Colonel Clyde P. Evely, USAF with the crew of the record-setting B-52H Stratofortress 60-0040. (U.S. Air Force)
Operation Persian Rug
This Day in Aviation
Important Dates in Aviation History
Colonel Clyde P. Evely, USAF with the crew of the record-setting B-52H Stratofortress 60-0040. (U.S. Air Force)
What SAC Bomb Wing was the B-52H and the aircrew assigned to? The bomber and the crew have the Bomb Wing patch on the right nose galaxy stripe and flight jackets, respectively. Was #60-0040 assigned to the 410th Bomb Wing @ K.I. Sawyer AFB, Michigan at the time the flight was made, or later rotated to the 410th Bomb Wing when the bomber was lost in the fuel cell explosion accident?.
As is described in the first sentence of the article, the crew and airplane were assigned to the 4136th Strategic Wing. TDiA has not been able to identify what unit the airplane and crew were assigned to at the time of the accident.
My father was Major Robert Carson, the second pilot of this flight. He was promoted soon afterwards to Lt. Colonel. In WW2, he fought in the Battle of Britain, flying a Hawker Hurricane as a Sgt. Pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Afterwards, he came back to America and proceeded to fly 104 combat missions between 1943 and 1945 as a pilot of a B-24 Liberator. In late 1944, he was shot down and crashed in the Himalayan mountains where, after 3 months, he successfully walked his entire crew out of the mountains and enemy occupied territory to safety. He was bigger than life…a true hero!!!