FO Max Stout- the first posting showed a quote which reads that someone thinks applying the brakes after lift off causes a pitch down effect which makes the aeroplane settle back on the runway. Touch n oops corrected this same assertion. I wish to make clear that hitting the brakes has no effect whatsoever on pitching an aeroplane nose down to make it settle back on the runway.
Now, if you applied the brakes and then for some reason touched down again, I would think it 50/50 you would either wipe away your undercarriage (if traction was good) or burn rubber and drastically overheat your brakes. It would not cause a fully loaded B24 to tip nose down in itself and go to that attitude. That final attitude was due to external factors.
The cockpit crew died. I think it is disrespectful to their memory and the job they had to do to start blaming them for brake operation! Nobody knows, and it's so glib and makes them look stupid. This was probably an overrun accident for any of those myriad reasons it used to happen in the war. That aeroplane left behind widows and orphans and parents without their sons. And now it has become a cartoon. But then I should stick to what I know, shouldn't I?