Shorts Check in a British Liberator

[Shay]

Shay
____________
Semper Fortis

[daveymac82c]

Is that for real? That's incredible.

Cheers,

David

[n5151ts]

...holy cow!

[Jollygreenslugg]

CBI theatre? I thought the Brits only used Libs on bombing missions in the Far East. I have read of their MR use by Costal Command back home.

Interesting that the Lib has the forward turret removed. Was this a late-war weight reduction move?

Any more info on this particular event?

Cheers,
Matt

[Django]

It was definitely not their time. Especially when you see the famous fiery crash footage here with the same thing to happen...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLNESDqoZS4

[wardie]

Jollygreenslugg - my old man was flying RAF Lib's in Italy. Even dropped bombs on Trieste the home of my wife's father (who was home at the time)

[Robbo]

I've got some scans of the newspaper accounts of this incident plus some photos. I'll have a look for them and post them when I find them.

[Steve Nelson]

What, no "Gary'll fix her right up" or "Gary's gonna be pi$$ed" captions?

SN

[Jollygreenslugg]

Jollygreenslugg - my old man was flying RAF Lib's in Italy. Even dropped bombs on Trieste the home of my wife's father (who was home at the time)

Thanks Wardie, I'm not particularly familiar with the level of RAF Liberator use. Looks like a little revision is in order!

Did your dad and father-in-law ever get to talk about their close encounter?

Cheers,
Matt

[wardie]

Yeah, they talked may times. My FiL was a kid (8 or 9) and remembers the planes crossing the city and bombing the docks & railways. Couldn't say if they were 2 or 4 eng birds just planes.

[Robbo]

One of my friends, Kevin Mears, wrote "Wise without eyes" the history of 37 Squadron and I scanned these for the book project.







Here's a frontal view of one of 37's Liberators


and one complete with front turret