My mother is in a retirement community in TX and she told me about a WWII AAF vet, Eugene Miller, but she knew nothing else about him. She had him contact me and it turns out he was a B-26 bombardier/navigator in the 432nd of the 17th. I was surprised because my father was in the 34th of the 17th--a sister squadron.

His story: While bombing the Bucine viaduct in Italy he had just taken control of the plane and opened the bombay doors when flak hit the bombay, nose, windshield, and one engine. The hit in the bombay cut hydralic lines and the bombs would not come off the rack. When they were over water Eugene had to remove his parachute and go on the catwalk, now covered with hydralic fluid, to dislodge the bombs. After salvoing the bombs he and the engineer struggled to get the bombay doors closed for landing. They ended up doing a belly landing on their right engine. When they hit the ground the tips of the prop shot through the fuselage 6 inches from where he had been sitting. The crew scrambled out and only two crew members were injured.

D Wakefield
Berry College
P. O. Box 5019
Mount Berry, GA 30149

Can you provide his middle initial?

Dave

Link to: Bombardiers of WWII Website

New email address as of Feb 2006: hfhmsite@comcast.net

I had posted for the first time a little further up in this thread and haven't been back for a bit, bit I looked through the rest of the posts and found this story.
My grandfather told a story similar to the one you recounted.  Apparently, it was common for the prop to come through on a belly landing.  As detailed in my post above, my grandfather belly landed outside of Dijon, France, but I don't think that was the one where the prop came through.  I for the life of me can't remember if he ever talked about that in the same crash, but I know he came down 3 times total.  I'll talk to my grandmother about it over the holidays and see if she knows...