Us Official Photographs

B-24 Liberator near Vienna

In a haze of smoke from the burning Consolidated B-24 Liberator in the background, medics load the badly burned, lone survivor of a runway tragedy into an ambulance. Returning from a mission to Moosebierbaum, oil refinery near Vienna, Austria, the plane was destroyed during an apparently normal landing, when a 500 pound bomb jarred from its shackles and detonated. A waist gunner, the victim shown above, was blown clear by the blast, but the other nine crewmen were killed instantly.