Warbird Information Exchange

Anyone have any questions about the B17 in WW2. Maybe I can answer you. I was a pilot and flew 50 sorties in 1943-44

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

Hi,

I have a question for you. What was the normal clothing you wore on a mission. Did you wear your A-2 jacket or one of the sheepskin jackets like the B-3 or B-6? Maybe you were issued a cloth B-10 jacket instead of the leather A-2, which was being phased out in the later days of the war. I will probably have some more questions for you a little later. Thanks a lot!

Thanks for your service in WW2!!!

_________________
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

Which unit did you fly in??

First of all, thankyou for you service, those were bleak days, especially in 43. I notice by researching your previous postings, you were based in Tunis. Did you have anything to do with running Rommell out of North Africa or did you arrive afterwards? In any event your bomb
group probably supported the allied invasion of Sicily and then the landings in Italy. Did your group get involved in the Romanian oil refinery raids, Phoenesti(?) or was that strickly B-24's? Take a minute and tell us all a story, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again.
Tom

Tiger cat.

I wore the A-2 jacket over coveralls. The sheeplined jacket was to bulky, my space was quite limited. The worst part was the cold -50-60 below F

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

Tom,

Rommel was gone when I started my tour. my group and wing were involved in the invasion of Sicily and Italy. My first mission was the first Rome raid, we were based about 50 miles below Constatine, Algeria

Re; Ploesti oil fields---In Aug 1943 60 B24s (because of longer range then B17s) went from Libya, low level to Ploesti, they had very heavy losses, partially due to a group that screwed up.

Once we moved to Italy, my group went to Ploesti about 10X. This was the most important target in Europe and was very well defended. I was already finished with my tour so I never went there

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

hello, i salute your service to our country. my 1st question involves the belly / ball turret gun position..... did your crewman at that station experience any of the much publicized horrors of being at that location during luft attacks??? did any of your gunners at any position get verified aerial kills on any missions??? best, tom friedman

_________________
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!!

Tom
My ball gunner liked his position, he got credit for 2 kills, total for my crew was 6 kills

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

Have you ever given official testimony to any organization collecting wartime experiences for future generations. Our air museum's library has been interviewing veterans for several years and would particularly like to interview B-17 pilots and air crew members. You could meet our interviewer face to face and be video taped or possibly by other means,
telephone or internet. Let me know if your interested and I'll see if I can arrange the interview. Thankyou,
Tom

Nice to see you here Mr Horowitz, I see you're finding places to appear (Hi from the FP board!).

Tom Crawford's right. However nicely or delicately you like to put it, we're running out of people like you. Quite apart from the fact that we want to hear about your experiences because we're interested, they should be recorded for posterity's sake.

Sir first of all thank you so much for your service to our country, & also thank you for providing answers that only someone that had the experience could provide. I am proud to say that my Dad was also a World War 2 Vet (P-51 pilot), & we appreciate all your generation did for us. We will never see the likes of your kind again.
With Best Regards
Robbie Stuart

_________________
Fly Fast Make Noise!

Thank you all for your kind words.

The day after the Pearl Harbor event, all my friends and I felt that we had to protect our wonderful country, with all of it's faults.

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

do you know or remember what all of your gunner's 6 combat kills were?? best, tom

_________________
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!!

Jhor9,
Again thanks for all you have done for this country! What were you fellows escorted by the most? I know they had the american spitfires operating down in that area, then switched to P-51's in '44. Were you ever escorted by any of the American spits? Thanks again!

COTS