[Cloudbreaker]

The Engine was hit by a german flak, the pilot looses the control and the Plane crashed.
Download the pdf- File from fabianfred, it is very interesting.

Sry for my bad english :-?

[Jaypack44]

i believe that the b-17 did not make it home. But I could be very wrong.
NICE PICS!

hock: wow,, i wonder how it went for that b17.... thanx for sharing this

They return back and die 2 weeks after that pic over North Germany , they were one of the first confirm kills of me-262 planes and shot down by Uffz. Hansotto Nehls.. its sad yeap :/

According to the information I have, that's not the case. The photo was published in Osprey Publications' "B-17 Units of the 8th Air Force Part 2", with the accompanying caption:

"A stick of 1000 lb bombs dropped from Lt. John Winslett's B-17G-30-VE 42-97791 "Trudy", part of the 332nd BS/94th BG, over Berlin on 19 May 1944 knocked off the left horizontal stabilizer of Lt. Marion Ulysses Reid's B-17G-20-BO 42-31540 "Miss Donna Mae" (from the 331st BS) Below it. Reid's aircraft quickly went into an uncontrollable spin, and at 13,000 ft. the wing broke off and the B-17 spun crazily into the ground. There were no survivors. The wartime press release for this horrific photograph erroneously stated that the aircraft recovered to the UK, beating all other Forts back to base."


I can only imagine how the crew on "Trudy" must have felt...

[Fairwinds]

The B26 with the engine leaving the craft was from the 399th Bomb Group. It was following Capt. H. Rondeau on the port quarter when hit. Photo was taken by the waist gunner who rotated out shortly after. Still looking for the photog & downed pilot's names... Have to pour through pilot logs and private notes....

[rossmum]

Amazing photos, thanks for posting them.

[Ion_Milu']

About the b17, why did the crew not bail out? Did they have parachutes?

[rossmum]

Presumably the "uncontrollable spin" had something to do with it - I'd imagine it's rather hard to move at all inside a tumbling B-17, let alone get up and walk to the bomb bay to bail out.

[r3vange]

Downloaded the file, man oh man, it made me feel bad, It's one thing to press CTRL+ E and completely different bailing out of a spinning B-24...May god watch over those souls