Re: B-24s & Alfas

[Sidney Gage <sidney_gage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have a photo of my father's B-24 with its nose wheel buried in an Italian
farm field in the winter of 1944-45. They lost all their engines on the way
back to their Italian base from a mission over the Alps, so he "landed" it
in a pasture. The airplane had "The Blue Streak II" painted on its nose.

The B-24 had a role in the revival of Alfa-Romeo.

Sid Gage
'57 Giulietta Spyder vintage racer "The Blue Streak III"
'67 Giulia Sprint GT Veloce
>
>Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 09:15:12 -0500
>From: Fred Di Matteo <fredalfa@domain.elided>
>Subject: WWII Aircraft, Alfa Engines
>
>In my recent visit to the Alfa Romeo Museo Storico, I viewed some of the
>many aircraft engines Alfa built.  It reminded me of my WWII days flying
>the Liberator B-24s in Combat missions around China.  I thought some of
>you young'uns woukd like a bit of history.
>
>Some information about the B24:
>
>The B-24 Liberator was produced in greater quantities and flown in more
>theaters of war by the air forces of more countries than any other four
>engine bomber in World War II.  19,256 planes (in several versions) were
>
>produced by Consolidated Vultee, Ford Motor Company, Douglas Aircraft
>and
>North American Aircraft between the years of 1939 and 1945. Today there
>are
>only two flight-worthy B-24's in existence, and it's history and role in
>
>WW II is only dimly recalled except by those who flew in them.
>
>The other four-engine heavy bomber, the Boeing B-17, received most of
>the
>publicity, particularly in the strategic air campaign against the
>Germans in
>Europe. Yet B-24's outnumbered the B-17's even there. B-24's could fly
>higher, faster, farther, carry a bigger bombload and take more
>punishment
>from enemy fire than the fabled B-17. But as all B-24 crewmen knew, the
>B-17
>had one feature that the B-24 never had, a built-in press agent!   There
>
>just
>was no way for an airplane known as the "Box Car" to compete in the
>public's
>eye with the fabled "Flying Fortress."
>
>A fully armed and combat-ready B-24 carried a crew of ten men. Its gross
>
>weight when loaded was greater than 60,000 pounds. It had, in the most
>common versions, four movable turrets, each with two .50 caliber machine
>
>guns
>and two individual .50s in the waist, making a total of ten. It was
>powered
>by four 1,200 horsepower engines and carried 2,750 gallons of fuel.
>Many
>B-24
>missions were round trips of 1,500 miles and some extended ranges were
>near
>2,000 miles.
>
>The most common bomb-load was ten 500 pound bombs or five 1,000
>pounders.
>It's operating environment against heavily defended targets in the
>European
>Theater was from 18,000 to 28,000 feet, although many missions
>(particularly
>in the Pacific) were flown at much lower altitudes. The planes were not
>pressurized or heated; crewmen wore oxygen masks on high altitude
>missions
>and were exposed to temperatures that reached -30 degrees farenheit and
>below.
>
>The cold made me cry more than once! Fred Di Matteo
>

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