B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

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Old No7
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B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by Old No7 »

My late father stood on the ground of his fighter base located 56 miles N/NE of London in August of 1943 and watched as flight after flight of heavy bombers were flying overhead. I recall he said it lasted for almost an hour -- all part of the huge raids on Schweinfurt and Regensburg.

Their best fighters at the time, the P47 Thunderbolts (his fighter group sent up 47 of the big "Jugs" that day) could only accompany the heavy bombers part way, and once the bombers crossed into German air space -- they were on their own... His base didn't get the mighty P51 Mustangs until February of 1944.

Those B17s were pretty tough birds... But still, 60 bombers didn't make it back to England that day...

You can tell which crew member(s) took the hits on these...

No other comments needed, other than: "Thanks to them, we don't speak Deutsche!"

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Shot Up Bomber 03.jpg
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Shot Up Bomber 05.jpg
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Shot Up Bomber 06.jpg
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Shot Up Bomber 07.jpg
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J Miller
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by J Miller »

What has amazed me for most of my life is that those aircraft made it back to England. Many would never fly again, but they came home. With today's aircraft, the crews would just bail out and probably not even try to make it back.

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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by GunnyMack »

The B17 wasn't given the name Flying Fortress for nothing! Truly a testament to our resolve to win the war.
There is nothing like the sound of a radial engine at full power! Throw 4 of them in the mix and WOW,
One of the old captains Dad flew with at the airline flew off the Yorktown, other guys he knew flew various bombersor fighters in Europe, each was in awe of the 17 for its ability to make it back.
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by Borregos »

Quite a few years ago now I visited the Air Force museum at Dayton. There is a display there with a picture of a B-17 that made it back to the Philippines with an amazing amount of damage, it apparently was so bad that Boeing sent engineers out to look at it. The picture included aircrew and ground crew stationed there.
As I was looking at the picture a small old gentleman came and stood by my side, he nudged me and pointed to a guy on the picture, "that's me" he said, we went for a coffee and he kept me enthralled for ages with tales about the B-17 in the Pacific.
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Bill in Oregon
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by Bill in Oregon »

The 24 could take a beating, too.
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by TWHBC »

Amazing!
And these planes were able to get the landing gear down and accomplish a wheels down landing!
The skill of these pilots who were often just 20 or so!
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by piller »

Amazing!
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Merle
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by Merle »

Absolutely amazing how much damage they could take. One gentleman in my small town told me several astounding stories about battle damage and making it back "on a wing and a prayer" :shock:
Merle from PA
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by Ben_Rumson »

The main reason they lost 60 aircraft is two air groups were supposed to air rendezvous and fly on to their targets that day but one group got weather delayed in England. As you say no fighter escort when it counted. So the German fighters shot up the first air group then had time to land and rearm and fly up to hammer the second group. One tail gunner reported all they needed to find their way home was to follow the trail of burning crashed aircraft.
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Old No7
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by Old No7 »

Merle wrote: Mon May 01, 2017 3:17 pm Absolutely amazing how much damage they could take. One gentleman in my small town told me several astounding stories about battle damage and making it back "on a wing and a prayer" :shock:
That's for the neat reminder! * My late father used to sing/hum that tune, and I just had to look it up...

"Comin' in on a wing and a prayer, comin' in on a wing and a prayer.
With our one motor gone, we can still carry on. Comin' in on a wing and a prayer.

What a show, what a fight! Boys, we really hit our target for tonight.
How we sing as we limp through the air. Look below, there's our field over there.
With our one motor gone, we can still carry on. Comin' in on a wing and a prayer.

Comin' in on a wing and a prayer, comin' in on a wing and a prayer.
With our full crew on board, and our Trust in the Lord. We're comin' in on a wing and a prayer."


Actually, that was his excuse for always having a second drink too -- he'd say:

"Why sure I'll have another drink, man can't fly on one wing!" :wink:

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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by wolfdog »

My father was a ball turret gunner on a B-17 early in the war. One of the mementos he had brought back was a piece of wing that had been damaged by flack. You could stick your head through the hole. During the 90's I met Charlie Brown when he stopped into a store I was working at and I commented on his 8th Air force cap. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_B ... r_incident
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by Carlsen Highway »

The damage in those photos looks like flak/ AA

There is a Corsair fighter plane in our local museum. Back in the nineties I worked in an office next to a spry looking older man who told me it was his actual aircraft. I swear he looked 50 but must have been in his seventies. We went to look at it, and sure enough he was in the photograph next to it along with mechanics and others.
He was a carrier pilot. He told me New Zealand had a pilot lend-lease program with the US and he used to fly it off American air craft carriers in the Pacific.
I wanted to go back and get a picture of him in the cockpit but not long after that he died of cancer.
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by Ben_Rumson »

I just read the wikipedia article...But I was luckier than the fellow in the article. I got to use the Internet! instead of letters to pilots associations I got to post to many Bomb Group associations. I found out the name of my uncle's Fort, all the names and positions of the crew and even the name of their Boston terrier mascot.. .. I even wound up with original photos of my uncle mailed to me of my unc in the Navigator's shack!
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by jeepnik »

My uncle Fred was a B/N on B-17's. A kid like so many who manned these great aircraft. Uncle Fred was one of the lucky ones. Not totally unscarred, but he made it back when so very many did not.

Whenever I think about my dad, grandfathers and uncles, all of whom served during WWII, some of them in WWI, and others of them in Korea, I always wonder where do we get such men. None of them was what you'd call physically imposing (heck the one who earned the most medals was a mild mannered balding man of about 5'7") yet they faced a world being torn apart, and put it back together again. How do you thank such men?
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by Rusty »

I walked thru a B-17 once and was in awe that those men could do what they did. The planes were tough but the men were tougher.
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by Aussie Chris »

The Flying Fortress. What a plane. When men were men. 10 men with .50 cals and a job to do.

This is a great read, I've read it twice. http://www.flyingbooks.co.uk/acatalog/C ... tress.html
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by piller »

Slight drift, but an Uncle flew B24J Liberators in the South Pacific during WWII. You can still find the TOA report on the internet for him. He died in January of this year at 101 years old. He flew off of Fiji, and a few other places as the war progressed. His opinion was that the Liberator was a great aircraft. He liked being escorted by P38 Lockheed Lightning fighters because they were instantly recognizable as friend. 3 times his plane was sabotaged. He made it home every time.

There were some great aircraft designs and some truly brave men who flew them into the guns of very determined enemies because it was a job that had to be done.
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by wolfdog »

Another B-17 article I think I posted before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_W._Mathis
In the picture the second from the right in the front row is my father.
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Old No7
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Re: B17 Bombers, Battle Damage

Post by Old No7 »

Since I started off this post with damaged B17s -- let's end it with this one!

The photographer must have used a very fast shutter speed to "stop the props" like that!

B17 Bomber.jpg

That, or it's one hell of a glider too.......... :wink:

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