Here are a couple of photos from Al Naum's scrapbook. These photos were taken at Benghazi while training for the Ploesti raid. Naum was crewmember aboard Tupelo Lass. 93th BG, 409 BS
Page_51_copy by
onyxsax, on Flickr
Page_52_copy by
onyxsax, on Flickr
Brown was the pilot aboard Tupelo Lass. Young was his co-pilot, although Young was moved to a gunner's position for the raid. Over the target Young flipped out and began screaming "We're all going to die". He did calm down, but was never the same after the raid. After he finished his tour in B-24s, he chose to go into fighter training and was sent to a P-38 transition school. On June 6, 1944, while on a cross country flight, he came across a pair of Hurricanes over an RAF base and they went into a mock dogfight. Young went into a split-S at too low of an altitude, crashing into the ground and killing himself.
Though not written on the page, if you look at the lower left of the picture of the Brown crew, you will see Ben Kuroki, who was the engineer on the Tupelo Lass. Kuroki was the only Japanese American to see combat with the AAF.
McFarland and Podgurski were, of course, the pilot and co-pilot of the Liberty Lad, the last B-24 to return to home base after the raid. The plane lost both starboard engines over the Adriatic. B-24s aren't supposed to fly that way, but with a combination of teamwork, pure grit, and physical endurance, McFarland and Podgurski muscled the plane home. Both had to be lifted out of the cockpit they had so exerted themselves.
Podgurski would finish his tour with the 93rd and then went on to fly C-87s and CB-24s with the 27th Air Transport Group. After stateside leave, he went to the Pacific, flying B-24s with the 308th and 494th BG in 1945. He mustered out in 1946, was recalled during 1948 (we don't know what the circumstances were) and released from service in January 1949. From there, he went to school to be an engineer, but decided that he truly wanted to fly, so he obtain his civilian license and went to work as a First Officer for Capital Airlines in 1952. In June 1957, he had enough seniority to be upgraded to a Captain, which was perfect timing as him and his wife were expecting their third child. Podgurski never got to meet his son. On June 22, 1957, on a routine training flight for the upgrade to Captain, the DC-3 he was flying stalled and spun in, killing Podgurski, Robert K. Thomas, another trainee, and the instructor pilot, Carl Burke.
It seems incomprehensible that someone who survived what was one of the deadliest missions of the entire war would die on a sunny day on an otherwise routine training flight. Sometimes, life just isn't fair.
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... think "Pearl Harbor", think "Red Tails", think "over-CGI'd" ... Then I suppose think Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks so I guess there's always hope.
