On a hot and windswept day in September 1971, it was my pleasure to inspect the B-24J Liberator bomber ferried from India to Tucson, Arizona, in 1969 for the nascent Pima Air Museum.
The motivator for that acquisition was the ever-enthusiastic Rhodes Arnold, a B-24 veteran and early booster of the plan to create an aviation museum in Tucson, Arizona. I met Rhodes beside the Liberator that day in 1971.
Rhodes liked to tell a story about a most unusual and anachronistic intercept that took place while he and the rest of the U.S. crew who returned the B-24 from India to Tucson were flying in Pakistani airspace on the way home.
India had, until recently, been the last country to employ B-24 Liberators in its air force. India and Pakistan co-existed for decades with a contentious peace that erupted into warfare several times, including a conflict just four years prior to the Liberator’s flight in March 1969.
The ferry flight of a World War II B-24 bomber out of India, with a landing planned in Karachi, Pakistan, was sure to generate some reconnaissance from the Pakistani Air Force. As the American crew settled into their Liberator flight, Rhodes Arnold took up residence in the waist section of the vintage bomber, scanning the engines for any signs of trouble.
His attention was diverted by a sudden movement outside the right waist window, as a pair of Pakistani F-86 Sabre fighter jets sidled up to about 20 feet from the Indian bomber, a study in contrasts as Cold War fighters intercepted a World War II warplane that was antiquated in so many ways. Rhodes said he and the nearest Pakistani pilot could clearly see each other.
The situation resolved itself, as Arnold explained in his book about the B-24: “Apparently satisfied by the U.S. registration, the U.S. flags on the fin, and the light-skinned crew, the Pakistanis peeled off and headed for their base.”
Today that B-24J Liberator occupies a place of honor in one of the Pima Air & Space Museum‘s buildings where it still wears a mix of U.S. and Indian markings.
As I compiled the anecdotes for this post, I was indebted to Rhodes Arnold’s book, “The B-24/PB4Y in Combat,” published by Pima Paisano Publications.
