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Originally Posted by mazex
But still, doing a gear up landing on with a P-40 in the desert should not tear the wheels out of their bays a few hundred meters from the plane?
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there are a lot of rocks around, the wheels are turned towards the wing in a semi-retracted position, it wouldn't surprise me if they were torn apart.
Check this video of a Mustang doing a very bad (but relatively controlled) landing to get an idea of what happens to landing gears
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At the same time like you say it's madness to land with the gear down as it really should top the aircraft over? Maybe he was too low to bail out when he realized he was loosing power? Maybe he was really scared of using the silk? I've had a parachute on my back hundreds of times but never used it - if the plane is still in one piece it takes a tough decision to bail out, especially if you can't bring the reserve water tucked away somewhere in the plane with you?
Speculations...
But like you say, a solo ferry flight in a damaged plane sounds weird - but the diary note seems to indicate that it was the case for that AC with the damaged undercarriage... In the middle of war there are maybe weird decisions taken?
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well yeah, definitely an unwise decision to fly solo in the desert, no matter if with an efficient aircraft or not. My guess again is that the landing gears were unlocked and hanging loose from the wings when he touched down, and even if he radioed a Mayday there's a fair chance he didn't give his position or the message wasn't picked up at all.
There are some deaths in war that are left untold just because you come to the sad realisation that they could have been avoided, had a wiser line of decision been taken.