Accounts differ on why Shoot Luke turned back from the 93rd's first mission, to Lille on October 9, 1942. One has navigator Luther Cox passing out from an oxygen failure after carburetor trouble; the original pilot's diary says they turned back because the navigator became sick. The crew swore they would never let the group go on without them again, and they never did.
After a first taste of combat at the Brest submarine pens, a Lorient trip put three flak bursts under the left wing, then forty-five minutes of Ju 88s; tail gunner Paul Slankard shot one down into the sea.
On December 7, 1942 they flew to Africa. Christmas Eve they sang carols around a desert campfire and drank Canadian Club — nobody rude enough to ask how it got there.
On January 19, 1943, Shoot Luke was cut up by fighters and flak over Sousse. An Fw 190 put four 20 mm shells and machine-gun fire into the ship: eight spars cut, two ribs like cheesecloth, skin blown off, a shell smoldering in the fuel cells. Engineer Arvile Sirmans was hit in both ankles but climbed back into his top turret, and radio operator Bill Mercer was wounded in the thigh on his 19th birthday while radioing Malta that a friendly aircraft was in distress. Pilot John Murphy brought the riddled bomber — roughly 600 holes — down on Luqa's fighter-only runway, the first B-24 the Maltese had seen. RAF men and civilians helped fight a fire on the wing. It was patched up over two weeks before flying on to Gambut. The crew carried a Wog dog named Luke, adopted in Africa as the ship's mascot.
Within a week they went over Naples with two turrets frozen. An Italian fighter sat fifty feet off the tail, thumbed his nose, then pulled up into a burst from another ship in the formation.
On their first Germany raid — Vegesack, March 18, 1943 — they left formation to cover Frank Lown after his number-four engine smoked. Fighters worked over both bombers for about an hour and forty-five minutes. Floyd Mabee took cannon fragments, including one in the eye, kept firing, and claimed a fighter. Two 20 mm hits blew Paul Slankard half out of the tail turret at 22,500 feet; only his left foot in the gun controls saved him. Mabee pulled him in, poured sulphur on the wounds, and held him to a hole in the side in 40 to 50 below because the hypos were frozen. The wounded navigator still brought both ships home.
They were back over Rotterdam and Antwerp in less than two weeks. Bordeaux was the last of the original crew's 25 missions. The crew went home. Shoot Luke — antique rifle and jug of sauce on the nose — stayed on with other crews.
B-24D serial 41-23729, assigned to the 328th Bomb Squadron, 93rd Bomb Group, failed to return from a diversion mission on 18 October 1943. The aircraft was last known at position 54°20'N 04°50'E at 1325 hours and was lost as a result of enemy aircraft action.
Engines installed were type R-1830-43, serials 42-38351, 42-39915, 42-39264, and 42-39808. Weather conditions at the time of loss were not available. No eyewitness descriptions of the crash or forced landing were attached to the report.
The report was prepared by 1st Lt. John L. T. Smith, Air Force, and dated 17 May 1944. It was forwarded through Eighth Air Force headquarters to the Commanding General, Army Air Forces, Washington, D.C., via ETOUSA.
Articles, columns, and letters naming this aircraft in the 2nd Air Division Association journals and the group’s own newsletters. The summaries below are ours; the pieces themselves belong to the writers and publications that produced them.
Five original 328th men who flew to England in September 1942 — Delcambre, Secor, Harms, Mabee, and Martin — and the ships they crewed, including Jerk's Natural and Shoot Luke.
On the 93rd's first Lille raid, Shoot Luke turned back because the navigator was sick. The crew swore they would never let the group go on without them again — and they never did.