{"id":85037,"date":"2019-02-15T15:30:10","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T19:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=85037"},"modified":"2019-02-15T13:07:51","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T17:07:51","slug":"b-17s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=85037","title":{"rendered":"B-17s"},"content":{"rendered":"

From The Other Whitey comes this collection of photos of B-17s, some of which have been damaged so badly per these photographs that they could not possibly continue to function.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the information he supplied as their histories:<\/p>\n

\"\"
B-17 Loss 3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The photo titled “B-17 loss 3” is, according to my research, 42-31333\u00a0Wee Willie<\/em>\u00a0of the 91st Bombardment Group (Heavy), 8th Air Force.\u00a0 Wee Willie<\/em>\u00a0was the last B-17 to be lost in action in the ETO.\u00a0 She took a flak hit over Berlin on April 8, 1945 that sheared off the left wing.\u00a0 The aircraft exploded while spinning out of control, seconds after the photo was taken.\u00a0 Pilot 1LT Robert Fuller survived.\u00a0 2LT Woodrow Lien, TSGT Francis McCarthy, SSGT Richard Proudfit, SSGT Wylie McNatt Jr., SSGT William Cassidy, SSGT Ralph Leffelman, SSGT James Houtchens, and SGT Lemoyne Miller were KIA.<\/p>\n

\"\"
B-17 and German fighter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I have no information on the second photo apart from its official captioning, as the B-17’s group markings and tail number cannot be made out.\u00a0 The fighter appears to be an FW-190.<\/p>\n

\"\"
B-17 Loss 11<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“B-17 loss 11” shows an aircraft of the 384th Bombardment Group (Heavy), 8th Air Force, going down after having her tail shot off.\u00a0 The Triangle-P group ID marking on the right wing identifies the aircraft as being from the 384th, but I could find no other information on this airplane or her crew.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Battle Damage 4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Battle Damage 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The two photos titled “Battle damage” show aircraft of the 457th Bombardment Group (Heavy), 8th Air Force in the summer\/fall of 1944.<\/p>\n

\"\"
B-17 Contrails at 25,000 feet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The photo titled “contrails” shows the Combat Box of the 95th Bombardment Group (Heavy), 8th Air Force, date unknown.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Flak 7<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Flak 7” is a captioned photo of B-17s making their bomb run on the Winterhofen Oil refinery near Regensburg, not sure which unit.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Rose of York w\/Princess Elizabeth (then 18) attending the ceremony<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Rose of York” shows a christening ceremony held by the 306th Bombardment Group (Heavy), 8th Air Force at Thurleigh, East Anglia.\u00a0 The young woman holding the flowers is Princess Elizabeth, age 18, and the B-17 behind her, 42-102547, was named after her.\u00a0 Rose of York<\/em>\u00a0completed 62 combat missions with the 306th, but was hit by flak over Berlin on February 3, 1945.\u00a0 She dropped out of formation and was last seen over the North Sea with an engine on fire.\u00a0 All 10 crew MIA and presumed dead: 1LT Vernor Daley, 1LT Paul Becker, 2LT Joe Carbine, TSGT Reisel Horn, TSGT Porfirio Marquez, SSGT Robert Crede, SSGT George Petrillo, SSGT Silvio Zolt, SGT Okey Coplin, and civilian BBC war correspondent Guy Byam.\u00a0 Byam had been medically retired from the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve after surviving the sinking of HMS\u00a0Jervis Bay<\/em>\u00a0in 1940.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Thunderbird crash landing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The last photo shows a crash-landing of\u00a0Thunderbird<\/em>, 303rd Bombardment Group (Heavy), 8th Air Force.\u00a0 She was repaired and returned to service after the incident.\u00a0 B-17G 42-38050\u00a0Thunderbird<\/em>\u00a0flew the most combat missions of any Flying Fortress, a total of 112 between January 29, 1944 and March 22, 1945 with zero casualties aboard.\u00a0 538 pilots and aircrew flew combat missions aboard\u00a0Thunderbird<\/em>.\u00a0 The original aircraft was scrapped at Kingman, AZ in 1946 and is memorialized in a large mural at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington DC.\u00a0 Another B-17, 44-85718, is now operated in airworthy condition by Lone Star Flight Museum and is painted to represent\u00a0Thunderbird<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In addition, aGrimm forwarded the following:<\/p>\n

T.J. Thompson Jr. (my bride\u2019s uncle) was a B-17 navigator in WWII:\u00a0 33 missions, shot down and bailed out, POW at the German\u2019s Stalag Luft 1.<\/p>\n

1) His Stalag and US Army dog tags<\/p>\n

\"\"
USAAF Dogtags and Stalag Luf-1 Dogtags<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

2) TJ on the left with some of his crew.<\/p>\n

\"\"
TJ Thompson, Jr. with flight crew<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thanks to both of you for sharing these photos and information.\u00a0 We must not forget that these people, and others like them, stopped something that could have been much worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From The Other Whitey comes this collection of photos of B-17s, some of which have been … B-17s<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":653,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187,359,126,12,10,121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-force","category-army","category-disposable-warriors","category-gathering-of-eagles","category-historical","category-war-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}