“Sweet Chariot”
B-24J serial 42-50829, nicknamed "Sweet Chariot," was on a supply mission to Eindhoven on 18 September 1944 as part of Operation Market Garden, piloted by Captain John Geer and carrying Major Henry Segars, the Circus formation commander. The aircraft departed Hardwick and flew at a maximum altitude of 1,800 feet.
Four minutes before reaching the IP, No. 2 engine was knocked out by small arms fire and feathered. After dropping supplies, No. 3 engine began smoking and another engine was feathered due to further small arms damage. No. 1 engine subsequently lost power. The nose turret, elevator trim tabs, and the airframe generally were shot up.
Unable to maintain altitude, the crew jettisoned loose equipment and ditched in the North Sea at approximately 5157N 0233E. The impact was extremely violent, and the aircraft broke in half, the nose driving straight down. Two Royal Navy surface craft that had received Major Segars' radio distress calls arrived almost immediately and recovered three survivors: 2nd Lt. Karian, T/Sgt Lamoureux, and S/Sgt Sciegaj. Bombardier George F. Blankenship freed himself from the wreckage but drowned before help arrived; Geer, Segars, navigator James H. Marshel, and three other crewmen were killed.
Witness 1st Lt. Carlos Vasquez, flying a separate aircraft, maintained visual contact with the stricken plane until approximately 5 miles west of Flakee Island, where it was lost in haze. He heard Major Segars radio Air Sea Rescue reporting altitude of 1,800 feet and doing okay shortly before contact was lost.
Group diarist Pop Hamilton remembered Geer as "one of the finest men any of us had ever been associated with," whose crew was among the most popular in the 93rd, and called Segars "everything a good CO should be."