• B-29 Superfortress

High over the Alabama River, a Superfortress wings home from a training mission, to its base at this AAF Training Command B-29 Transition School. The Superfortress is B-29-40-BW 42-24638 ("210"), built at Boeing's Wichita, Kansas, factory of the 499th Bomb Group, 73rd Bomb Wing. In late 1944 it went to Isley Field, Saipan, and joined the 497th Bomb Group, being adorned with the art of a stork carrying a bomb (not a baby), the plane being named "Special Delivery". On 13 December 1944, the 73rd BW attacked the Mitsubishi engine plant in Tokyo, and lost four B-29s. One was 42-24638. As it was preparing to land at Saipan, it lost an engine and its wing fell into the water, crashing the plane and killing the crew, just 1,500 feet from the shore.

The men lost are, PILOT: Garland B. Ledbetter, CO-PILOT: Peter H. Ward, BOMBARDIER: Carl C. Meiser, FLIGHT ENGINEER: Robert R. Barrett, NAVIGATOR: Frank J. Campbell Jr., RADIO OPERATOR: Hubert D. Roussel Jr., TOP CFC GUNNER: Suggest L. Edwards, LEFT CFC GUNNER: William C. Gussenhoven, RIGHT CFC GUNNER: Clarence W. Parker, RADAR OPERATOR: Hugh T. Boyd, TAIL GUNNER: Melvin E. Lomax

Here at Maxwell Field airplane commanders, pilots and flight engineers get their training as three-man teams. Each trio spends about three weeks in ground school and five weeks in the air learning as a unit to handle the huge craft. Instructor teams consisting of one pilot instructor and one flight engineer instructor, take four student trios through the entire course.

• Source: image with caption; photo gallery
• http://afhra.maxwell.af.mil/photo_galleries/aaf_wwii_vol_vi/Photos/00910460_185.jpg archive copy at the Wayback Machine

Prepared for Wikipedia by Adrian Pingstone in August 2003.

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