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Вот Вам отрывок из воспоминаний стрелка.
Reprinted with permission from The Orange Leader.
It would have been his last mission before going home. But it was just his last mission.
The mother of McKinney native, James Trosclair, crewman of a B-29 bomber called Razorback, never lived to know what happened to him over "MIG Alley" in Korea. Until a few weeks ago, all Bob Couser, of Orange, Texas, knew, was that Trosclair, his childhood friend, had been missing for 50 years. But he recently learned that someone had survived to tell the story of the mission that killed Trosclair and 10 other crewmen.
...."The Razorback crashed about 12:30 a.m. Sept. 13, 1952, on a mission to bomb a hydroelectric plant at Shiho, near the Yalu River. Trosclair’s crew made many such missions over the Yalu, where the USS Orleck, now docked at a downtown park in Orange, frequently patrolled. Trosclair was the radioman that night, a job he had been trained for at Keesler Air Force Base. Had he survived, he would have moved to Orange, where his mother worked at the state welfare office.
"The plane was hit by ground fire," Lockett says. "It took a direct hit in the belly and just literally exploded."
The only man who survived is Fred Parker Jr., originally from Hall County, Texas, and now of Nashville, Arkansas. He was sitting across from Trosclair when it happened.
"We were tracing down a radar beam when we were caught in the spotlight," says Parker, a gunner that night. "It was really bright. They had us lit up like daylight. The flak was so close, I felt like I could reach out of the window and grab a piece."
A fire broke out and the crew hit it with extinguishers. Parker believes it must have burned out a cable and the plane went spiraling."...
И далее
..."Parker was knocked unconscious, and when he came to, he was hanging out of the plane by his feet. He pulled himself loose, jumped, counted to 10, and pulled his ripcord. He lived in the mountains 11 days before being captured by civilians, who turned him over to a prison camp. He was released later in a trade-off dubbed "The Big Switch."...
Вот еще:
According to USAF records, on September 13, 1952 a B-29 (No.44-86343) was "flying over to target when it was hit by enemy flak. It was seen to blow up in the air. No parachutes were observed leaving the plane. A rescue search for seven days with negative results. No chance for survival." CILHI records indicate that one of the 12 member crew, A/1c Fred Parker Jr., was repatriated in August 1953. Ten members of the crew are carried as BNR in the Battle Monuments list. 67 One of the crew members, 1Lt. Ted G. Royer, appears neither on the Battle Monuments BNR list nor on the USAF Korean War RMC list.
(this much we know, but here is the interesting part....)
My father is the Fred Parker, Jr. memntioned in the above report. He has told me that he believes he is the only survivor of this mission. As he was floating down in his parachute, he says he had a clear view of the sky around him and that there were no other parachutes deployed. He also says contrary to many reports, they were not shot down by an enemy mig. He says they were hit by enemy flak. They thought the fire was under control, but apparently such was not the case. He was a waist gunner and one moment, he was in his bubble and the next moment he was blown out of the aircraft by an explosion that caused him to lose conciousness for some time. When he woke up, he was attached by the feet to a part of the fuselage. He kicked free and pulled his ripcord. He remained free for 11 days, but was eventually captured by the North Koreans. He spend 13 months in a POW camp until eventually exchanged.
Here is a picture of the aircraft and crew. I can send a full size scan of the picture if someone is interested. The men in the picture are:
Это сообщение редактировалось 20.04.2011 в 17:40