By: Dobbins - 31st May 2012 at 20:04
I love how the bombardier’s chair appears unscathed!
By: DazDaMan - 31st May 2012 at 19:12
Bloody hell!
By: Bomberboy - 31st May 2012 at 18:28
How about this one….
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/B-17_Damage_Cologne.jpg
Ahh yes, the 398th Machine piloted by Larry De-Lancy and Phil Stahllman. hit by an 88 over Cologne in the October of 1944 IIRC?
I also believe that the Bomb Aimer was killed and the Nav was seriously wounded. I’ll have to check my info now for accuracy.
The video clip was taken from the 92BG’s The Doc Furniss War colour film. The shell appears to have exploded right in the middle of the Bomb Bay.
Not quite sure about the quote of the fire with the hydraulic system along the Bomb Bay catwalk as there is very little of it in the aeroplane in first place and what there is of it is located in the cockpit and is sent out to the brakes and engine cowl gills from there.
I don’t think it enters the Bomb Bay and I am pretty sure is not on the catwalk or anywhere near it. It is a very small quantity, just a few litres.
If it had said fuel, now that is a very strong possibility, as the tank cross feeds are right at the front end of the catwalk along with the transfer pump.
By: Stratofreighter - 31st May 2012 at 16:50
How about this one….
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/B-17_Damage_Cologne.jpg
That’s a lot of drag to overcome… 😮
By: Dobbins - 31st May 2012 at 16:38
How about this one….
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/B-17_Damage_Cologne.jpg
By: Arabella-Cox - 31st May 2012 at 16:01
I had a quick look on the forum, but surprised there has not been a thread on the worst battle damaged aircraft (to make it home).
By: AlanR - 31st May 2012 at 15:34
Certainly amazing that this aircraft, and many that took similar or worse
damage, stayed in the air. I suppose that when push comes to shove, self
preservation kicks in.
By: pistonrob - 31st May 2012 at 15:29
a right man sized hole as demonstrated by possibly one of the crewmen.. in one of the frames it shows damage to the bomb door area. AA shell may have ripped up through a soft part of skin in or around the bomb bay area before hitting something more solid inside. the air pressure wave blowing away the rear wing skinning on the wing on its way out.
By: slicer - 31st May 2012 at 15:28
Wow. I AM impressed. That’s up in Victoria Cross territory for bravery. I hope that crew was appropriately decorated.
By: Arabella-Cox - 31st May 2012 at 15:23
Found on another forum:
B-17G-25-BO 42-31713 Snake Hips arrived at the 327th Bombing Squadron of the 92nd Bombing Group in February of 1944. It flew on operations continuously from then, surviving totally unscathed until the August 24th mission to Merseburg, when the bomber took a 88mm flak round hit directly in the bomb bay. Miraculously, the full load of bombs did not detonate, although ball turret gunner Sgt Gordon V Wescott was fatally wounded by the shell’s explosion. Pilots 2ndLt John Bosko and 2ndLt Curt H Koehnert fought to keep the bomber aloft, and they aborted the mission.
On the way home the hydraulic system caught fire and burning fluid spread over the floor of the fuselage and the catwalk of the bomb bay. Engineer S/Sgt Peter W LaFleur tried to put the blaze out with a fire extinguisher, and when this ran dry, resorted to tearing the flaming insulation from the walls with his bare hands. The bombs were then jettisoned, although there were five ‘hang-ups’, in other words bombs that did not drop and stayed in the bomb bay, and the crew knew that the damaged bombs could explode at any moment. Bombardier S/Sgt Jerome E Charbonneau, working perilously on the slippery, burning catwalk in the wide open bomb bay, directed the waist gunners and the the radio operator as they defused the bombs and made them safe.
Midway over the North Sea two engines died from fuel starvation, but the crippled bomber finally made it to Woodbridge, Suffolk, where Bosko ordered the crew to bale out. He couldn’t leave the controls himself because the plane was so badly damaged that it would have fallen out of the sky the moment he released the controls. He finally succeeded in safely landing one of the most badly-damaged B-17s to make it back to the UK.
By: slicer - 31st May 2012 at 15:09
Remarkable. Do any USAAF experts know the story behind this? To my inexpert eye this looks like an explosion which occurred inside the aircraft and stripped the wing panels..the outwardly bent metal on the fuselage near the end of the clip suggests that?
If it flew back from a mission like that..I’m impressed!
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May 31, 2012 at 2:58 pm