Us Official Photographs

B-26 Marauder crash-landing

A full bomb load and lack of landing gear, brakes and wing flaps didn't prevent a 9th Air Force pilot from successfully crash-landing this Martin B-26 Marauder damaged by German anti-aircraft fire. On the way to eliminate an enemy strongpoint holding up U.S. ground troops in the Saar area, the B-26 was pierced by a high explosive shell which killed one crewman and stranded two others in the tail section. Only the six foot panel of thin aluminum under the machine-gun (center) held the tail section to the fuselage. With radio and hydraulic systems shot out and unable to abandon the sh plane because of a seriously wounded crewman, 1st Lt. Edmund F. Dunn, Flandreau, S.D., the pilot, flew for an hour through thick overcast before landing at his home base.