More B-17 eye candy here: Aluminum Overcast
Posted on 09/02/2012 8:54:46 AM PDT by Windflier
My Dad’s neighbor, in Syracuse, a few years older than Dad, enlisted, after Pearl. The story I was told; as a B-17 Top Gunner (position behind the cockpit), during one mission, he bent down to pick up his dropped cigarette. While he was bent over, the plexiglass dome was blown to bits. One of those cases where smoking doesn’t kill ;)
More B-17 eye candy here: Aluminum Overcast
I'd be willing to bet that he kept a piece of that broken plexiglas for good luck!
I sure hope so ! :)
I saw that pic when I was in grade school & the caption said that the ME-109 pilot was already dead before it hit the B-17.
But I also heard accounts of German pilots ramming B-17s and intending to survive, and did so.
And did the military archbishop of U.S. forces declare that if we were invaded, American fighter pilots who rammed enemy planes would not be committing suicide?
2ND Lt. Charlie Brown was a B-17F Flying Fortress pilot with the 379th Bomber Group at Kimbolton, England. His B-17F was called “Ye Olde Pub” and was in a terrible state, having been hit by flak and fighters. The compass was damaged and they were flying deeper over enemy territory instead of heading home to Kimbolton. Most of the tail & half of the stabilizer were gone.
After flying over an enemy airfield, a pilot named Franz Stigler was ordered to take off and shoot down the B-17F. When he got near the B-17, he could not believe his eyes. In his words, he “had never seen a plane in such a bad state”. The tail and rear section was severely damaged, and the tail gunner wounded. The top gunner was all over the top of the fuselage. The nose was smashed and there were holes everywhere.
Despite having ammunition, Franz flew to the side of the B-17 and looked at 2nd Lt. Charlie Brown, Lt. Brown was scared and struggling to control his damaged and bloodstained plane.
Aware that they had no idea where they were going, Franz waved at Charlie to turn 180 degrees. Franz escorted and guided the stricken plane to and slightly over the North Sea towards England. He then saluted Charlie Brown and turned away, back to Europe.
When Franz landed he told the C.O. that the plane had been shot down over the sea, and never told the truth to anybody. Charlie Brown and the remainder of his crew told all at their briefing, but were ordered never to talk about it.
More than 40 years later, Charlie Brown wanted to find the Luftwaffe pilot who saved the crew. After years of research, Franz was found. He had never talked about the incident, not even at postwar reunions.
They met in the USA at a 379th Bomber Group reunion, together with 25 people who are alive now - all because Franz never fired his guns that day.
Research shows that 2nd Lt. Charlie Brown lived in Seattle and Franz Stigler had moved to Vancouver, BC after the war. When they finally met, they discovered they had lived less than 200 miles apart for the past 50 years!
In his first letter to Brown, Stigler had written: "All these years, I wondered what happened to the B-17, did she make it or not?"
She made it, just barely. But why did the German not destroy his virtually defenseless enemy?
"I didn't have the heart to finish off those brave men," Stigler later said. "I flew beside them for a long time. They were trying desperately to get home and I was going to let them do it. I could not have shot at them. It would have been the same as shooting at a man in a parachute."
Sadly Franz Stigler passed away on 22 March 2008. Charlie Brown passed away on 24 November 2008.
Funny. I just posted the harrowing tale of the B-17, ‘Ye Old Pub’, and then come back to the thread and see that you posted the link. Great minds and all that :-)
So true.This bird was repaired and put back in service and you just cant do that to a lanc or a lib.
I skipped school for a week back in 76 to work on that very plane in griffin georgia.She had just been sold and I helped build a new wooden floor for her.I lost credit for that quarter of school but I found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.Fair trade I think.I now manufacture new parts for B-17 restorations and loving it.
They had made so many runs by that time that the plane knew its way home.
Awesome. Did she retain her name and number?
Man.....now that's a dream job. I'm jealous :-)
NO, it said Email but I figured there was a location for the information.
I'm a conscientious Freeper. If I'd had a link I would have posted it.
Link is at post 46, courtesy of csmusaret.
That story apparently originates from Andy Rooney who claimed to have witnessed the incident during WWII at an airbase in England. It was dramatized in a show called Amazing Stories produced by Steven Spielberg.
I went on a tour of a B17 recently at an air museum. The most surprising thing to me was the narrow bridge/catwalk running through the bomb bay area that was the only way to get between the front and rear of the plane.
Here's a view of that narrow catwalk through the fuselage.
From below, in the bomb bay:
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