My Grandfather's B-17G

[pjc747]

My grandfather was a pilot during the war, and flew B-17G's out of Foggia, Italy for the Fifteenth Air Force, 2nd Bomb Group, 49th Bombardment Squadron. His B-17 was shot down on April 4, 1944 by a squadron of Bf-109's after bombing an Aircraft Factory in Bucharest, Rumania. Mission 173. His and another B-17 was shot down. It was his third mission, and he was to name the plane Carlson's Raiders upon returning to base. It never did. His copilot and navigator were both killed, and the crew bailed together 2,000ft above the Yugoslavian countryside. The copilot was hit with a 30-millimeter machine gun from the nose cannon of the Bf-109. The navigator was killed instantly; the copilot was dropped out of the plane, and cord pulled, and died shortly after hitting the ground. My Grandfather continued to fly his bird, and shut off the engines, trimming it to a slightly vertical pitch attitude, and bailed out of the bomb bay at 500ft above the ground.

All the enlisted men were captured, and the bombadier evaded, however was later captured. My grandfather was taken in by Yugoslavian farmers, who were connected to the allied 'underground' effort. He was in their attic as Nazi soldiers inspected the place for the parachuter that wasn't recovered. The enlisted officers, luckily didn't check the attic and left. My grandfather then made his way to the allies again, and he said that he walked in the streets of Sarajevo, Yugoslavia and was unnoticed by Nazi soldiers while still wearing his army air core boots. He had liver failure and lost 50 pounds after escaping and never flew again.

I never met m grandfather, and wished I had, as he died shortly before my birth. After extensive rsearch I have been able to depict what my grandfather's B-17 S/N 42-31465 would have looked like. Nathan Phillips was kind enought to make a repaitn of my Grandfather's B-17 and the name Carlson's Raiders, with a single sword is depicted on teh nose as he would have wanted. Here are some screenshots.





I am currently doing research scowering satellite photos, reading the books, finding interrogation records, and searching the area near which my grandfather crashed his B-17 to someday find his plane, and possibly salvage it depending on its condition, if I find it. I hope that someday I may at least be able to touch his B-17 and maybe I'll finally, in a way meet the grandfather I've always wanted to meet.

Hi Grandpa, wherever you are I'd just like to say I love you. Thank you for all you did.

I'd also like to dedicate this to the crew of Boeing B-17G S/N 42-31465, my Grandfather Lt. Clair A. Carlson, and in the memory of 2nd Lt. Michael A. Birbiglia-Navigator and 2nd Lt. Robert M. Jones-Copilot who never made it home, and to "all those who gave their lives so that this nation might live" May they rest in peace.

[pjc747]

The squadron symbol

[JJB17463rdBombGroup]

Wow you should have mentioned this before.The 2nd Bombardment Group was part of the 5th Bomb Wing in which my fathers group (463rd BG) was part of.
Many times the other groups in the wing would bomb the same target although a couple of the groups went on to alternative targets as well.
The 5th Bomb Wing was comprised of 6 B-17 Groups the 2nd,97th,99th,301st,463rd and 483rd.Nathan did a great job painting many 5th BW aircraft.Glad that he repainted your grandfather's A/C.Sorry that you never got to meet him in person.

[Skycat]

Well, here's another connection of sorts. My Air Force Base (Malmstrom AFB, Montana) was built during the war for the sole purpose of training B-17 groups before they went overseas. Great Falls was the main base and it headquartered the command staff plus a squadron of B-17s; three other aerodromes in Montana were satellite bases and each hosted a squadron. The squadrons would practice joining up, formation flying, navigation, bombardment, etc. The 2nd Bomb Group was the first B-17 group to train at the new aerodromes:

In November 1942, the squadrons were sent to satellite bases in Montana for additional training as units, the 20th to Great Falls, the 49th to Lewistown, the 96th to Glasgow, and the 429th to Cut Bank. This was the third and final phase of training. The 2nd Bomb Group and squadrons left their satellite bases on March 13-14, 1943 arriving at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey March 17-18, 1943 for debarkation overseas. The Flight Echelon left the above bases for Morrison Field West Palm Beach, Florida; Natal, Brazil; Marrakech, Morocco and arriving at Navarin, Algeria on April 22, 1943. The Ground Echelon were disbursed at Camp Kilmer in several ships arriving at Casablanca and Port Lyautey in March/April, 1943, thence motor and train convoy to Navarin, Algeria.

In total four B-17 Bomb Groups trained here; the three groups that followed the 2nd BG all went to England. A year of steady operations including a harsh winter reportedly made the runways unusable for further bomber training, and the base here at Great Falls was turned over to the 7th Ferrying Group for its mission of flying Lend-Lease aircraft to Alaska for the Soviets to receive.

I did a small feature story on this about ten years ago for our base newspaper and traveled to Lewistown to take photographs of the WWII-era structures that were still there at the municipal airport. The Norden bombsight vault was there, as was the main hangar (optimistically built for B-29s which never arrived) and several T-shacks like the armorer's hut. If your grandfather was part of the 49th BS before it went overseas, I may have walked around in some of the same buildings that he did.
Edit: I just reread your post and see that your grandfather was shot down on his third mission, so it seems unlikely that he trained here in Montana.

[Skycat]

And I just noticed the dates that the 2nd BG departed from Montana. Kind of an interesting coincidence.

[svaughn01]

My grandfather was a pilot during the war, and flew B-17G's out of Foggia, Italy for the Fifteenth Air Force, 2nd Bomb Group, 49th Bombardment Squadron. His B-17 was shot down on April 4, 1944 by a squadron of Bf-109's after bombing an Aircraft Factory in Bucharest, Rumania. Mission 173. His and another B-17 was shot down. It was his third mission, and he was to name the plane Carlson's Raiders upon returning to base. It never did. His copilot and navigator were both killed, and the crew bailed together 2,000ft above the Yugoslavian countryside. The copilot was hit with a 30-millimeter machine gun from the nose cannon of the Bf-109. The navigator was killed instantly; the copilot was dropped out of the plane, and cord pulled, and died shortly after hitting the ground. My Grandfather continued to fly his bird, and shut off the engines, trimming it to a slightly vertical pitch attitude, and bailed out of the bomb bay at 500ft above the ground.

All the enlisted men were captured, and the bombadier evaded, however was later captured. My grandfather was taken in by Yugoslavian farmers, who were connected to the allied 'underground' effort. He was in their attic as Nazi soldiers inspected the place for the parachuter that wasn't recovered. The enlisted officers, luckily didn't check the attic and left. My grandfather then made his way to the allies again, and he said that he walked in the streets of Sarajevo, Yugoslavia and was unnoticed by Nazi soldiers while still wearing his army air core boots. He had liver failure and lost 50 pounds after escaping and never flew again.

I never met m grandfather, and wished I had, as he died shortly before my birth. After extensive rsearch I have been able to depict what my grandfather's B-17 S/N 42-31465 would have looked like. Nathan Phillips was kind enought to make a repaitn of my Grandfather's B-17 and the name Carlson's Raiders, with a single sword is depicted on teh nose as he would have wanted. Here are some screenshots.





I am currently doing research scowering satellite photos, reading the books, finding interrogation records, and searching the area near which my grandfather crashed his B-17 to someday find his plane, and possibly salvage it depending on its condition, if I find it. I hope that someday I may at least be able to touch his B-17 and maybe I'll finally, in a way meet the grandfather I've always wanted to meet.

Hi Grandpa, wherever you are I'd just like to say I love you. Thank you for all you did.

I'd also like to dedicate this to the crew of Boeing B-17G S/N 42-31465, my Grandfather Lt. Clair A. Carlson, and in the memory of 2nd Lt. Michael A. Birbiglia-Navigator and 2nd Lt. Robert M. Jones-Copilot who never made it home, and to "all those who gave their lives so that this nation might live" May they rest in peace.

Great story. Thank you for your Grandfathers service. I hope you find the plane some day.

[pjc747]

Here's a picture of my grandfater and his crew. Notice they're in front of a B-24. His crew was ecstatic that they were assigned the B-17 after having bad experiences with the B-24's and its flawed design.

My Grandfather is on the bottom row third from the left.


This picture was signed by his crew for him

[Norforce]

Very nice it’s good to see that your family has keep this part of your families history
I have nothing from my families of any of the men who where in WWII My Grandad (my father’s side) was in Europe and Egypt
The only photo I have is my late uncle from the Korean War who was in a Signals Detachment in the Australian Army

P.S. And I hope you find his plane/site one day

[pjc747]

Yeah. The good book on the second bomb group called Defenders of Liberty tales the Second bomb group from 1918-1993. Its out of print now. But it says upon questioning the crew was interrogated and they said the plane crashed, and there are varying accounts of the crash site, however it is pretty guarenteed that it is in the forests outside Sarajevo. The website for the Second Bomb Group has pictures of kids using a crashed B-17 from the 429th Bomb Squad uing the wreckage as a play place. The plane landed very hard with engines on, so I think my Grandfather's may be in better shape. I'm just hoping....

[pjc747]

He was also awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, however the actual medal was lost in the 1989 Earthquake while he was living in Santa Cruz, CA. It was a 6.9 earthquake and lots of thing were destroyed, luckily his other stuff like his hat, jacket, boots, and insignia all survived.

[JJB17463rdBombGroup]

Plus the MACR (Missing Air Crew Report) # 3731 is on footnote too.
By the way you can honor your grandfather at the DFC society if you so choose.
I haven't done it yet with my father though but just want you to be aware of it if not already.
Apparently it costs a little bit of money to do so.
http://www.dfcsociety.org/home_low.htm

I also see that he is already honored at the National WW2 memorial website though.

[pjc747]

I'll do it sometime. I've logged him into the National WWII Memorial as well. Currently looking for the route of his last mission so I can finish it for him.

[Snuffy]

I made an effort for JJ to do some mud moving for Foggia local airfields for the 15th but there seems to be a horrendous lack of information on those places. Did your grandfather perhaps salvage some info on the fields? Anything you can share like lats and lons and elevations, hardstands, plan view drawings, and the like, would be useful in producing a fair representation of a couple of the Foggia fields.

[pjc747]

My Dad has a whole book full of my Grandfather's stories. However, the B-17 wreckage is better off in Austria/East Europe region because their cities haven't expanded as much.

Another story. Its funny, my Grandfather, on one of his missions bombed a village called Markersdorf, Austria. It was a place that the Luftwaffe used for testing aircraft, and weapons. Now how's that funny? My Mother was an exchange student adn her host family lived(s) in Markersdorf. Its a small world...

[JJB17463rdBombGroup]

I made an effort for JJ to do some mud moving for Foggia local airfields for the 15th but there seems to be a horrendous lack of information on those places. Did your grandfather perhaps salvage some info on the fields? Anything you can share like lats and lons and elevations, hardstands, plan view drawings, and the like, would be useful in producing a fair representation of a couple of the Foggia fields.

I remember that kind effort of yours.Apparently someone has recently made an extensive page on Wikipedia with the exact locations of those airfields though without pictures.Most of those airfields are gone however (now potato fields etc) and are somewhat difficult to see outlines.
However a picture of the Amendola Airfield used by the 2nd BG is there on that page and the airfield is used today (Now Amendola Air Base).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foggia_Airfield_Complex

Edit --What's lacking is the exact layout of many of those airfields i.e. placement of buildings, auxiliary structures,tents,stands etc. even the orientation of the airfields is difficult to discern.