The Collings Foundation bought it disassembled in 1984 and then spent several years and $1.3 million restoring it.Ĭlarke, the old plane's chief passenger yesterday, grew up in Rochester, N.Y., fascinated, as were many of his generation, by the golden age of flight. The RAF used it to bomb Japanese shipping in the Pacific during the closing months of the war.Īt war's end it was abandoned by the RAF in India, where it was operated by the Indian Air Force for 20 years. Two months later, just as Clarke was completing his required 50 missions, the airplane was delivered to Britain's Royal Air Force. The B-24J model was built in August 1944 at the Consolidated Aircraft Co. The opportunity came with a multi-city tour the Collings Foundation is making with its B-24, the 'All American,' and its B-17, another legendary World War II bomber called the 'Nine-O-Nine.' Both will be at the Air Park near Gaithersburg through Sunday.Ĭlarke said he used the $300 Christmas gift to pay for the flight and donated another $1,000 to help keep the old airplanes flying.

And his family determined to get him one more ride. As the airplane buzzed the field, tears filled his eyes, he said. Although Clarke spent 30 years in the service, his memories of the B-24 were largely dormant - until then. Last year, he had seen the airplane land at a Manassas airport. It was something he had not done since October 1944.Ĭlarke's ride on the B-24 Liberator, which is owned and operated by the Collings Foundation, of Stow, Mass., had been a Christmas present from his wife and children. And the plane was clean of the bullet casings with which frantic teenage machine gunners would litter the floor as they fired relentlessly at enemy fighters sent to shoot them down.īut as the airplane climbed to 1,000 feet yesterday over the rain-drenched farmland, Clarke, a retired Air Force colonel from Alexandria, pulled his old blue baseball cap tight on his head, stood in a gusty open window and shouted against the howl: 'Now, this is flying!' The 50-caliber machine guns stood unattended in their window mounts. Roderick Clarke flew 50 missions during World War II in Greece, the Balkans, Hungary, Poland, France and Germany. And as the fat, gray World War II era aircraft lumbered into the rainy Maryland skies, Clarke checked his watch, just as he always had.īut the restored B-24 that took off yesterday from Salisbury, bound, along with an old B-17 bomber, for a weekend appearance at Montgomery County Air Park, was far different from those in which 19-year-old 1st Lt. But then, they always did that, said Rod Clarke, 73, as he buckled his 6-foot, 2-inch frame into the seat behind the bomb bay. The prop wash blew rain in the waist gunner's windows and exhaust fumes through the rear hatch. One by one the bomber's four big 1,200-horsepower engines started up, each adding its roar to the ear-splitting racket.

B24 vs b17 bomber