Vignettes of a B-17 Combat Crew

Here is a time and place no B-17 crewman will ever forget. It's the business end of the runway that we all dreaded. The flying part of the mission started here and none of us knew whether we'd be back to ever see it again. Who didn't have that tightness in his stomach when the pilot pushed the throttles to the fire wall and we were of on another adventure into the skies over Hitler's Germany or occupied continent. We all remember our last mission when we hadn't slept the night before and we knew if we got back from this one we would never again have to endure this moment. 

• Preface

• Table of Contents

This book was written for the families of the nine original members of our crew to memorialize for them a unique period in air warfare from the personal point of view of their loved ones living through it. A few additional copies were photocopied for friends.

To all who may read the limited issues of this photocopied book, please recognize that the pictures in it are like pictures in a family's photo album. They are not professional photographs. Twenty-nine of the pictures in the following pages were taken during our tour of duty in 1944-45 by a little Univex Mercury camera with film with a very low ASA speed. For this reason, the original pictures taken inside the B-17 are very fuzzy and grainy. Three pictures are 91^st Bomb Group pictures. Two pictures were taken at our forty-fifth year crew reunion in Colorado Springs.

A World War II heavy bomber crew had as close a relationship as any family. The bonds formed in combat are as strong as family ties. We are all still in touch with each other's families fifty years after the events in this book happened with one exception. even though three of our crew at this writing have passed away.

If you'll find a comfortable chair, lean back and read on, I'll do my best in words and pictures to make you feel your part of our crew as we trained for and fought the end of the great strategic air battle in the skies over Germany in 1944-45.
 

166 pages, including 53 photographs or official documents.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• It can never happen again. (click here to read this chapter)
• Sioux City, Iowa. Our crew is born.
• Night flying.
• On the town.
• Air to air gunnery practice.
• Buzzing Vinton, Iowa.
• Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.
• Graduation day.
• Getting "over there"
• Vignettes of Combat.
• Checking out the crew.
• The mission on Christmas Eve (Click here to read this chapter)
• Bombing the Ludendorf railway bridge at Remagan.
• A young pilot turns twenty one.
• Baby, it's cold up there.
• We're climbing past 10,000 feet. Put on your oxygen masks.
• A funny thing happened on the way to the mission.
• The pilot's relief tube
• The day we were the only heavy bomber in the Eighth Air Force to bomb Berlin.
• Queenie, and the Group stand down party
• The navigator's muff and the best chicken I ever ate
• The craziest mission we ever flew
• Bomb the Hohenzollern road and railway bridge but miss the Cologne Cathedral
• "Then I'm sticking my foot out and dragging it"
• This ship won't trim up
• There's a bomb hung-up in the bomb bay and the little propellor on the front of it is spinning round and round.
• A three day pass in London
• April in Paris
• Playing dodge ball with B-17 bombers.
• Army A/C 936, identify yourself. Where did you come from?
• The great raid against Big "B", February 3, 1945. The complete story of one mission.
• The day the 91^st bomb group was attacked by the ME 262's, Germany's new jet aircraft. (Hitler's secret weapon that could have made a difference in the war)
• The Revival flights. Rescuing the POWs from Stalag Luft I

• Eulogy at Johnny Dotter's funeral service
• Eulogy to Fred 'Peaches' Hindman
• Eulogy to Jack Marlowe

While there are no plans to publish this book, I will print copies as requested for those interested in what it was like to be first string on the greatest professional team ever assembled, the crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress. The cost is $20.00 per copy plus $3.00 postage, anywhere in the U.S.

Last Updated on December 23, 2003 by Theodore Michael Banta II