Aircraft History
Delivered to the US Army on July 6, 1942. After being outfitted at Sacramento Air Depot in July 1942, it was ferried by Captain Jay P Rusek, who nicknamed it "Taxpayers Pride".

Wartime History
Ferried to Australia via Hawaii, Christmas and Canton. When departing Canton they suffered engine trouble with the number two engine propeller so they returned to Canton and awaited a new part from Hawaii. The wrong one arrived and the engineer, Sgt Frank P. Hohmann, was struck with the idea of using a plumbing pipe fitting with the same thread as the part they were after. The crew voted to continue to Australia using this non-standard fitting and they completed the flight safely. An Australian mechanic asked them on landing whether they got hot and cold water from that part too.

Initially assigned to the 19th BG, then assigned to the 43rd BG, 64th BS. Regularly flown by Rusek.

Drew C. Wesche (son of Fred Wesche) adds:
"Flown by my father Fred Wesche who was with the 43rd BG, 64th BS. He flew Taxpayer's Pride on a mission in Late March or April, 1943. He sustained a 40mm anti-aircraft hit to the port wing root shows the damage."

Mission History
Took off Dobodura at approximately 1:45am to bomb Vunakanau Airfield near Rabaul. The plane completed its bomb run and turned to begin its return journey to home base. Within minutes after the bomb run, a J1N1 Irving, piloted by Shigetoshi Kudo, attacked and damaged the bomber to the extent that it burst into flames and fell to earth. Strict radio silence was maintained and nothing further was heard from the bomber.

At 02:30 hours, it was reported that an aircraft was seen to crash after firing tracer bullets at an unidentified object. A further report was received of a fire on the ground in the same vicinity at 03:38 hours. Also lost the mission was B-17E "Naughty But Nice" 41-2430.

Janice Olson adds:
"[PNG resident] Stanis To Liman was an eyewitness to 41-24448's shoot down.  He was living and/or working on the plantation at Viveran, and said he and others tried to get to the plane when it crashed, but the Japanese kept them away.  A short interview with Stanis is in my video collection."

Fates of the crew
Tail gunner Joel Griffin, managed to parachute out and away from the falling debris. Captured, he ended up in the Japanese Army POW camp instead of Japanese Navy at Rabaul. The rest of the crew died in the crash. On November 13, 1943, he was among a group of nine POWs sent to Japan and survived the war.

Joel Griffin recalls:
"One morning while imprisoned, an English speaking Japanese guard named Yano showed Griffin a magazine picture of "Taxpayer's Pride". The tail rested upright in a tree, the body of the plane was in shambles."

Wreckage
Japanese visited the crash site near Mt. Varzin and told locals to keep away. Likely, the buried the dead crew members at the site by the Japanese.

Post war, the crew's remains were recovered, likely by a US Army AGRS visit to the crash site. The remains of the crew are in a group burial at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. 2nd Lt. Sumner L. Beck, who was also on this mission, was not listed among the recovered remains until several years later.  The exact circumstances of his remains recovery and the location of his remains are unknown, likely located during the postwar US Army AGRS visit to the crash site.

Justin Taylan visited the site in 2006:
"The largest portion of wreckage is the center section of the wing. The nose section is missing, removed or scrapped. As the wreck is in a fairly accessible location near several villages, holes have been cut into some of the aluminum. Separated from the wing section is a debris field, including the roof of the radio compartment and spine portion of the tail."

References
Pride of Seattle page 9, 12
Forty of the Fifth pages 51-54
Thanks to Brian Bennett and Edward Rogers for additional information

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Last Updated
November 8, 2009

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