“Bomerang”

Bomerang was one of the original Circus B-24Ds, and she nearly didn't survive her first combat sortie. On the 93rd's opening mission to Lille on October 9, 1942, cannon fire tore through the fuselage everywhere except the nose compartment, wounding three crewmen, knocking out the No. 2 engine, and severing hydraulics, electrics, brakes, and trim-tab control while shredding the control cables in flight. Pilot Captain John L. Stewart and co-pilot Lieutenant George Bailey kept her airborne long enough to reach England; flight engineer Sergeant Herb Daly spliced the frayed cables mid-flight and hand-cranked the landing gear down, and the crew scraped the tail on the runway to help slow her since the brakes were gone. Crew chief Sergeant Charles Chambers, greeting the wreck on the ramp, counted more than 200 holes and reportedly demanded of Stewart, 'Damnit, Lieutenant, what in the hell did you do to my airplane?'

The damage was bad enough that Bomerang was marked for scrapping, but Chambers and Stewart talked their way into a three-week reprieve, patched a wing hole with riveted boiler plate over the skepticism of a factory representative, and flew her again within days. She held together through a St. Nazaire strike and then, on November 18, 1942, took more than 300 additional flak holes over Lorient, with 93rd chaplain James Burris lying on the flight deck to watch the bomb run, a piece of shrapnel passing within three inches of his head. Eighth Air Force leadership subsequently barred Burris from flying combat again.

Bomerang went on to serve in the North African campaign, returning from a Libya mission on the night of February 23-24, 1943 with an engine dead from fuel exhaustion and landing safely on fumes through heavy fog, and she flew the low-level Ploesti raid on August 1, 1943 with Luther Bird in the co-pilot's seat, escaping without damage. By the fall of 1943 she was a hardened veteran: anti-aircraft concussion sent her into gyrations over Wiener Neustadt on October 1, and days later, on October 9, she logged her 50th mission, a 1,650-mile round trip to Danzig, still kept flying by crew chief Charley Chambers. That milestone coincided with the group's own 100th mission in February 1944, and both were marked with a cake at Hardwick.

On April 4, 1944, Bomerang, by then assigned to the 328th Squadron, left Hardwick under pilot Captain Walter T. Stewart for a war bond tour of 20 American cities, an itinerary that included a low pass over downtown Milwaukee and a buzz of the Michigan State Penitentiary at Lansing. What became of her after the tour is not recorded in the material reviewed.