May 6, 1943: "Crashed at 11.30 GMT off Bengħisa Point. Water calm. Wreck floated for about five minutes. Tail went down first. Nose was last to submerge". This is how the end of a Liberator B24-D 42-40112 fighter bomber belonging to the United States Army Air Force during WWII was recorded in a report the details of which have spurred technical diver Emi Farrugia to search for the wreck.
The crash and salvage of the 10-member crew except for one - Sgt Irving Newman, who was never found - feature in the book by Frederick Galea titled Call Out: A Wartime Diary Of Air/Sea Rescue Operations At Malta (Bieb Bieb, 2002).
When contacted, Mr Galea said launches used to go out from Kalafrana as soon as they received messages over the radio of plane crashes or when pilots and crew baled out.
"In the case of the Liberator, they did not need any message because the aeroplane practically grazed the roof of their depot as it flew out to sea when the pilot decided to ditch the plane," Mr Galea said.
Mr Farrugia, producer of the Where's Everybody? TV programme X'Qala l-Baħar, said searches he carried out using a remote camera strongly indicate he has located the tail of the bomber.
"The tail located on the seabed may be that of the Liberator that crashed at sea on May 6, 1943. Now we will have to see whether the rest of the pieces will lead us to the rest of the wreck," Mr Farrugia said.
The detective work involved in trying to locate this largest aeroplane known to lie on the seabed in Maltese waters will be documented in the current edition of X'Qala l-Baħar, the third series so far. X'Qala l-Baħar is broadcast on TVM on Sundays between 6 and 7 p.m. and repeated on Saturdays at 10 a.m.
The B24-D Liberator formed part of 343 Squadron of the United States Army Air Force, based in Lete, Libya. While bombing shipping in Reggio Calabria harbour with five other Liberators, the aeroplane was hit by anti-aircraft fire and developed engine problems. Some of the crew were injured by shrapnel and were in serious need of medical care.
According to the report featured in Call Out, the aeroplane with wheels down, hit the water, turned completely over and floated bottom up. The nose was last to submerge.
Aviation artist and historian Richard J. Caruana said that, at that time, the 343rd had adopted cartoon characters as nose art from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
"Oddly enough, I traced every one of them - that is the Liberators that left Libya on the day in question - but 42-40112 does not figure among them. So it could either be that its character was taken over by another aircraft after it crashed or it had taken up one of these characters, or never carried any!
"In any case, the aircraft of this squadron were all finished in desert pink top surfaces with neutral gray undersides. They also still carried the yellow outline to the national markings, from Torch Operations, together with an RAF-style red/white/blue fin flash. Serial numbers on the fin were in black while the individual code letter was in red.
"It would be a real find if the nose art could at least be identified from the wreck!"
From photos of the same unit, Mr Caruana has produced a colour profile and, as the finish was uniform, this should be very close to the colours on the Liberator. This is, however, an artist's impression as a photo of the original has not yet been found.
Preparing for the mini expedition, Mr Farrugia, who is known for his underwater documentaries of WWII wrecks in the TV award-winning series Dinja Oħra, is supervising the training of 12 Maltese technical divers who will take part in 90-metre dives.
"Our biggest hurdle is the depth involved, which means that 18 minutes on the seabed at that depth would entail a decompression stop of about two hours.
"There has never been a search performed at this depth using divers in local waters. Our aim is to video the wreck and pass on our findings to the authorities.
"We are grateful for the cooperation of the Malta Aviation Museum Foundation in this endeavour," Mr Farrugia said.
The Liberator specs
• The four-engine American bomber had a 20-metre long fuselage and a crew of 10.
• Because of its long range, it was particularly suited for such missions as the famous raid from North Africa against the oil industry at Ploesti, Romania on August 1, 1943.
• More than 18,000 Liberators were produced.
• Span: 110 feet (33.52 metres).
• Length: 66 feet, 4 inches (20.2 metres).
• Height: 17 feet, 11 inches (5.4 metres).
• Weight: 56,000 pounds loaded (25,401 kilos).
• Armament: Ten .50-calibre machine guns and 8,000 pounds (3,628 kilos) of bombs.
• Engines: Four Pratt & Whitney R 1830s of 1,200 horsepower each.
• Range: 3,200 miles.
• Cost: $336,000.