Rip I found my B-17 Book

[Airscrew]

Rip,  I finally got up to my sister's attic and found my book

"Flying Fortress" - The Illustrated Biography of the B-17s and The Men Who Flew Them.
Edward Jablonski  1965 Doubleday  65-19886

As soon as I get my scanner hooked up I'll scan some pictures.

an excerpt from the book page 162

  It was druing this final phase of the air war that a curious and possibly unique incident occurred.  On November 23, 1944, spotters of a British antiaircraft unit near Cortonburg Belgium, were astonished to see a B-17, its landing gear down, approaching their gun positions.  As the gunners put in a call to their Operations Room at nearby Erps-Querps, the Fortress came in fast for a rather rough landing on a plowed field near the gun position.  

  It bounced to within thirty yards of the gun crew and came to a sudden stop when one wingtip dipped and dug into the ground.  The propeller buckled and the engine stopped but the other three remained in operation.

  John V. Crisp arrived upon the scene about twenty minutes after he had been notified of the planes approach.   The three propellers continued revolving, but no had emerged from the B-17.

   Crisp finally discovered the front entrance underneath the fuselage and was able to get inside the plane.  He found no one aboard, "although evidence of fairly recent occupation was everywhere"
   He managed also after some experimentation to turn off the four engines and the proceed to inspect what came to be called "The Phantom Fortress."  

   "I next looked at the navigator's table.  The aircraft log was open and the last words, written some time before, were 'Bad Flak'.

  "We now made a thorough search and our most remarkable find in the fuselage was about a dozen parachutes neatly wrapped and ready for clipping on.  This made the whereabouts of the crew even more mysterious.  The Sperry bombsight remained in the Perspex nose, quite undamaged, with its cover neatly folded beside it.  Back on the navigator's desk was the code book giving the colours and letters of the day for identification purposes.  Various fur-lined flying jackets lay in the fuselage together with a few bars of chocolate, partly consumed in some cases"............................. .......

[Airscrew]

As Paul Harvey says "Now for the rest of the Story"


  George J. Hansen, Advanced HQ, 8th AF in Brussels sent a crew out to investigate the mysterious aircraft.  On checking the plane's serial number , he learned that it had come from the 91st Bombardment Group and that the crew was already save in England.

   What had happened was that the plane, on a mission to Merseburg oil targets, developed trouble just before reaching the target area.  The plane was not able to climb with the rest of the group and , in addition, was plagued with a malfunction of the bomb racks.  Then a direct hit knocked out No 3 engine and another filled the center of the plane with a tremendous flash.  "We had been hit in the bomb bay", pilot Harold DeBolt reported later "and I'll be darned if I know why the bombs didnt explode."

   With one propeller windmilling and the weather closing in, Debolt headed for England and the changed his mind, for the plane was obviously not going to make it back to East Anglia.  He then pointed the B-17 towards Brussels and ordered all loose equipment jettisoned to lighten the load.  It was then that two engines quit.  Setting the B-17 on autopilot, DeBolt ordered the crew to bail out, leaving the plane last.

   All landed safely - and so did their stricken B-17.  What had undoubtedly happened was that after the crew jumped, with justification as far as they could discern,  the trouble in the engines cleared up and the beautifully designed, stable B-17 flew itself.  Its malfunctioning engines, however would not keep it up and it simply came down as described by John Crisp.  To his uneducated eye the plane appeared undamaged and what he thought were the crew's parachutes were probably extra chute packs.  

  Throughout the war there were other reports of B-17s which continued to fly though pilotless, but the Phantom Fortress was the only one that succeeded in landing more or less intact.

(remember this was written before 1965)

[HoHun]

Hi Major Tom,

>Setting the B-17 on autopilot, DeBolt ordered the crew to bail out, leaving the plane last.

I think this was indeed standard procedure (if it was possible at all)!

I seem to remember than in the 1980s, a pilot-less MiG came up from behind the iron curtain, overflew Germany and came down - note the coincidence! - in Belgium, too.

Unfortunately, it didn't actually land but smashed into a house, killing the inhabitants :-(

The pilot had received an erraneous engine fire warning and punched out (as was standard procedure, apparently) right after the take-off. The MiG had continued on autopilot just like the B-17 until the fuel ran out.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[Airscrew]

HoHun,  setting the autopilot makes sense, although I dont think anyone expects the plane to continue to fly for any length of time.

I believe after this book was published (1965) was when the "Lady Be Good" was discovered.   All though I don't remember all the details, it was a B-24 that was returning from a raid and over flew its base in Africa.  After getting low on fuel and down to one or two engines the crew bailed with their life raft believing they were still over the Mediterranean sea.  In fact they had over flown their base and were about 450 miles south deep in Libya.   When the plane was discovered 25 years later by an Oil exploration team, they deducted that the plane flew in a circle gradually losing altitude until it belly landed in the desert, breaking its back splitting open the plane.   Most of the crew was discovered within about 20 or 30 miles north of the plane.    I recently read that they found another crewman about 70 miles from the plane.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by MajTom
Throughout the war there were other reports of B-17s which continued to fly though pilotless, but the Phantom Fortress was the only one that succeeded in landing more or less intact.

If I remember correctly, there was an abortive program to use clapped-out B-17s as flying bombs -- load them up with explosives, take off, get them on a course into Germany, then the pilots would bail out, leaving the aircraft to fly on autopilot into germany, where they would theoretically run out of fuel, crash, and explode.

Unfortunately, the B-17 proved to be so stable in the air that many of the flying bombs actually ditched themselves without exploding, and on several occasions a German patrol would find the plane and accidentally set off the explosives while investigating the aircraft. The program was dropped for lack of any tangible military benefit.

[frank3]

I think the pilot first feathered all engines, told everyone to bail out, then made a run for the bailhatch

[HoHun]

Hi Major Tom,

>HoHun,  setting the autopilot makes sense, although I dont think anyone expects the plane to continue to fly for any length of time.

Doubly true! :-) As long as the plane was expected to continue flight for any length of time, the crew wouldn't bail out yet.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[frank3]

They would if it was on fire  but yes, it doesn't make sence to set it on autopilot, you only bail out when the plane is out of control, I don't think it would get better to 'auto-the pilot'