Squadron was loaned to the 11th Air Force's 28th Composite Group, serving as part of the region's offensive strike capability. In March, a new B-24D-CO, serial number 40-2367, the 19th B-24D built at Consolidated San Diego, arrived to begin operations with the 28th Composite Group. This aircraft was equipped with ASV surface-search radar, identifiable by the antenna hanging under the port wing. Being a very early 'D' model, the nose compartment had two distinguishing features-it lacked an astrodome and had a small observation window in the port side.
On June 11, 1942, aircraft of the 21st Bomb Squadron were deployed to Umnak, Alaska, to counter the Japanese landings on Kiska and Attu in the Aleutian Islands. Liberators, including 40-2367, began flying bombing missions against Dutch Harbor, Kiska, and Attu. The Japanese abandoned Dutch Harbor near the end of June, but were entrenched at Kiska until they evacuated in August 1943. Shortly after the Japanese pulled out of the region, 40-2367 was assigned to weather reconnaissance duties.
On Dec. 9, 1942, 40-2367 departed for a weather reconnaissance mission over Kiska, Attu, and Agattu Islands with Capt. John Andrews, pilot, at the controls. The 11th Air Force History 1941-1945 describes the Dec. 9 flight in detail:
"After the death of Colonel Everett S. Davis (in 1942), Col. John V. Hart was named chief of staff of the Eleventh Air Force and remained in this capacity until the conclusion of the Attu-Kiska campaign. Col. Hart's beginning as chief of staff was marred by one slight mishap, which, without exceptional skill on the part of one of the Eleventh Air Force's bomber pilots might have ended in tragedy.
"On Dec. 9, 1942, Col. Hart and Brig. Gen. William E. Lynd of General Buckner's staff, took off from Adak in a B-24 piloted by Captain John Andrews. The two officers wished to accompany the weather plane to make personal observations around Kiska and Attu. The plane reached Attu, circled over Holtz Bay, and then returned to Adak. Arriving back at Adak at 1600, the pilot found his base socked in by weather. He notified the tower that he planned to fly to the far end of Atka Island and attempt a crash landing.
"Atka, too, was closed in, and the plane crash-landed about halfway to the eastern end of Atka."
There was only one casualty. General Lynd sustained a fractured collar bone, and the flight crew and Col. Hart spent an uncomfortable night on the beach while the personnel of Eleventh Air Force Headquarters spent the night wondering what had happened to them. The next day they were sighted by a Navy PBY which landed and put a rubber boat ashore. The men had adequate food and were able to gather enough driftwood to build a fire - a difficult problem in the treeless Aleutians. The castaways were picked-up on Dec. 11 by the Navy seaplane tender USS Gillis, chilly and tired, but otherwise unharmed.
After the war, the aircraft's remote crash site and changing world events saw its location fade from memory.
Survivor In-Situ
The site, virtually untouched since the December 1942 crash, was visited once in 1975 by a Navy helicopter crew who removed the machine guns, and occasionally by native fishermen. The early to mid-1970s saw the warbird restoration movement picking up steam, and a number of 'snatch-and-grab' aircraft recoveries had taken place in Alaska. In an attempt to keep 40-2367 from being illegally recovered, Ted Spencer, at the time a director for the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum in Anchorage, campaigned hard to preserve this aircraft in-place. Although its tail was torn off in the belly-landing and the forward fuselage is slowly sinking into the tundra, 40-2367 is in excellent shape. The separated rear fuselage retains the tail turret and the horizontal stabilizer, with the verticals lying near-by. One set of the four propellers is bent and a number of cowling panels are missing, but the wings are in excellent shape with the gear still tucked underneath. The ASV radar antenna remains under the port wing to this day. The forward fuselage is buckled slightly and the lower portion of the bombardier's greenhouse was destroyed in the landing, otherwise the fuselage is in a restorable state.
Spencer's efforts led to 40-2367 being designated as site ATK-036 on the Alaska Heritage Resource Survey, and its subsequent listing on the National Register of Historic Places on July 26, 1979. On August 12, 1983, more than 40 years after the end of the Aleutian campaign, Ted Spencer accompanied 40-2367's pilot John Andrews and, a few days later co-pilot Louis Blau, to the wreck site. The Alaskan Historical Aviation Society produced a video titled, The Forgotten Front-Veterans Remember, in which pilot Andrews described the crash: "The weather, of course, pretty rapidly became all bad. There were five separate fronts over the Aleutians at that particular time. Time was then running out because we only had 15 to 20 minutes of daylight left, and maybe half an hour or so of fuel. So it was time to make a decision. The question was: Land on the water, land on the beach, or land going up the mountainside?
"The hills were all surrounded by fog and bad weather. This [the crash site] was the only land we could see. We came in off the ocean, into the bay, crossed the ridge of shingle on the edge of the beach, and dropped down in here [on the tundra].
"There was one hell of a racket as the airplane bounced along the tundra, and then came to a stop. Then there was a great deal of silence. It was broken by someone saying, 'Let's get the hell outta here before it burns!' Then we all piled out of the pilot's and co-pilot's windows."
Located on the west end of Atka Island at Bechevin Bay, the plane rests 200 yards from the beach with its fuselage perpendicular to the shoreline and the nose of the aircraft headed into the box canyon at the land side of the bay. The fuselage is crumpled behind the pilot's seats from the weight of the upper Martin turret. The rear half of the fuselage separated aft of the wing's trailing edge and rests across a small creek inverted. (Note that 40-2367 has often been mistaken for the Liberator that crashed intact and is seen in a photograph on Page 121 of Steve Birdsall's Log of the Liberators.)
The crash site is now on property under the jurisdiction of the Aleutian Islands National Wildlife Refuge. Access to the site is restricted and often impossible due to weather and surf conditions. The U.S. Department of Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service, who in turn supervises the Aleutian Islands National Wildlife Refuge, intends to preserve and maintain the aircraft in place.
Since the Lady Be Good, (B-24D-CO 41-24301), was recently removed from its resting place in the Libyan desert, 40-2367 is the only nearly intact, combat veteran B-24 preserved at its war-time crash site.
Side note: For further information on the video The Forgotten Front-Veterans Remember, contact the Alaskan Aviation Heritage Museum at 4721 Aircraft Dr., Anchorage, AK 99502, Tel. +(907) 344-9290. Hours for the summer are from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Aerial view of B-24D 40-2367, the 19th B-24D built, resting where she crashed on Dec. 9, 1942, on Atka Island.
The tail section separated from the fuselage during the crash in stormy weather.
Ted Spencer photo courtesy Alaska Division of Parks
Nose section showing small port-side observation window, enlarged on subsequent aircraft, and lack of astrodome.
Unit insignia and 18 bomb mission symbols can be seen in this 1978 view of the aircraft.
Ted Spencer photo courtesy Alaska Division of Parks
The 21st Bomb Squadron insignia of a bee holding a bomb over its head has been modified with addition of the 'single finger salute.
Note that the aircraft's serial number 40-2367 is still visible more than 50 years after the B-24 came to rest on the wind swept tundra.
Ted Spencer photo courtesy Alaska Division of Parks