0:00
November the 17th, 1944.
0:04
Lieutenant Henry T. Mills is fighting to
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keep his crippled B-24 in the air. Two
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engines are gone from flack. The fuel is
0:14
bleeding out. The Adriatic Sea is below.
0:18
He has two choices. Bail his crew out
0:21
over open water or attempt a ditching.
0:25
But there's something Mills knows that
0:27
terrifies him. The B-24 was a death trap
0:31
on water. Its highmounted Davis wing
0:35
created massive stress on the narrow
0:37
fuse largege during impact. The Bombay,
0:41
the weakest point, would collapse first,
0:44
snapping the aircraft in half. The crews
0:48
knew its weakness on water. They knew
0:50
that ditching survival rates were really
0:52
low. At 8,000 ft, Mills gives the order
0:59
The navigator confirms the crew are in
1:01
position and ready to ditch.
1:05
The moment Lady Luck hits the water, she
1:07
does exactly what B24s did. She breaks
1:11
in half at the bomb bay. The entire rear
1:15
section with seven men inside sinks in
1:20
Mills escapes the cockpit, his co-pilot
1:23
and engineer with him. They try swimming
1:28
Neither makes it. Mills spends two and a
1:31
half hours treading water until a rowing
1:34
boat manned by local partisans comes out
1:38
and picks him up. 80 years later, the
1:41
wreck of the Lady Luck lies in 90 m of
1:44
water off the island of Bishvo in
1:47
Croatia, broken exactly where every B24
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Today I'm going to take you on a dive so
1:55
you can see that fatal structural
1:57
failure for yourself. And as I go
1:59
through the dive, I'm going to tell you
2:01
more about the B-24, why it had such a
2:04
poor ditching record, the particular
2:06
events associated with the B-24, Lady
2:09
Luck, how come we know so much about it,
2:12
and of course, I'll also talk about
2:14
Henry T. Mills, the pilot, and the only
2:17
one of the 10-man crew to survive this
2:20
crash. First of all, a bit of a
2:22
confession. The video you're going to
2:24
see wasn't taken by me. I have dived
2:27
this, but it was in 2019. So, a massive
2:30
thank you to Franco, Fran, JP, and Mags
2:34
for letting me use theirs. For anyone
2:36
who's not dived in this part of the
2:37
world, conditions can be absolutely
2:40
fantastic. And the island of Viz is a
2:44
fabulous place to spend any amount of
2:46
time. It's also an awesome diving
2:48
location, but the thing it's mainly
2:51
famous for are the array of World War II
2:54
era American heavy bombers. So, B17s and
2:58
B24s, and there is a whole load of them
3:01
that can be dived in this area,
3:03
including the one that we're diving
3:04
today, the Lady Luck. We're diving from
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Kamitza with Mant Divers, who are an
3:09
organization I've used quite a bit.
3:12
Absolutely brilliant, and I can't
3:14
recommend them enough. As you can see,
3:16
just arrived at the bottom and directly
3:19
in front there is the brake. So, this is
3:22
the aft end of the the main section of
3:26
the aircraft. In front of me there to
3:28
the left and the right are the wings.
3:30
And that bit, as I said, is is where the
3:32
the brake is. Now, it's inverted as
3:34
pretty much all B24 Rex are. So, what
3:38
we're looking at here then is the
3:40
starboard wing, but the underneath of it
3:42
off to the right hand side there is the
3:44
inboard starboard engine. There is the
3:47
tire from the landing gear. Incredible
3:49
to think that it's uh still there and
3:51
still intact. And we'll come back and
3:53
have a look at that in a bit more
3:54
detail. And then the outboard engine on
3:57
the starboard wing is the one just in
3:59
the left of the screen. Now to
4:01
understand why the lady luck was here,
4:04
you have to understand what was
4:05
happening in World War II at the time.
4:08
So the allies had invaded Italy and was
4:10
slowly moving their way up from south to
4:13
north. As they moved up through Italy,
4:16
they were establishing bomber airfields
4:19
and bomber air the bombers were heading
4:21
up into southern Europe into Germany.
4:24
For damaged bombers that weren't able to
4:26
make it across the Adriatic, a small
4:29
relief runway was established on the
4:31
island of Viz, just off the west coast
4:34
of what is now Croatia. And that's where
4:37
the Lady Luck was heading for.
4:39
Unfortunately, as we've already heard,
4:41
it didn't make it. It was actually
4:43
really close. In the report, Lieutenant
4:46
Mills, Henry T. Mills reckons they were
4:49
about 15 minutes away when the two other
4:52
engines gave out and he was forced to
4:53
make that awful decision whether to get
4:55
the crew to bail out or whether to try
4:58
ditching which is obviously ultimately
5:01
what he did. Now we don't know which
5:04
engines it were that were hit by flack.
5:07
So it's entirely possible that it's the
5:09
two that we're just coming back to have
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a look at now. the starboard ones
5:13
equally. These could have been the ones
5:15
that got him almost safely back from
5:18
Vienna to uh to the relief landing
5:21
ground at Viz. I don't know. None of the
5:24
engines look in particularly good order.
5:26
That one there, as you can see, is is
5:28
pretty heavily smashed up. You can also
5:30
see the undercarriage just to the right.
5:32
You can see where that tire came out of.
5:35
And then here you go in front of us
5:36
there. There's another another engine.
5:38
No sign of props, which is uh quite
5:41
interesting. or if they are, I can't
5:43
make them out. This is us now coming up
5:46
into the cockpit area and also the area
5:51
where the nose turret would be. Now,
5:54
once again, remember it's upside down,
5:56
but also it was clearly quite badly
6:00
damaged, possibly during the impact,
6:02
also possibly as a result of subsequent
6:05
activity. So lots of fishermen operate
6:08
in this area and it's entirely possible
6:11
that what they've done is they've
6:12
somehow damaged the remains of the
6:14
airplane. In fact, you know, my
6:16
understanding is how most of these deep
6:18
aircraft are found is because
6:20
fishermanmen report snags. So difficult
6:23
to say for certain, but what we can say
6:25
for certain is we're now on the port
6:26
wing. You can see there, that's the
6:29
outboard engine. The undercarriage with
6:31
the with the tire was just to the right
6:33
there. In fact, there it is. You can see
6:35
there it's actually in much better order
6:37
than the one on the other side. And
6:39
there we are swinging back towards
6:41
looking at the cockpit area. And this is
6:43
where Henry Mills would have been. This
6:46
is where he escaped from. This is where
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the other two guys who got out with him
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escaped from as well. Now, one of the
6:52
interesting parts of the story is why
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two of them decided to swim for land and
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Henry Mills stayed where he is. The the
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wreck is only about 500 m away from the
7:02
nearest island. the island of Bishevo.
7:06
So you can you probably see why they
7:08
thought it was okay. They both had life
7:11
vests on supposedly and Henry didn't. So
7:15
he decided that he didn't want to use
7:17
energy trying to swim to the island. He
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decided to use his energy to stay, you
7:24
know, in the water and hope somebody was
7:26
going to come out. Now, just going to
7:28
break the story for a moment there
7:29
because what you can see in the the
7:31
bottom, which would have been the top of
7:33
the break there is a whole load of
7:35
oxygen bottles. Clearly, these bombers
7:38
operated at high altitude and the crew
7:40
needed oxygen to continue to function
7:43
normally and and that's what those are
7:45
there. So, the the diver now is heading
7:48
over towards the tail. It's got that
7:50
very distinctive double tail that the
7:52
Liberator has, but also you can see how
7:55
it's completely split and broken off
7:57
from the rest of the wreck. And this is
8:00
the area in which the seven missing crew
8:02
members would have been. Now, supposedly
8:05
it was really well known that the
8:07
ditching survival rates from B7s were
8:11
really low. And one of the statistics
8:12
I've seen is less than 40% of the people
8:16
who ditched survived. I mean certainly
8:18
in this case clearly there was a 90%
8:21
casualty rate. Now that there is looking
8:23
into I think the end of the fuse largege
8:26
and this is the area exactly where the
8:29
men would have been as they prepared for
8:32
the aircraft to ditch. So three guys in
8:34
the front, seven guys in the back. I've
8:37
read an account of a survivor of a B24
8:41
ditching who was in the back and he
8:43
describes an absolute scene of
8:46
pandemonium as the aircraft does exactly
8:49
what this one did which is to break into
8:51
two and then the the guys who were in
8:53
the back tried to escape. Some obviously
8:56
they weren't strapped in or anything so
8:58
some of them were knocked unconscious,
9:00
others suffered significant injuries,
9:03
all that kind of stuff. I mean, it it
9:05
just doesn't even bear thinking about
9:07
what it must have been like in those
9:09
moments as the aircraft hit the sea,
9:12
split open, and then, you know, whatever
9:15
happened happened. So, the only body
9:18
that has ever been recovered from the
9:20
B-24, Lady Luck, is a guy who was found
9:23
floating on the surface, Guy Pledger. He
9:26
was one of the gunners. The remaining
9:28
eight, no idea. It's entirely possible
9:31
that some of them are still in the
9:33
remains of this plane, still in that
9:36
rear fuse lodge, which is always a
9:38
pretty sobering thing to think, although
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I can't imagine there's much of anybody
9:43
left after this amount of time spent at
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the bottom of the seabed.
9:47
People may know that the Americans do
9:50
fund missions where people go and try
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and recover bodies from some of their
9:55
planes. So there are two other aircraft
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on viz, a B17 and another B24 where
10:02
bodies have been recovered or certainly
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parts of bodies. I mean my understanding
10:06
is the bits they found are not very
10:09
Now I think what's interesting here is
10:11
that the videographer uh Franco has
10:14
turned off his video lights so you can
10:16
see that it is pretty dark down here at
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90 odd meters. Uh although there is an
10:22
amount of ambient light. You can
10:24
probably see he's just coming back to
10:26
the main bit of the plane and just
10:29
taking a bit of video there. I think he
10:31
is going to turn his lights back on in a
10:32
second. So, if you hang on there, I also
10:34
think it's worth just talking about why
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the B-24 was such uh a bad aircraft for
10:41
ditching. And fundamentally, it's to do
10:44
with the the wing design and the fact
10:46
that the wings were up high on the B-24.
10:49
That meant that when it was ditched,
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there was a much smaller surface area
10:53
than say a B7 where the wings are low.
10:56
Also, the bomb bay doors were known to
11:00
open on impact or they would be pushed
11:02
inwards and then water would actually
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get into the aircraft. And if you think
11:06
about where the bomb bomb bay doors are,
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that is where the aircraft splits or
11:12
where this aircraft has split. And it
11:14
was, you know, even at the time it was
11:16
well known that this happened. So, I
11:19
guess one of the interesting things is
11:20
why they chose to ditch the aircraft
11:23
rather than bailing out. And I guess
11:25
that's because parachuting into the sea
11:28
is also a really dangerous thing to do.
11:30
I think, you know, they were faced with
11:32
a two really poor choices there. And
11:35
clearly u the pilot Henry Mills decided
11:38
that the ditching was the least worst
11:40
option and that's what he tried to do.
11:43
And I guess it worked um for certainly
11:45
three of them. Anyway, now as you can
11:48
see on the video here, we're just going
11:49
back to the split and this is where the
11:52
Bombay doors would have been. I think
11:54
we've already had a look at this bit and
11:55
we've seen uh those oxygen cylinders
11:58
that would have been in the roof of the
12:00
uh the aircraft roof of the kind of uh
12:02
the middle section. But the other
12:04
interesting thing to see here is if you
12:05
have a look to the left hand side, you
12:07
can see there is some fabric, some white
12:10
fabric with some um what to me look like
12:13
thin lines on it. Now, I believe that
12:16
those are parachutes and that is
12:18
parachute silk. I don't know for
12:20
certain, but it looks an awful lot like
12:23
that to me. And I know on some of the
12:24
other aircraft, the other heavy bomber
12:27
aircraft, parachutes have survived and
12:30
parachutes have been recovered. So, my
12:32
guess is that is what those are. And
12:35
also an incredible tangible link to the
12:39
people who were once on this aircraft.
12:42
You know, incredible. I I I just love
12:45
those kind of things. It's it just takes
12:48
you straight to them. You know, they
12:50
would have been really important to the
12:51
crew and I don't think they would have
12:53
carried spares. So, that parachute or
12:56
parachutes, however many there are in
12:58
there, those belonged to some of the
13:00
crew members of the B24.
13:04
As you can see, the diver is heading
13:05
back towards the tail. And I think this
13:08
is because this is where the shot line
13:10
is. I think it's just off to the right
13:11
hand side. And so I think his dive is
13:15
coming to an end. Now, one of the things
13:17
I'd just like to cover towards the end
13:20
of the dive is to explain how come we
13:23
know so much about B24, Lady Luck, and
13:27
Henry T. Mills. And the reason is
13:30
because like every good military, when
13:33
he eventually got back, he was required
13:36
to fill in a report. And that report is
13:39
on file as in the American terminology
13:42
an MACR a missing air crew report. And
13:45
very matterofactly it tells us what
13:49
happened to the lady luck and what
13:51
happened to all the people who were on
13:53
the Lady Luck. So it's a really poignant
13:58
and sad document to read even though
14:01
it's written completely in a matter of
14:05
fact. This happened then that happened.
14:07
tone. We don't get any sense at all of
14:10
how Henry Mills felt. And I think one of
14:13
the sad bits of this is I don't actually
14:16
know what happened to Henry Mills. I
14:18
would love to know, you know, did he
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survive the war? Did he go back to
14:22
America? Did he have a family? You know,
14:25
did he think about these guys? You know,
14:28
it would just be lovely to have answers
14:30
to those questions. If you're able to
14:33
find it out or you know some way of
14:35
finding out, I'd love to hear. So,
14:36
please uh stick it in the comments. That
14:39
would be absolutely awesome.
14:41
But that's it. The sad story of the lady
14:44
luck, the Bombay door collapse, the
14:48
break that I think the crew knew was
14:51
going to happen once they hit the water,
14:54
the incredibly sad loss of seven men in
14:57
that section. Navigator, radio operator,
15:02
the incredible survival of Henry T.
15:05
mills. His 2 and 1/2 hours of treading
15:08
water on the surface, wondering if he
15:11
was ever going to be rescued.
15:13
The matterof fact way it got recorded
15:16
and then vanished into military
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80 odd years later, Lady Luck remains
15:22
where it sank, broken into a memorial to
15:26
the nine men who never made it home.
15:30
just one more wreck amongst the
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thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands
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that exist around the world. All of them
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with stories, stories that deserve to be
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told. I've got a load of these stories
15:42
on my channel, so have a look around.
15:46
I'm Dom Robinson, Deep Wreck Diver.
15:48
Thank you very much for your time and
15:50
I'll look forward to seeing you on the
