More American ingenuity, when this crew deployed their parachutes,
clipped to the side Browning machine gun mounts, to slow their incapacitated
aircraft during an emergency landing.
Hit by flak over Formosa, this is how their crippled Liberator came
to rest on the runway at Laog Strip in northern Luzon, with two engines
and no hydraulic pressure. The ship was brought in by wounded co-pilot,
2/Lt. Robert Morgan, whilst bombardier 2/Lt Robert Edgar, helped pilot
1/Lt Charles Critchfield provide additional pressure to the main control
column. Critchfield had suffered fractures to two limbs from the same
burst which hit Morgan. Injured also were flight engineer Lloyd Watson
and radio operator Benjamin Oxley.
Miss Leading's final touchdown occured on her 99th combat mission,
which unfolded on 31st May 1945. Thirty eight of the Group's Liberators
had departed from Clark Field to bomb northern Formosa, a nine and a
half hour return journey, their target being administration buildings
in heavily defended Taihoiku, then the Capital Formosa, believed to
be a major Japanese Headquarters.
Apart from high altitude heavier Liberators like these, Formosa was
also strafed by the Fifth's low-level A-20Gs and Mitchells from March
1945 onwards.
