Life and Death Aboard a B-17

Published on August 12, 1944

America joined Britain's strategic air campaign designed to destroy Nazi Germany's industrial capacity soon after her entrance into World War Two. Launching Boeing B-17 "Flying Fortresses" and Consolidated B-24 "Liberators" from bases in England's eastern countryside, the Americans bombed their targets during the day while the British attacked at night.

Up to 1,000 of these heavy bombers would take part in a raid - the planes flying in a three dimensional formation in which boxes of aircraft were stacked one above the other to take full advantage of their combined defensive firepower. The early confidence that the bombers' defenses alone could repel enemy fighter attacks was quickly shattered. Losses were high. It was not until long-range fighter aircraft capable of escorting the bombers to and from their targets were made available that losses dropped to an acceptable level.

Manned by a crew of 10, the many heavy machine guns that bristled from the front, back, top, bottom and sides of the four-engine B-17 prompted its nickname, the "Flying Fortress." On days that a mission was planned, the airmen would be awakened in the early morning hours and fed a hearty breakfast followed by a briefing describing the mission. They would then be taken to their planes and await the signal to take off. Once aloft, brightly colored "lead-ships" would direct the bombers to pre-determined points where they would organize themselves into their attack formations.

Missions that penetrated deep into enemy territory could last up to eight hours and be filled with anxious anticipation as all eyes searched the skies for enemy defenders. They could expect attacks by fighters armed with machine guns, canon and rockets as well as heavy antiaircraft fire from the ground and even bombs dropped from above. The bombers were expected to maintain their positions at all costs - in order to provide the most effective defensive fire and to assure the most devastating results once their bombs were dropped.

The planes were unheated and open to the outside air. The crew wore electrically heated suits and heavy gloves that provided some protection against temperatures that could dip to 60 degrees below zero. Once above 10,000 feet they donned oxygen masks as the planes continued to climb to their operational level that could be as high as 29,000 feet. Nearing the target, each crew member would don a 30-pound flak suit and a steel helmet designed to protect against antiaircraft fire. Parachutes were too bulky to be worn all the time, but crewmen did wear a harness that allowed them to quickly clip on their parachute when needed.

Prior to 1944, a crewman's tour of duty was set at 25 missions. As a measure of the hazards they would encounter, it is estimated that the average crewman had only a one in four chance of actually completing his tour of duty.

"I'm sorry, sir, I've been hit..."

Joseph Hallock was a twenty-two-year-old first lieutenant serving as the bombardier aboard "Ginger" a B-17 flying out of its base north of London. Hallock dropped out of college to enlist in the Army Air Force in June 1942. After training as a bombardier, he arrived in England in November 1943 and began his combat career on the last day of the year:

"My first raid was on December thirty-first, over Ludwigshaven. Naturally, not knowing what it was going to be like, I didn't feel scared. A little sick, maybe, but not scared. That comes later, when you begin to understand what your chances of survival are. Once we'd crossed into Germany, we spotted some flak, but it was a good long distance below us and looked pretty and not dangerous: different-colored puffs making a soft, cushiony-looking pattern under our plane. A bombardier sits right in the Plexiglas nose of a Fort, so he sees everything neatly laid out in front of him, like a living-room rug. It seemed to me at first that I'd simply moved in on a wonderful show.' I got over feeling sick, there was so much to watch.

We made our run over the target, got our bombs away, and apparently did a good job. Maybe it was the auto-pilot and bomb sight that saw to that, but I'm sure I was cool enough on that first raid to do my job without thinking too much about it. Then, on the way home, some Focke-Wulfs showed up, armed with rockets, and I saw three B-I7s in the different groups around us suddenly blow up and drop through the sky. Just simply blow up and drop through the sky. Nowadays, if you come across something awful happening, you always think, 'My God, it's just like a movie,' and that's what I thought. I had a feeling that the planes weren't really falling and burning, the men inside them weren't really dying, and everything would turn out happily in the end. Then, very quietly through the interphone, our tail gunner said, 'I'm sorry, sir, I've been hit.'

I crawled back to him and found that he'd been wounded in the side of the head - not deeply but enough so he was bleeding pretty bad. Also, he'd got a lot of the Plexiglas dust from his shattered turret in his eyes, so he was, at least for the time being, blind. Though he was blind, he was still able to use his hands, and I ordered him to fire his guns whenever he heard from me. I figured that a few bursts every so often from his fifties would keep the Germans off our tail, and I also figured that it would give the kid something to think about besides the fact that he'd been hit. When I got back to the nose, the pilot told me that our No. 4 engine had been shot out. Gradually we lost our place in the formation and flew nearly alone over France. That's about the most dangerous thing that can happen to a lame Fort, but the German fighters had luckily given up and we skimmed over the top of the flak all the way to the Channel."

"They came so close that I could see the pilots' faces..."

In early 1944 the number of missions required to complete his tour of duty was extended from 25 to 30. This meant that Lt. Hallock and his buddies, each of whom had been counting down each mission, now had five additional to fly. We pick up his story as he begins his 27th (and worst) mission:

"We had a feeling, though, that this Augsburg show was bound to be tough, and it was. We made our runs and got off our bombs in the midst of one hell of a dogfight. Our group leader was shot down and about a hundred and fifty or two hundred German fighters swarmed over us as we headed for home. Then, screaming in from someplace, a twenty millimeter cannon shell exploded in the nose of our Fort. It shattered the Plexiglas, broke my interphone and oxygen connections, and a fragment of it cut through my heated suit and flak suit. I could feel it burning into my right shoulder and arm. My first reaction was to disconnect my heated suit. I had some idea that I might get electrocuted if I didn't.

I crawled back in the plane, wondering if anyone else needed first aid. I couldn't communicate with them, you see, with my phone dead. I found that two shells had hit in the waist of the plane, exploding the cartridge belts stored there, and that one waist gunner had been hit in the forehead and the other in the jugular vein. I thought, 'I'm wounded, but I'm the only man on the ship who can do this job right.' I placed my finger against the gunner's jugular vein, applied pressure bandages, and injected morphine into him. Then I sprinkled the other man's wound with sulfa powder. We had no plasma aboard, so there wasn't much of anything else I could do. When I told the pilot that my head set had been blown off, the tail gunner thought he'd heard someone say that my head had been blown off, and he yelled that he wanted to jump. The pilot assured him that I was only wounded. Then I crawled back to the nose of the ship to handle my gun, fussing with my wounds when I could and making use of an emergency bottle of oxygen.

Last Mission: "One more, one more, one more."

The twenty-eighth [mission] was on Berlin, and I was scared damn near to death. It was getting close to the end and my luck was bound to be running out faster and faster. The raid wasn't too bad, though, and we got back safe. The twenty-ninth mission was to Thionville, in France, and all I thought about on that mission was 'One more, one more, one more.' My last mission was to Saarbriicken. One of the waist gunners was new, a young kid like the kid I'd been six months before. He wasn't a bit scared - just cocky and excited. Over Saarbriicken he was wounded in the foot by a shell, and I had to give him first aid. He acted more surprised than hurt. He had a look on his face like a child who's been cheated by grownups.

That was only the beginning for him, but it was the end for me."

[Hallock was a First Lieutenant and bombardier. Hallock reported to the ETO on 28 Nov 1943. He flew on Robert Welter crew. He completed 30 missions. Departed the ETO in May 1944. After service with the 306th, he served as Liaison Officer, USAAF Personnel Command, War Dept.] 

 

'Bloody Hundredth' B-17 Pilot Shares World War II Experiences

by Karen Abeyasekere, Air Force 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs

Published May 6, 2022

Retired Air Force 1st Lt. John A. Clark, 98, says his generation was as captivated by air travel as the current generation is with space travel.

During an interview, the World War II co-pilot recalled arriving at the Las Vegas Army Airfield in Nevada in May 1944. He was there to become familiar with a four-engine bomber as a co-pilot trainee for the B-17. On his first night, he was at the officers' club when he spotted a woman in a military uniform with silver wings on her blouse.

"I'd just arrived, but I thought I'd better grab the opportunity to talk to her," he recalled. "She told me her name was Marie [Mountain]; she was from Iowa and was a WASP [Women's Air Force Service Pilot]. They trained exactly as the men did, and she graduated with her wings about two months before I did."

Marie said she flew fighters and performed mock attacks on the B-17 Flying Fortresses at the flexible gunnery school. Gunners trained there and tracked fighters making mock attacks, preparing themselves for action over Germany. She also instructed instrument pilots during flying procedure training, and she was a test pilot for aircraft in need of maintenance.

Marie was headed to the library to listen to a vinyl record of French composer Claude Debussy's "La Mer." Clark recalled, "She looked at me and said, 'You may come if you wish …' Of course, that was exactly my wish, so I put down my pen and followed her into the library. I ended up following her for the next 63 years. We had a long life together from that day until she passed away in 2008."

Clark said he finished advanced flight school in a very small, two-engine airplane, which by comparison to the B-17 was almost like a toy. "When I got in that aircraft in Las Vegas, it felt like sitting in the Grand Canyon — [and was] full of clocks! This four-engine bomber had twice as many instruments and much more complicated operational switches than those I had experienced before."

The next day, he said he began "learning by just doing" by going out on gunner runs, spending the next month learning to fly the B-17.

Clark soon built up 50 hours of flying time in the co-pilot's seat of the B-17 before being sent to Lincoln, Nebraska. There, he was assigned to a 10-person flight crew in which he would go through 8th Air Force operational training before heading overseas to fly missions.

After their training, crews were sent to bases around the country. Clark's crew was sent to Tennessee, where they flew with other B-17 Flying Fortresses for two months. In August 1944, they picked up a new airplane and flew to New Hampshire before heading to England.

On a rainy night, the crew arrived by train in Diss, England, where they were picked up by truck and taken to the 100th Bomb Group at Thorpe Abbotts, England.

Thorpe Abbotts

"About two other crews were with us, and we arrived around midnight. We were greeted by an officer who told us, 'Welcome to the Bloody Hundredth!'" 

The Bloody Hundredth's legacy began when the100th Bomb Group flew its first 8th Air Force combat mission in a bombing raid on Germany's Bremen U-boat yards on June 25, 1943. On that mission alone, they lost three planes and 30 men, according to the British museum dedicated to the group.

Several times, the 100th BG lost a dozen or more aircraft on a single mission, as, for the first six months, it focused on German airfields, industries and naval facilities in France and Germany. When the 100th BG raided Munster, Germany, on Oct. 10, 1943, only one B-17 returned safely to England.

Clark was assigned to the 418th Bomb Squadron, one of four squadrons there. In flight, the group was usually composed of 12 aircraft, though sometimes they added an extra one.

The base commander told the group that a 100th BG mission would be made up of three squadrons, normally with 12 or 13 aircraft each. Several times, the 8th Air Force mounted a maximum-effort mission with four or five squadrons.

"Bloody Hundredth – Assemble!"

Clark said the policy of the 100th BG was to have new crews fly three or four practice missions because circumstances in combat squadrons were very different from training. "Firstly, we had to learn how to assemble; when we took off from our base in England in the morning[s], it was often in the dark and with ceilings of about 50- or 100-feet, in freezing rain, fog or snow [and] with a runway that was often very slippery. Two aircraft would line up on the runway; one aircraft would take off before disappearing into the fog or rain; then, about 30 seconds later, we would take off.

"We had no real, clear idea of where the other aircraft were, but, fortunately, every time we flew, the aircraft ahead of us made a successful takeoff. As soon as we left the ground, we would immediately take up a heading, usually to the left, and fly that for a specified number of minutes," Clark recalled.

Heading out over the North Sea, Clark's crew and other 100th BG B-17s followed the preceding aircraft as they held their combat formations. The airborne commander would allow the formation to loosen up because maintaining a tight formation at high altitude with oxygen masks and other equipment was physically tiring.

German Territory

"We would loosen up a bit until we got over German-controlled territory, then we'd tighten up the formations and try to get as close as we could to the aircraft we were flying off. That was done primarily so the gunners in the squadron would be in a compact group of aircraft and would be able to defend the squadron of 12 ships with something like 150 .50-caliber machine guns," said Clark.

Clark said the formations picked a fixed point on the way to the target and flew in tight formation, as close as practical to the aircraft next to them. The lead navigator would confirm the bombsight was on the right target, and they went straight to it.

Clark said German pilots learned that coming close to a "box" of 12 Flying Fortresses was very hazardous. 

He attributed the tight formations with forcing German pilots to stop attacking squadrons from the rear. Head-on attacks put the Germans at a disadvantage because they had three to five seconds before being within range of the formation.

Putting Bombs on Targets

"The Germans learned our procedure quickly, so [they] would place their antiaircraft guns along our flight path. As our colonel used to remind us all the time, 'Fly [in] a formation no matter what because the reason we're here is to put bombs on the targets!'"

The greatest danger of being hit was along the flight path, Clark said. The danger increased when "flak" from Germany's antiaircraft guns hit the aircraft. "I always felt [that] if you could hear it, you were a goner. Most of the time when the flak was coming close [and] scattering thousands of bits of steel, you'd get a serious hit, which could cause a loss of engines and fire — which was usually the most serious damage that would be inflicted," he said.

Feeling the Cold

One of his biggest concerns was keeping warm at 30,000 feet when the outside air temperature was minus 60 to minus 70 degrees. By his fourth mission, Clark said he had discovered the solution: a heated suit that plugged into an electric socket in the aircraft, providing warmth down to his boots. But the solution came with a problem — he got so hot he was drenched in perspiration. "I wore goggles to protect my eyes from flak, and they would fog up. The only thing I could do was raise them up on my helmet so I could see, as you can't fly in tight formation if you can't see!" he exclaimed.

Home Again

Clark returned home in April 1945 shortly before the war in Europe ended on May 8. He and Marie married in July.

Later, Clark taught mechanical engineering at University of Michigan. He also worked as a consultant for industrial companies.

At the 100th Bomb Group reunion in Dallas last fall, Clark shared stories of his time in the Air Force.

United by their love of flying, theirs was a story that withstood the test of time and outlasted the vinyl record that brought them together.

Then-Army Air Corps 2nd Lt. John A. Clark served as a co-pilot with the 418th Bomb Squadron, 100th Bomb Group at Thorpe Abbotts Airfield in England during World War II. Clark attended the 100th Bomb Group reunion in Dallas and shared stories of his military service, Oct. 28 to 31, 2021.

 

Marie Mountain, later named Marie Clark, was a Women’s Air Force Service Pilot (WASP) who completed Air Force pilot training during World War II and graduated in February 1944. Mountain accumulated about 1,000 flying hours in military aircraft.

Marie and 1st Lt. John Clark radiate happiness after getting married in Iowa, July 10, 1945. The couple met in May 1944 at Las Vegas Army Base during World War II while John was training to be a co-pilot in a B-17 Flying Fortress aircraft. Marie, a Women’s Air Force Service Pilot (WASP), graduated with her wings two months before he did. Her duties included flying fighter aircraft and performed mock fighter attacks on B-17s. John was stationed at the 100th Bomb Group at Thorpe Abbotts, England, and flew 32 missions over Germany. They married one year later and stayed together for 63 years until Marie passed away in 2008.

Army Air Force 2nd Lt. Alvin H. Belimow, left, a bombardier; 2nd Lt. John A. Clark, center, a pilot; and 1st Lt. Charles B. Blanding, a pilot, sort through their bags after flying a mission to Cologne, Germany, in their B-17 Flying Fortress at Thorpe Abbotts, England, Oct. 17, 1944. All were members of the 100th Bomb Group. Clark, 98, attended the 100th Bomb Group reunion in Dallas and shared memories of his time in the military, Oct. 12, 2021.

Retired 1st Lt. John A. Clark, a former 100th Bomb Group co-pilot and World War II veteran, shares stories of his life and the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (also known as WASPs) contributions to World War II at the Cavenaugh Flight Museum during a 100th Bomb Group reunion in Dallas, Oct. 28, 2021. The reunion, held every other year in a different location, brings together the 100th Bomb Group veterans, their families and airmen from the 100th Air Refueling Wing.

Retired 1st Lt. John A. Clark, 98, a 100th Bomb Group veteran and World War II co-pilot, shares stories of his life before he served in the old Army Air Corps during an interview at the 100th Bomb Group reunion in Dallas, Oct. 28, 2021. The reunion, held every other year in a different location, brings together the remaining survivors, their families and airmen from the 100th Air Refueling Wing at Royal Air Force Mildenhall in England.

The Greenland Ice Cap Rescue of B-17 “PN9E”: November 5, 1942 to May 8, 1943

by Capt. Donald M. Taub, USCG, Retired

On November 5, 1942, a U.S. Army Air Force [USAAF] Douglas C-53 Skytrooper with five men aboard returning from Iceland, reported that it had made a forced landing on the Ice Cap on the SE coast of Greenland somewhere south of the radio beacon station located at the village of Angmagsalik, Bluie East-2 (BE-2). USAAF at the main airbase at Narsarssuak, Bluie West-1 (BW-1), called “O-No-To”, located near the southwest tip of Greenland, promptly began detouring aircraft, B-17s, B-25s, C-47s, that were in transit from USA to Scotland, to search for the C-53. The B-17 “PN9E” (42-5088) was one of them.

U.S. Coast Guard Greenland Patrol's (SOPA-USCG: RADM Edward “Iceberg” Smith) ships and its assigned U.S. Navy VP-93 PBY-5As had conducted the earlier aircraft search & rescues since the start of the trans-Atlantic flights via the “Snow Ball Route” that had begun on June 26, 1942, with three B-17 crashes on the first day; but were now busily engaged in other activities. Winter was already beginning to set in, and daylight was getting shorter each day.

The establishment of additional sites on both coasts, including ship and air aids-to-navigation, weather stations as far north as Thule (BW-6), supplying the Sledge Patrol stations on the northeast coast, escorting Greenland convoys and conducting PBY anti-submarine patrols in the Greenland Air Gap continued during 1942. Following USCGC Northland’s rescue of the eight-plane “Lost Squadron” on the east coast on July 23, 1942, USCGC Comanche was sent to establish a USAAF weather-rescue station at that location. It was called “Beach Head Station” at Comanche Bay, located at 65° 04‟ North, about 85 miles southwest of BE-2. A small summertime weather observation shack was also added 17 miles due north on the Ice Cap at about 3,000 ft. elevation, called “Ice Cap Station.” The abandoned eight planes of the “Lost Squadron” were about four miles due east of Ice Cap Station. The main station was a 16 ft. x 24 ft. wooden building and was outfitted with six small motorized sleds and 27 sled dogs. Its crew consisted of two officers (1LT Demorest & 2LT Eddy), seven enlisted men and a Norwegian civilian dogsledder, Johan Johansen. Meanwhile a new small airbase was being established about 90 miles northeast at Ikateq BE-2 called “Optimist”, near the weather and radio beacon station BE-2.

On November 6, the C-53 was in radio communications with Beach Head Station, and was told to fire flares. Its flares were seen twice on schedule that night, bearing due north and visually in line with closed Ice Cap Station, 17 miles due north. The station's CO, LT Max Demorest and SGT Donald Tetley set-out on two motor sleds with two other men (SGTs Hall and Linton) to man the radio at Ice Cap Station. On November 8, the C-53 was told to fire flares again, and the flares were seen bearing 350 degrees. The C-53 said that they could see the water. Due to the configuration of the coastline, this indicated that the C-53 was about five to 10 miles farther north. The Ice Cap there was essentially flat. On November 10, Lt. Demorest and SGT Tetley set-out toward the C-53 on their two motor sleds. Lt. Demorest reported his estimate that the rescue would be completed within three to four days; if the good weather continued.

On November 9, the B-17 PN9E was sent out from BW-1, assigned to the search grid that encompassed the location of where the C-53‟s flares were seen, and the brief east-west coastline there. This coastline included three fjords. Comanche Bay fjord was the easterly one, and larger Koge Bay fjord was the westerly one. The B-17 had a six-man ferrying crew, and had picked-up a passenger , PVT Clarence Wedel, at Goose Bay, and two volunteer observers at BW-1 (TSGT Alfred Best and SSGT Lloyd Puryear). The B-17 approached the approximate center of its search grid from seaward where it encountered a local low cloud ceiling. The B-17 reversed course to go around the weather and headed in again, going northward into Koge Bay fjord to the west, and flew into a visual “white-out”, which became an unseen three-sided trap. The pilot began to turn away to the left, and the left wing tip hit the unseen Ice Cap. The plane skidded for about 200 yards on the surface of the Koge Bay fjord's active glacier. The B-17 broke apart at the after bulkhead of the radio compartment aft of the wings. Volunteer observer, SGT Best was thrown out through the B-17's Plexiglas nose. PFC Paul Spina was thrown out of the radio compartment across the left wing and broke his right arm. The three officers and the radioman were unhurt. Others suffered various cuts and bruises. The broken-off tail section was overhanging a large open crevasse, and another crevasse was in front of the plane. The B-17 was at about 4,000 ft. elevation and 29 miles northwest of Beach Head Station.

Fortunately the weather was good. They took stock of their situation, treated injuries, collected rations and made quarters in the cramped tail section of the plane. They used parachute shrouds to tie the two parts of the plane together, and used their parachutes for warmth. The three officers had been provided with jungle survival kits, each of which included a large bolo knife. These were later useful for cutting snow blocks to construct snow shelters. The radio compartment was badly damaged and doused with gasoline. The radioman made attempts to transmit SOSs using the portable 500 KC emergency radio with its kite antenna.

On November 10, the weather began to change. The snow lasted for three days. The motor sleds enroute to the C-53 were caught on the Ice Cap and had mechanical failures. And a RAF Douglas A-20 Boston with a RCAF [Royal Canadian Air Force] three-man ferrying crew from Gander, Newfoundland, over flew its fuel stop at BW-1 in a snowstorm, and made a forced landing on the Ice Cap on the east coast. Its SOS was received at Gander. Now there were three planes on the Ice Cap on the east coast, and BW-1 was soon closed by the weather. The alternate airbase on the west side of Greenland, Sondre Strom Fjord, BW-8, located just north of the Arctic Circle, was basically shut-down for the winter, and had no planes. COL Bernt Balchen was its CO. SOPA-USCG had removed its three PBY-5As from BW-8 in about September, and now had only four PBYs at BW-1, which were primarily being used for convoy escorting and anti-submarine patrols in the Greenland Air Gap. In-transit search planes continued to be sent out from BW-1 when the weather permitted it. A civilian TWA C-54 arrived at BW-8 and was put to use.

Meanwhile the Canadian A-20 crew set-out on foot toward the coast. They had made snowshoes from materials on the plane and used an inflated life raft for shelter. A strong foehn wind blowing down off of the Ice Cap caused the temperature to rise 54 degrees-F. On November 13, the 2 motor sleds that had been enroute to the C-53 returned to Ice Cap Station due to motor problems, and continued back to the main station for replacement motor sleds. On November 23, they made their way back to Ice Cap Station together with Johan Johansen‟s dogsled. Radio communications with the C-53 had already stopped.

Meanwhile USCGC Northland passed-by Comanche Bay twice on November 12 and November 15 going to and from the new airbase at Ikateq BE-2. It was transporting the season's last 80-some Army men to BE-2, and taking the last 80-some civilian construction workers out. On November 19, it transferred them to the troopship USAT Brooklyn Heights that was waiting far to the south outside of the coastal pack ice. On November 18, a search plane from BW-1 located the A-20, but not its crew. SOPA-USCG sent the Northland to try to rescue them. On the morning of November 23, the ship's Grumman Duck pilot, LT John Pritchard (CGA-38) located their trail; but not the men. Later that night the ship fired star shells and rocket flares. One of the A-20 men responded by setting fire to his coat, and was seen on the Ice Cap. The ship's rescue party went ashore by motorboat and located the A-20's crew: Flight Officers David Goodlet and Al Nash, and SGT Arthur Weaver. They were to remain aboard the Northland for the next 43 days.

On November 16, the B-17 PN9E got its transmitter working and made contact with Beach Head Station, and its receiver working the next day. On November 18, 15 planes were sent-out from BW-1 and the TWA C-54 from BW-8. One of these located the A-20. Then the weather turned bad again at BW-1. On November 24, COL Balchen, the CO of BW-8, using the TWA C-54 located the B-17 PN9E. LT Demorest had returned to Ice Cap Station, and gave-up on the C-53, and on November 25 set-out to the B-17 PN9E with the two motor sleds and Johansen's dogsled.

On November 24, SOPA-USCG radioed the Northland after its rescue of the A-20's crew: “WELL DONE. SUGGEST Northland go” north again to assist USAAF at Comanche Bay. The 216-ft., 1000 SHP Northland, which was built in 1927 for service in Alaskan waters with sails on two masts for emergency propulsion (since removed) was not an icebreaking ship. It was outfitted with a Grumman J2F-4 Duck seaplane in 1941. The ship worked its way through the coastal pack ice and arrived in ice-free Comanche Bay at daybreak on November 28, and promptly launched its plane. COL Balchen had also returned and was making an airdrop to B-17 PN9E when LT Pritchard's Duck arrived, and landed with wheels down away from the glacier's crevasses about one mile from the B-17. LT Pritchard and his radioman, RM1 Benjamin Bottoms walked to the B-17 using a broom stick to probe for hidden crevasses, and administered first aid. The B-17's pilot, 1st LT Armand Monteverde chose two injured men who were able to walk. The navigator, 2nd LT William O'Hara's feet were black with gangrene and PVT Spina's arm was broken and his feet were also frozen, and they would need sleds to get to the Duck. The B-17's uninjured copilot, 2nd LT Harry Spencer accompanied LT Pritchard to the Duck to prepare it for take-off. RM1 Bottoms assisted the two injured men, observer SSGT Lloyd Puryear and PFC Alexander Tucciarone, both of whom had to make rest stops along the way. They cleared away the snow and raised the Duck's wheels, and turned the Duck around to take-off downslope on its incoming tracks. LT Spencer helped by pushing the Duck and it took-off toward the axis of the Koge Bay fjord and seaward back to the Northland in Comanche Bay, two fjords away. The Duck returned to the ship as it got dark, guided by the ship's search lights, and was hoisted aboard. The total flight time was 4 hours and 33 minutes. This was a historical event; the first intentional landing and take-off on Greenland's Ice Cap.

LT Demorest and SGT Tetley's motor sled party arrived near the B-17 later that night, guided by flares from the B-17. Johansen's dogsled had been forced to go back. They parked their motor sleds about one mile away outside of the area of the glacier's crevasses, and carefully skied to the B-17 in the dark, and then returned to their sleds and made camp until morning. COL Balchen had returned to BW-8. Two B-17s had arrived at BW-8 to assist, and he released the TWA C-54; confident that the rescue of B-17 PN9E's remaining seven men was in good hands.

At Northland, the weather forecast predicted a change in the weather. LT Pritchard had the Duck further lightened and hoped to make two trips to the B-17 the next day, November 29. LT Pritchard returned to the B-17 and airdropped two improvised stretcher sleds, and proceeded to land again where he had on November 28. Soon after he left the ship, the weather began to change somewhat rapidly and started to snow there. At about the same time that Pritchard was landing wheels-up on the Duck's pontoon, LT Demorest and SGT Tetley were arriving on their motor sleds. Near the B-17, LT Demorest made a wide turn to turn his motor sled around, and disappeared into a snow covered

crevasse. It was fatal. SGT Tetley stopped in time. Fog was seen coming in from the sea. The B-17's uninjured radioman, CPL Loren Howarth was sent to meet Pritchard to inform him of LT Demorest's fall, and also advise him to take-off. Pritchard waited for Howarth to arrive, and took-off with him. By then the ship advised Pritchard that it had become unsafe to land at the ship. Pritchard's last radio communication came nine minutes after he took-off; requesting “M.O.'s”—the direction back to the ship. It was 115 degrees-true, and over land, rather than the route offshore. The magnetic compass variation there was 40 degrees-West. At the ship, there was hope that Pritchard turned back to land again on the Ice Cap. (Months later, LT Spencer said that Pritchard had taken-off as he had on November 28, downslope toward the axis of the fjord and seaward, and not up over the coastal mountains and the Ice Cap to return to Comanche Bay.).

SOPA-USCG informed the ship several times that search planes would be sent from BW-1 as soon as the weather enabled it. None came. The Northland’s CO, LCDR Francis Pollard, replies said that local flying conditions were excellent at Comanche Bay, it was still free of sea ice and it was warm. He suggested sending a PBY. He also suggested sending USCGC North Star with its Grumman Duck from BW-1. It was soon on its way.

Things were getting desperate at the B-17. Their living quarters in the tail section was progressively sliding into the large open crevasse. They built a snow shelter under the right wing, and cut the ropes that held the tail section to let it fall into the crevasse. They made plans to use SGT Tetley's motor sled to get LT O'Hara to Beach Head Station. On December 2, the ship transferred its hospital corpsman, HMC Gerald Hearn, to the station in anticipation of their arrival. On December 7, four men set-out from the B-17 (LT Spencer on snowshoes, SGT Tetley driving the sled, PVT Wedel on foot) with LT O'Hara on a towed sled. The B-17's radio was no longer operable, and Tetley left his walkie-talkie radio at the B-17. They came to an incline about one mile from the B-17, and stopped so that they could all get on the motor sled. They were on top of an unseen snowbridged crevasse. Spencer was taking off his snowshoes and Wedel suddenly disappeared into the crevasse. It was fatal. They continued onward. About six miles from the B-17, the motor died, and they made camp and were stranded, unable to communicate. Spencer and O'Hara got into a two-man pup-tent and Tetley dug a hole in the snow for himself. With added snowfall, they progressively increased the size of their snow shelter. They were eventually sustained by airdrops and remained there until they were rescued on February 5, 1943.

On December 4, ENS Richard Fuller (CGA-43) volunteered to lead a four-man Coast Guard rescue party ashore [Fuller, AM1 Donald A. Drisko, BM2 Harold W. Green, and COX Stanley P. Preble] from the ship to search for its missing Duck. This was now ENS Fuller's third rescue on the Ice Cap since his one year early graduation from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in June 1942, and newly married while on one week's leave. The expectation was that they would be ashore for no more than two weeks. On December 6, Captain Kenneth Turner's B-17 was sent from BW-8 to BE-2. The runway was still being widened at BE-2. On December 7, Turner's B-17 located the Coast Guard Duck, and reported it to the Northland: “Grumman located. No sign of life. Badly wrecked. 65-11 North, 40-37 West. 2,700 feet. One half mile from the (fjord's) water.” Turner soon added that the plane was on the fjord's seaward slope, about three miles from the ocean, and plane's wings had broken off, but the fuselage was intact.

Turner's B-17 was new to the east coast, and the navigator identified the wrong fjord located between Comanche Bay fjord and Koge Bay fjord. On the morning of December 8, ENS Fuller's party set-out on foot across Comanche Bay fjord to the next fjord, and climbed into the coastal mountains until December 11; four men with two sleeping bags. Daylight had reduced to three hours and 25 minutes. Later on December 8, Turner's B-17 corrected their error on the Duck's location to BW-1 and BW-8 to the east side of the Koge Bay fjord at 65°-09‟ North, 41°-01‟ West. Also, they located the B-17 PN9E and a dogsled party six miles northwest of the B-17; but were not able to find the motor sled on the Ice Cap. Here too they were mistaken by informing BW-1 and BW-8 that they had located a dogsled party on the Ice Cap, apparently from Beach Head Station. That was good news, but it was false news. It was actually the stranded motor sled.

On December 9, Turner repeated their correction of the Duck's location, and this time specifically addressed it by names: “Turner to Balchen”. Meanwhile, the ship was avoiding pack ice and icebergs that were drifting into the Comanche Bay area and threatening to trap the ship there. SOPA-USCG ordered the ship to depart. On December 9, the Northland broke out through a five mile wide belt of pack ice to open water, where it lost radio communications ashore. The North Star also arrived offshore, but was not capable of operating in pack ice. On December 11, SOPA-USCG ordered both ships to return to BW-1. Later that night, ENS Fuller's search party returned to Beach Head Station, and remained unaware of the corrected location of the Coast Guard Duck.

The continuing snowfall caused new problems for sled operations from Beach Head Station. Strong winds blew large amounts of loose snow down from the surface of the higher Ice Cap, which increased in depth at the lower elevations, and made it very difficult and eventually impossible for both the motor sleds and dogsleds. Another attempt by motor sled failed to get far from the station. The next series of attempts were by dogsleds. On December 1, LT Eddy and Johansen set-out with two dogsleds, and had to return because LT Eddy could not control his dog team. On December 2, SGT Howes and Johansen set-out with two dogsleds, and had to return. On December 5, they set-out again and got to Ice Cap Station, and then started toward the B-17 and encountered bad surface conditions and lost four dogs, and returned on December 15. On December 22, they set-out again toward Ice Cap Station with two motor sleds and two dogsleds. Both motor sleds broke down. The dogsleds returned after four days unable to find Ice Cap Station. The search for the C-53, whose flares were seen from the hill, called Atterbury Dome, adjacent to Beach Head Station on November 6 and from Ice Cap Station on November 8, had already been abandoned after the first 30 days. The C-53 and its five men were never found.

On December 14, USAAF contracted the use of a Canadian civilian twin-engined Barkley-Grow ski-plane. On December 22, it flew from BW-1 enroute to BE-2; but ran out of gas and landed on the sea ice in a fjord near BE-2, and sank. Its two-man crew were rescued by Eskimo hunters six days later, and taken to their village, and later to BE-2.

On December 27, a meeting was held at BW-1 on how to proceed. COL Balchen recommended belly-landing a PBY-5A seaplane on the Ice Cap. LT Pritchard had landed and taken-off twice. RADM Edward “Iceberg” Smith, SOPA-USCG, was reluctant. He now had only four PBYs in Greenland, and the Battle of the Atlantic was at a peak, and his current PBY pilots were fairly new to Greenland having recently rotated PBYs with those at Argentia, Newfoundland. USAAF put pressure on SOPA-USCG via Washington. Admiral Smith's condition was that COL Balchen, as the most experienced Arctic flier now present, be assigned to supervise the landing. The reply from Navy-Washington on January 4, 1943, was: “Use of Navy PBY under the direct supervision of COL Balchen is authorized in accordance with best judgment of SOPA Greenland.” Admiral Smith gave his OK to the Army's Greenland Bases Commander, COL Robert Wimsatt, for the use of two PBY-5As with reduced volunteer crews, and COL Wimsatt placed COL Balchen in charge. LT Bernard Dunlop volunteered to do the landing(s) in (PBY 93-P-20) with a four- man crew; himself as pilot, LTJG Nathan Waters as copilot, and two enlisted men, Larsen and Sabo, with COL Balchen along as advisor. ENS Frank Henderson, an ex-enlisted pilot, would be the pilot of the cover plane (93-P-17). On January 9, 1943, the two PBY's flew from BW-1 to BW-8, and were delayed there. On January 25, they flew to BE-2 with an experienced USAAF dogsled rescue party; Captain Harold Strong ex-of Alaska, and SGTs Joseph Healy and Hendrick Dolleman, both experienced in Antarctica, nine dogs, a doctor and a weatherman.

On January 14, ENS Richard Fuller took over the dogsled operation with Johan Johansen, and set-out from the main station to the B-17, and got stranded at Ice Cap Station by a blizzard until January 25. Sergeants Hall and Linton had been stranded there since November 7. Fuller and Johansen evacuated them back to the main station. On January 31, Fuller and Johansen set-out again to Ice Cap Station with 15 dogs; Fuller on snowshoes. They were delayed there again for three days. During this time, they made trail flags to mark their trail westward on the Ice Cap.

Meanwhile, Turner's B-17 had been making precision low level freefall air drops to B-17 PN9E, Spencer's motor sled camp, Ice Cap Station and Beach Head Station when the weather permitted it. This generally required enough daylight to cast the shadow of his B-17 on the white surfaces in order to judge his altitude above the irregular terrain at each location. He had no back-up plane until the 2 PBY's arrived at BE-2. On Feb. 3, he dropped Walkie-Talkie radios to the B-17 PN9E and the motor sled camp. On Feb. 4, visibility was excellent with a stiff breeze, minus 12 degrees F. ENS Fuller and Johansen were about 10 miles west of Ice Cap Station when Turner made another airdrop to them; a radio, a large tent, a stove, fuel, food, dogfood, sleeping bag and a large bundle of trail markers. Fuller expected to reach the motor sled camp, 6 miles NE of the B-17 PN9E, on the next day.

Meanwhile on Jan. 27, one of SOPA-USCG's PBY's (93-P-22) accidently flew onto the Ice Cap in a “white out” near Ivigtut, BW-7, about 50 miles from BW-1, with superficial damage. The irregular surface conditions however prevented its take-off, and the crew was rescued by parties from 2 USCG ships. Another PBY was lost at sea near Argentia, and its crew was also rescued. On Feb. 3 at about 1:00 AM, the Greenland troopship USAT DORCHESTER was sunk enroute to BW-1 with 904 men aboard south of BW-1 in a convoy escorted by SOPA-USCG's ships. (239 men were rescued). Later on Feb. 3, COL Balchen made the first use of the two PBY's at BE-2 to make a survey flight. SOPA-USCG now had only one PBY at BW-1. Four days later, 7 ships were sunk in a convoy enroute to Iceland. SOPA-USCG was in need of his PBYs. On Feb. 5, the Navy sent a group of PV-3 Ventura bombers from Argentia to SOPA-USCG at BW-1.

On Feb. 5, ENS Fuller watched Turner's B-17 and the 2 PBY's arrive from BE-2. LT Dunlop's PBY-5A belly-landed at the motor sled camp 23 miles west of Ice Cap Station with COL Balchen along as advisor. It picked-up the 3 men there; Lt. Spencer, Lt. O'Hara and Sgt Tetley. Both of O'Hara's feet had fallen off earlier. The PBY became frozen to the hard surface. Men got out onto the PBY's wingtip pontoons and rocked the plane to break it loose while the engines were revved-up. The PBY taxied in a circle while the men ran to get into the side blister, and took-off to BE-2 “Optimist”. Three men remained at the B-17.

Fuller and Johansen continued toward the B-17 PN9E. Later that night a strong storm began. They made camp. The wind blew the tent down. One of their 15 dogs ran away. Fuller had been on skis, and took-off his ski-shoes to put on mukluks, and discovered that the forward part of his right foot was frozen. Turner had told him that there was no sign of life at the B-17. They also needed Turner's B-17 to guide them to the B-17 PN9E. The planes were now grounded at BE-2. Fuller decided to give up and go back. Fortunately they had marked their trail from Ice Cap Station. They traveled from flag to flag and got to Ice Cap Station. The storm increased with hurricane force for the next 4 days. The small flat roofed shack became buried by the snow. They managed to get 6 of their dogs inside. The blizzards continued off and on until March 2nd, and 7 more dogs were lost. They had only about 2 gallons of kerosene for cooking and heat from the one-burner stove, and a lantern. The radio gave out. Heat from the stove caused the ice on ceiling to leak onto the floor. The dogs‟ litter added to the foul smell. They used a snow tunnel as their toilet. They spent most of the time in their bunks in the dark. The dogfood had already run out. Four of the 7 remaining dogs were sick. Fuller's right toes were now black. Another hurricane force wind blew away most of the deep surface snow, and the wind died down, and they were again able to travel. The final 17 miles route was down slope from about 3,000 ft. elevation with 3 working dogs, and they arrived at Beach Head Station on the night of March 2. They had traveled slightly more than 80 miles roundtrip during the peak of winter.

Conditions had been similar at the B-17 PN9E and the motor sled camp. They had been sustained by Turner's airdrops through the winter. At the B-17 PN9E, everyone had degrees of frost bite and bouts of constipation. Food often ran out between airdrops. Radio communications were lost. They initially had to use aviation leaded gasoline for cooking and lantern light. Candles were air dropped and ran out. The men were black from the soot. Sgt. Best had bouts of depression, and Pvt. Spina's arm broke again. Lt Monteverde managed to maintain their health and sanity. At the motor sled camp, the increasing snowfall enabled them to increase the size of their snow shelter. Lt O'Hara's feet eventually fell off.

Conditions at Beach Head Station were tight. Their 16 ft. x 24 ft. station house became buried under the snow with access by ladder through its attic loft window. The flat roofed generator and storage shed's roof collapsed. The fuel drums were buried in the snow. The addition of the 5 USCG men added to the crowding and food consumption. Drinking water was a problem for everyone at each location. Turner's B-17 made a total of 34 airdrops, which included a total of 26 cases of dogfood.

Earlier, two twin-engined AT-7/C-45 Beechcrafts were sent with skis. On Jan. 5, the first one was lost somewhere while enroute from BW-1 to BE-2. Now 3 rescue planes had been lost. The second Beechcraft arrived at BE-2 on Jan. 20, where its skis were installed. Upon a trial take-off, the skis turned upward and were chopped-off by its propellers. The plane survived it. On March 3, a PBY (93-P-19) was sent from Argentia to BW-1, and it fatally crashed in the mountains near BW-1. Admiral Smith's aide, LT John Starr (CGA-41) was killed in it returning from leave.

On March 17, Turner's B-17 and the two PBY's were able to return. LT Dunlop's PBY landed again with Balchen along at the motor sled camp, and off-loaded the three-man dogsled rescue party: Strong, Healy and Dolleman with their nine dogs, and the planes returned to BE-2. The rescue party went the final six miles to the B-17 PN9E and returned in three days with the last three survivors; LT Monteverde, TSGT Best and PFC Spina, to await the PBY's return. On April 5, the planes returned, and LT Dunlop and LTJG Waters's PBY-5A (93-P-20) made its third landing there, and the took the six men, nine dogs and sled aboard. This time they did not have a surface wind to assist their take-off. The right engine developed an oil leak and started a fire. Temporary repairs were made. COL Balchen ordered the rescue party off of the plane. On April 6, there was a wind again, and the PBY took-off down slope toward the water, feathered the damaged engine, and flew offshore on one engine to BE-2, and landed safely with the nose wheel still up.

On April 6, COL Balchen and the dogsled party set-out toward Ice Cap Station following whatever of Fuller's trail markers remained. It was now springtime with 15 hours of daylight; but there was bad weather again and they had their own difficulties. They failed to find Ice Cap Station. They arrived at Beach Head Station on April 16. Fuller now finally learned of the „actual location of the missing Coast Guard Duck from COL Balchen. Perhaps due to a misunderstanding; this location was also wrong. On April 18, ENS Henderson's PBY (93-P-17) made a water landing at the station, and flew COL Balchen and the rescue party with their dogs to BE-2. On May 8, Henderson was able to land again at the station, and picked-up the five USCG men to BE-2. The 2 PBY's returned to BW-1 on May 13, 1943 with the five Coast Guard men.

The official USAAF accident report did not mention the five Coast Guard men but did say that an unidentified rescue party had reached within ½ mile of the Coast Guard Duck at the report's [December 9, 1942] location on the eastern side of Koge Bay fjord, when in fact they had searched at the December 7 reported wrong middle fjord 11 miles farther east. The USAAF report on the missing C-53, which was never found, did not tell of the mishaps of the motor sleds and dogsleds. It is possible that the C-53 was seen, partly covered by snow and mistaken for one of the scattered eight “Lost Squadron” planes fairly nearby.

The saga of the B-17 PN9E had spanned from November 5, 1942, to May 8, 1943; three planes down on the Ice Cap, three rescue planes lost, two deaths in crevasses and three in the Coast Guard Duck, and five Coast Guard men there for five months who were not mentioned in USAAF's official report, nor in the USAAF's 1944 selectively written book on it, War Below Zero. Separated groups of ordinary men had been sustained through the winter by airdrops; most of them by Turner's B-17. By the end of November 1942, at least 900 aircraft successfully made the transit from USA to Britain via the northern Snow Ball route. Later in 1943, SOPA-USCG got its own Coast Guard-manned PBY-5A Squadron, VP-6 CG.

B-17 PN9E ferrying crew before the flight to Greenland on November 5, 1942. Standing: 2nd Lt. William F. O'Hara, Navigator; 1st Lt. Armand L. Monteverde, Pilot; 2nd Lt. Harry E. Spencer, Co-pilot. Kneeling: PFC Alexander F. Tucciarone, Engineer; Cpl. Loren E, Howarth, Radioman; Pvt. Paul J. Spina, Engineer.

B-17 PN9E (42-5088) on the Greenland icecap.

Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina on the Greenland ice-cap, March 17, 1943. A dogsled team was delivered via PBY to a camp near the B-17 crash site to retrieve the last three crewmen. Flown by Norwegian-born Bernt Balchen to rescue the crew of crashed Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress "PN9E". The first time a flying boat had been successfully belly-landed on ice. Balchen would later organize covert flights dropping supplies to the Norwegian Resistance.

Another view of Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina on the Greenland ice cap, March 17, 1943.

From left, B-17 crewmen Don Tetley and Harry Spencer and pilot Armand Monteverde were among those eventually rescued after their lengthy ordeal on the Greenland ice cap.

Possibly the last image of Lt. John A. Pritchard (right) before he took off in the single-engine Grumman Duck in North Atlantic, Greenland, in 1942.

The Grumman J2F-4 Duck returns from its first sortie with two B-17 crewmen. The floatplane crashed during its second flight, killing Pritchard, Bottoms and the B-17 radioman, Loren Howarth.

The Grumman J2F-4 Duck, with Pritchard and Bottoms aboard.

Lt. Spencer and rescue man Sgt. Tatley on board the rescue plane.

USS Northland which carried the Grumman J2F-4 rescue plane.

A map of the snowball route taken by some pilots bringing supplies to Europe during the World War II.

The B-17’s Last Combat Mission

by R. J. Jack

It is not commonly known that the B-17 Flying Fortress, though technically obsolescent by the end of World War II, remained in service well into the 1950s, albeit most frequently in a long range search and rescue role. Military aviation enthusiasts will know that the Israeli Air Force flew three Flying Fortresses during the War for Independence (1948) and some accounts suggest that these B 17Gs were pressed into service during the 1956 Arab-Israeli War.

Incredibly, it was from a secret airbase in Taiwan that the last B-17 missions were flown. This in 1959! The top-secret program involved deep penetration flights into Communist China, for both air-drop and reconnaissance purposes, and ended in tragedy. The details of these Cold War combat missions only began emerging in 1992.

In June 1952 the Republic of China government (then termed “Nationalists”), signed an agreement with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency involving joint reconnaissance objectives. Two un-armed B-17s were flown to Taiwan and assigned to the “Special Task Team.” The Red Air Force had by that time largely converted to jet aircraft and the Taiwan Strait was one of the most heavily fortified and patrolled areas in the world. Each mission the Forts flew was tantamount to suicide, but the extreme importance attached to the information being sought served to motivate the crews. These men knew that, should they be killed or captured, their very existence would be denied by the ROC and U.S. governments. The bombers flew unarmed, in order to extend their range, and had removable registration numbers on their dorsal fins.

A streak of good luck never lasts, and the last combat mission for a B-17 ended in death. In May of 1959, a Special Task Team Fortress left Taiwan on a mission to gather electronic intelligence and photographs of ground installations in South China. All of the equipment was designed and installed by CIA technicians in Taiwan, and the fourteen man ROCAF crew were required to simply operate the sealed intelligence gear. The aircraft had little chance of evading radar and relied heavily on darkness and steady nerve. They were deep into Guandong (Canton) province when they were jumped by Red MiGs. The communists salved the wreck and its secret equipment, but simply buried the crew on site without military courtesy or consideration for the families.

In 1992 an air historian in Taiwan named Fred Liu learned a few details of the still secret B 17 shoot-down in China, including the location of the crash site. He was able to contact a number of surviving family members (who had never been informed of the true fate of the crew), and chose to lead a memorial trip to the spot where the bodies were buried. Human remains, including eleven of the fourteen skulls were recovered and cremated. A number of small items from the wreck were also retrieved. The delegation returned to Taiwan in December 1992, and the crew remains were given full ceremonial honors by an ROCAF color guard at Chiang Kai Shek International Airport. The men now occupy a place of honor in an Air Force cemetery.

A book is planned on the Special Task Team and clandestine B-17 missions over Communist China. The research is a joint effort of Wings of China, a Taiwan publishing firm and MARS Ar-chives, of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

It is interesting to note that a prediction of clandestine B-17 missions over Red China appeared in Milt Caniff’s great newspaper strip “Terry and the Pirates.” After the end of World War II the strip’s hero, Terry Lee, began flying commercial aircraft out of Hong Kong, all the while secretly working for U.S. Intelligence. In 1949 he was contracted to pilot a B-17 for a syndicate flying escaped prisoners out of Red China. Thus the comic strip anticipated secret B-17 insertions into China by at least three years!

Flying Fortress Frozen for 53 Years May Fly Again

by Jack Dorsey

Published in November 1995

Portsmouth, Virginia: The crew of the Icelandic motor vessel Skogafoss peered at the still shiny fuselage of the B-17 “Flying Fortress” in the cargo hold, but knew only bits of its history.

“They say it was flying to Europe during the war and bad weather got them lost,” said First Mate Gudni Sigurmundsson. “They turned around, but ran out of fuel and landed on a glacier in Greenland.”

“Usually, we never know what’s in our containers,” Sigurmundsson said. “But this was hard not to see.”

For fifty-three years, the B-17E known as “My Gal Sal,” remained on a Greenland ice cap until it was recovered in August by a three-man team that plans to have it flying again in perhaps eighteen months.

If so, it will be the oldest of about a dozen B-17s that are still capable of flying. There were 12,726 of them built, 6,981 by Boeing, which built “My Gal Sal.”

Even after a half-century of being frozen, its metal is as shiny as when it was built. The blue-and-white star insignia is visible on the right side of its fuselage. The silhouette of a witch’s face between two bombs stands out.

It is, say its salvagers, possibly the best preserved B-17 ever discovered.

The bomber was one of four B-17s assigned to the 92nd Bomb Group making their way to England in 1942. They had taken off from Goose Bay, Labrador, heading for a refueling stop in Greenland.

“But it was closed out with bad weather,” said Gary Larkins, director of recoveries for the Institute of Aeronautical Archaeological Research, based in Sacramento, California. “They tried several times to get up there.”

When Larkins and his crew reached “My Gal Sal” in August, they were both excited and sad.

Hurricane-force winds had flipped it over and broken its back years earlier, possibly in the 1980s. In the 60s, when it was first discovered, the plane had been in near-flying condition, Larkins said.

“What happened was that the ice melted away all around it,” he said. “Soon, it was on a pedestal 30 feet tall, as if mounted on somebody’s desk in the air because the sun couldn’t melt the ice under its wings.”

It was perfectly preserved in the dry, cold air. Its tires still held air. Hoses were pliable. The engines turned. There is no rust or corrosion.

“The wings are beautiful,” Larkins said. “The upper gun turret (valued at $40,000 alone) is in brand new condition. The guns and gun mounts are there, all the kinds of stuff you can’t find now. “It’s like brand new. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

When it crashed, all ten crew members survived. Four are believed to be alive today. While stranded, the crew was dropped survival gear frequently and finally made it out thirteen days later.

Larkins, along with George Carter and Rafid Tuma, both of Baltimore, are veteran divers, pilots, riggers and salvagers who have searched the world to recover such aviation relics.

This is the 57th plane the non-profit institute has recovered since 1975, turning most over to military museums across the country.

“My Gal Sal,” after a half-million dollar restoration, will find its way, it is hoped, to the 8th Air Force Museum in Savannah, Georgia.

“It will be the oldest flying B-17 in the world,” promised Larkins.

“We can have it standing on its landing gear and looking like a B-17 should in two weeks,” he said.

The institute’s finds also include the discovery in 1992 of the missing Japanese midget submarine, found five miles from the entrance to Pearl Harbor. The craft was sunk in 1,300 feet of water by the first shot fired by the United States.

Larkins and crew have been to New Guinea to pluck a P-38 “Lightning” fighter from the jungles; drilled 265 feet below the ice in Greenland to recover another P-38, one of six from the “Lost Squadron” of World War II; and in 1993, led a recovery expedition to the northern tip of Greenland to recover the B-29 “Kee Bird.”

Their chores in Portsmouth this week are mundane compared to past adventures. But readying “My Gal Sal” for the last leg of its journey to the West Coast is still exciting, they say.

Parts of the aircraft are badly smashed, particularly its belly, on which the 20-ton plane slid during its last, wheels-up landing. Its wings and main fuselage appear largely intact.

“My Gal Sal” will not be the last cold weather find for the group. Larkins has permits from the Norwegian government to inspect six more wrecks.

“There are probably sixty planes still up there,” he said.

From Flying Missions Over Germany to a POW Camp

by Howard R. Brown

Published in 1984

I was a 19-year-old engineer and top turret gunner on a B-17, flying with the 833rd Bomb Squadron in 1944. The name of our plane was “The Last Round-up.” Here are the exact words that I wrote in my diary about our 11th mission:

“September 12, 1944. Mission for today—Bomb oil refineries at Madgeburg, Germany. It’s a long ride and at last, we near the target. About this time flak and rockets are shot at us and the sky is full of it. I spin around in my top turret and just in front of us a B-17 gets a direct hit by a rocket and the plane explodes. It is a solid mass of fire and I watched it go down and didn’t see a chute open, so the whole crew must have died!

“We then dropped our bombs with the flak and rockets all around us. I looked ahead and saw enemy fighters hit a formation of B-17’s just ahead of us. I immediately called out over the interphone for the gunners to get ready for action! It was an awful sight to see those German fighters dive in on those B-17’s and see six of them on fire and going down. Some of the men were able to jump out and start down in their parachutes. But some of the enemy planes dove at these men and it looked like they shot some of them.

“By now the fighters saw us just behind and they started for us. We were slinging so much lead at them that they didn’t knock any of us down. I shot at one FW 190 and two Me 109’s. I don’t know if I hit them or not, but they didn’t hit us, thank goodness! A good many German planes were shot down and then our P-51’s came in and finished the job. Our ball turret gunner, Lyle Grant, got credit for a Me 109.

“We then headed for home base, satisfied at having knocked out some oil refineries. This has been the most exciting mission so far, and I don’t want any more as exciting.”

That night in my prayers I thanked the Lord for getting us back safely.

I was assigned to a B-17 crew in Lincoln, Nebraska, and took final training in Dyersbury, Tennessee. My crew and I were given a new B-17 in Kearney, Nebraska, 30 June 1944. We flew to Bangor, Maine; left there and flew to Newfoundland. We spent a week there and enjoyed the vacation. Next, we flew to Ireland and had to leave our new plane there. We were put on boats and zig-zagged all over the Irish Sea, missing mines. Finally, we landed in Liverpool. We were put on trains and rode to Stone and to Duncan Hall (awful). We spent three days here and then rode trains to Sudbury Air Base. We were put in school and flying practice missions each day.

Finally, on 11 August 1944, we were awakened at 3 a.m. and told to get ready to fly our first mission! We were all excited as we ate our chow. We then went to the briefing room and were told that our target would be an airfield in Paris.

We took off and joined a formation of planes and I had never seen so many B-17’s at one time. We finally got over the target and then we saw plenty of flak for the first time and a few rockets. We dropped our bombs and headed for Sudbury. We landed safely and our first mission was over with only 34 more to go!

On 5 October, we flew our 18th mission over Muenster, Germany, bombing a tank factory. The flak was very heavy and we had three engines knocked out and were losing gasoline out of the fourth engine. When the fourth engine began to sputter, the pilot told us to bail out! The whole crew was captured, either that day or within a week. Two got into Holland and I was traveling alone for six days before I was captured. The officers were sent to Stalag Luft I and the enlisted men to Stalag Luft IV, to spend the rest of the war.

My worst experience in the POW camp was lack of food, heat, and no mail from home. Also, we didn’t know from day to day if Hitler would order us all shot. He did put out such an order just before the war was over, but thank the good Lord, the German officers did not carry it out! Along with this worst experience, I would have to mention the winter in which we were evacuated because the Russians were coming. Half of the men in the camp were put on the POW Hunger March and the rest of us were put into boxcars like cattle. We had 50 men in each tiny boxcar and it was miserable. We had to trade cigarettes to the guards for snow for drinking water, since they gave us no water the whole trip. We spent one night in the railroad yards in Berlin and thank goodness the English bombers missed their target that night! The men started to get sick in my boxcar and we had a bucket that we passed around until it was full. Then it was hung up in the top of the car. One night the train stopped suddenly and the full bucket fell down all over us—what a smelly mess!

I promised the Lord if I ever got home, I would give my life to serving Him and my fellow man. I have been teaching school for over 30 years and pastored a little church in Agate, Colorado, for 25 years. I am now very active in my home church, presently serving on the Deacon Board. My wonderful wife and I have three children who are in a serving profession. My son is a doctor doing cancer and genetic research at Yale University, and my two daughters are teachers.

Last summer my wife and I were fortunate to get to go to Sudbury with some members of the 486th [Bomb Group]. What an exciting trip and the people were wonderful that we were with on the tour. We are still grateful to Bob Nolan for planning such an outstanding experience and letting us relive history!

I would like to name my crew members because they were dedicated and brave men: Pilot, Lt. Dean F. Coy (deceased 1973); Co-pilot, Lt. Robert Hall (he stayed home on the mission where we were shot down, because our pilot was checking out pilot Lt. Martin A. Haemmerle); Navigator, Lt. Burton Collan; Bombardier, Lt. Robert J. Coyle; Engineer, S/Sgt. Howard R. Brown; Radio Operator, S/Sgt. Merril R. McDonald; Ball Turret, S/Sgt. Howard L. Grant; Waist Gunner, S/Sgt. Adam T. Klosowski.