Three separate and related tragedies occurred during and after a training run of a B-24 Liberator on July 4, 1943, over the Pacific off Santa Barbara County: The heavy bomber crashed near Santa Barbara and two of the crew were never found, another B-24 search-and-rescue crew looking for survivors off the coast never returned at all and was found later to have cashed on San Miguel Island, killing all 12 aboard, and the Air Force investigators of that accident, years later, in 1954, coming to the island in a Coast Guard cutter, hit a yacht, killing two more people. Author Robert A. Burtness takes you inside these somber stories with recorded first-hand accounts and vintage images.
