Damaged B-17s

[Piper_EEWL]

Hi guys,

I saw this online. Thought some of you might find it interesting

Damaged B-17s.

I guess the name Flying Fortress was well deserved.

[Redglyph]

Really impressive photographs! This Fortress could really take a beating and still bring its crew back... when one reads the accounts in Flying Fortress by Jablonski, it's hard to believe sometimes. Seeing those is even more shocking, a well-designed bird!

Thanks for sharing

[Piper_EEWL]

Yes definetly what one would call a sturdy design

[alan CXA651]

hi.
I knew of the sturdy build of this aircraft a long time ago , and have seen these pics and more , i looked up the b17 damage pics , when i started playing a game by microprose long since gone bust sadly , called the b17 the mighty 8th .
It was a very difficult game to play , if you was the capt of a b17 you had to teach your crew how to bomb aime/fire guns navigate , manage the damaged systems and do first aide , if you was the group capt you had eight aircraft and their crews to look after , all the time remembering you had a bomb run to do and stave of flak and fighters . a great game well ahead of its time.
And i have had to nurse many a damaged b17 back to base in that game .
If you ever get a chance to pick this game up or already have it you will know what i mean.
regards alan.

[Tomas Linnet]

I played the first on on my A500, bought this later for PC, but my machine was not powerful enough.
Still thinking about this....http://steamcommunity.com/app/328900

[Lewis - A2A]

Amazing and annoying the RAF where so secretive about there stuff, but the Germans had some great images taken and publicized too. The Lancaster and Halifax and esp the Wellington could take a royal pounding and still fly. The wellingtons construction made it a miracle plane often returning with no skin past the waist at all if a fire had broken out, like a scaffold structure mechano aircraft

[alan CXA651]

Hi Lewis.
Yes the wellington was a very sturdy little aircraft that could take enormass amounts of damage and still get the crew home , and it was designed by barns wallis before his famous bounceing bomb and tallboy (earth quake) bomb.
regards alan.

[dgturc83]

My Grandfather was a Radio Operator/Right Waist Gunner on B-17s during the war. He has a few harrowing stories. The craziest was when then were over Germany in the thick of it and all 4 engines suddenly quit. They fell out of formation and began gliding/falling back down to earth. When this happened 7 Me-109s followed their plane down. One P-51 then followed the 109s in pursuit, shot down 4 and the other 3 turned tail. The pilots managed to restart 3 engines at around 10,000 ft. As another testament to the skill of the fighter pilots, this was the only time my grandfather had to go back and man up the other waist gun (by this time in the war there was only 1 dedicated waist gunner).

Since they were so low, they took the long way home around to the north to avoid flak batteries and for some reason the pilot told my grandfather to leave the Tokyo tank valve for the dead engine closed (the valves are at the radio operator's feet). Now as the radio operator he monitored the radio circuit 90% of the time switching to check in on the intercom once an hour. During one of his check ins he heard discussion about having to ditch in the channel or land in Switzerland(where they would of been treated like kings but would have to sit out the rest of the war). About the third or fourth time checking in and hearing this, and the pilot saying they were almost out of fuel my grandfather asked about the fourth Tokyo tank. Apparently the pilot had forgotten about it because he could hear cheering through the plane as now they had enough gas to reach England.

There was so little fuel left in the tanks when they landed, the engines cut out a few seconds after the tail wheel touched down when what little fuel remained ran to the back of the tanks.

[Lewis - A2A]

Great stories, thanks for posting, its great when such things are posted across website because as the saying goes, once its on the net its always on the net and imo its a great way to keep history alive.

thanks,
Lewis