Warbird Information Exchange

I have seen that pic before,but it never fails to stop me in my tracks. Interesting read.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

mustang pm sent.

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www.warbirdbunker.com

As a pilot on missions, I didn't see fighters because my job was keeping tight formation. However. I did see flak and and it scared the bejazzus out of me. I also believe that flak knocked down more B17s then fighters

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WW2 B17 pilot 99th B.G. N.Africa- Italy 12-15th A.F , 50 combat sorties, from July 1943 to Feb 1944

Again thank you for your service sir. Please feel free to tell us your flight time stories. Everyone here would enjoy it.

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Yes, thank you for your service Sir.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Thank you for your service, Sir! I believe I speak for this board when I say we would all be interested in hearing about some of your experiences. Perhaps you could start a new thread? Do you have any pictures from your experiences that you could post? If you don't know how, there are many people on this board willing to help!

Thank you for my freedom. So many will never know how profound an impact their contributions had. You're one of the fortunate who has.

Nice to see you posting again Jules!!!

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Don't touch my junk!!

I sure wish there were some way we could get you to tell us your story some time, Sir. I don't mean the overall picture. Just things you remember about flying the B17 that you remember and haven't seen talked about. Those little first hand details can mean the difference between a black and white photo, and a color one...What did it SMELL like on the flight deck. How did you eat, and drink, and take a leak? What was it like flying throug hthe flack? You see in movies where the plane shakes from it...did it really? And were you close enough to the other ships in formation to see the men in the other aircraft? You can never tell in pictures, really. Heck, anything you can think of would be like pennies from heaven for us here

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

Muddy boots---answering the questions that you asked---
1 Wearing the oxygen mask there were no smells, other then the mask itself
2. We had a K ration which we ate on the way home after it thawed out from being frozen.
3. If you had to urinate ,pilots used the bomb bay before going on O2, at 25M feet if you could get through your clothes , you still couldn't find it
it didn't point out it was all shrivelled. Once you got into a hot area you didn't think of peeing
4. flying through flak was very very scary, I just concentrated on keeping the plane in very tight. On one mission the plane directly in front of me exploded, went through the debris 1/2 second later, the copilot and my face were both green.
5. I was able to see people in the adjacent plane quite clearly.

All others, ask specific questions. I've related many incidents on ARMYAIRFORCES.COM over a long period of time, check some of my posts.

One incident taht I recall-----About half way through my tour I checked out my copilot. He flew in the left seat, I was copilot. Our formations were nowhere near the size of the 8th AF. On this mission my group had about 35 planes, My plane was on the exreme right side. I saw an FW190 coming in at me from 4 o'clock, I could see 20mm shells breaking closer and closer, I remembered that we had a flare gun in the ceiling of the plane . I reached up and tried to pull it down to shoot it at him, but in the heat of the moment I forgot that it was screwed in a 1/2 turn . The 190 didn't hit me but as he broke off contact he passed under my wing, no more then 25 feet away, he saw my arme upraised ,he thought I was waving at him , he waved at me as he passed under my wing. Thats when I realized why the AF issued us brown underwear.
At debreifing I mentioned the incident, the B.O. sent the story to my hometown paper, awhile later my folks sent me the newspaper clipping. To wit: Nazi pilot and Jewish pilot, gladiators at war salute each other in the heat of combat.

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WW2 B17 pilot 99th B.G. N.Africa- Italy 12-15th A.F , 50 combat sorties, from July 1943 to Feb 1944

Muddy boots---answering the questions that you asked---
1 Wearing the oxygen mask there were no smells, other then the mask itself
2. We had a K ration which we ate on the way home after it thawed out from being frozen.
3. If you had to urinate ,pilots used the bomb bay before going on O2, at 25M feet if you could get through your clothes , you still couldn't find it
it didn't point out it was all shrivelled. Once you got into a hot area you didn't think of peeing
4. flying through flak was very very scary, I just concentrated on keeping the plane in very tight. On one mission the plane directly in front of me exploded, went through the debris 1/2 second later, the copilot and my face were both green.
5. I was able to see people in the adjacent plane quite clearly.

All others, ask specific questions. I've related many incidents on ARMYAIRFORCES.COM over a long period of time, check some of my posts.

One incident taht I recall-----About half way through my tour I checked out my copilot. He flew in the left seat, I was copilot. Our formations were nowhere near the size of the 8th AF. On this mission my group had about 35 planes, My plane was on the exreme right side. I saw an FW190 coming in at me from 4 o'clock, I could see 20mm shells breaking closer and closer, I remembered that we had a flare gun in the ceiling of the plane . I reached up and tried to pull it down to shoot it at him, but in the heat of the moment I forgot that it was screwed in a 1/2 turn . The 190 didn't hit me but as he broke off contact he passed under my wing, no more then 25 feet away, he saw my arme upraised ,he thought I was waving at him , he waved at me as he passed under my wing. Thats when I realized why the AF issued us brown underwear.
At debreifing I mentioned the incident, the B.O. sent the story to my hometown paper, awhile later my folks sent me the newspaper clipping. To wit: Nazi pilot and Jewish pilot, gladiators at war salute each other in the heat of combat.

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WW2 B17 pilot 99th B.G. N.Africa- Italy 12-15th A.F , 50 combat sorties, from July 1943 to Feb 1944

great questions & excellent narrative!!!

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Wow, thanks for the info! We have so few W.W. II veterans post on this forum (I only know of 2), that to hear first hand info is really special!

Where at on the ARMYAIRFORCES.COM website are your posts? I'm assuming it's in the forums there. What is your username, so I can pull up some of your previous posts?

One quick question - you stated you are Jewish. Were you concerned if you ever got shot down, of what the ramifications would be? Did the Air Corps give any guidance to Jewish crewmembers about how to react in a POW setting? Given Hitler's hatred of Jews, I would have thought it would be an instant death sentence, should you be captured. What would you have done? Would you have lied about your Jewish ancestry or acknowledged it? Did it scare you about what could have happened if your captors found out? What was your "game plan" for such a scenario?

Thanks for the info, it's fascinating! Thanks again for your sacrifices!

[quote="warbird1"][quote="jhor9"]
All others, ask specific questions. I've related many incidents on ARMYAIRFORCES.COM over a long period of time, check some of my posts.
[/quote]

Wow, thanks for the info! We have so few W.W. II veterans post on this forum (I only know of 2), that to hear first hand info is really special!

Where at on the ARMYAIRFORCES.COM website are your posts? I'm assuming it's in the forums there. What is your username, so I can pull up some of your previous posts?

One quick question - you stated you are Jewish. Were you concerned if you ever got shot down, of what the ramifications would be? Did the Air Corps give any guidance to Jewish crewmembers about how to react in a POW setting? Given Hitler's hatred of Jews, I would have thought it would be an instant death sentence, should you be captured. What would you have done? Would you have lied about your Jewish ancestry or acknowledged it? Did it scare you about what could have happened if your captors found out? What was your "game plan" for such a scenario?

Thanks for the info, it's fascinating! Thanks again for your sacrifices![/quote]

Re AAF.com Since the changes in the site I can't tell you where to lookPerhaps contacting the moderator, you might be helped.

Being Jewish just made me worry more . The army didn't give me any guidance. My only hope was that if I was shot down I would try if possible surrender to the military and not to the SS, as if I had a choice. No point in lying because if you dropped your pants it was obvious.

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WW2 B17 pilot 99th B.G. N.Africa- Italy 12-15th A.F , 50 combat sorties, from July 1943 to Feb 1944

jhor9, as a member of the tribe, being mishpukka ...i've got to ask you.... how did you know that you were on the wanted list being jewish. (not by name but by religion) most jewish americans were oblivious of the holocaust, including my dad who died 3 weeks ago at 92. he was a captain of an infantry rifle company in th pacific. the fact that extermination was taking place was muffled in the media by the u.s. govt, & to some respects was a gray area as to miltary intelligence.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!