Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The B-17, Like You've Never Seen It

I was very fortunate to get a flight in the B17 “Yankee Lady”. Great experience!

The thought of hitting birds while sitting in the nose was concerning. Can’t image what running through flak was like! My hats off to those many fine men!

A friend from college was the son of an enlisted bombardier from B-17’s. While at Navigator School in the mid-80’s, I obtained some 8x10 photos of the Norden Bomb Sight. I sent them to him so he could share some of his experiences with his children. Later, I was able to sit with him and hear some of his flying experiences. He talked of the bombing missions taking 8-10 hours from takeoff to landing because of the time it took to form the huge formations.

He was quiet when telling of watching as planes loaded with bombs and his friends took hits and exploded into small pieces. It was a lot for an 18-22 year old to endure.

No PTSD other than to return home, get married, and raise a productive family.

He died about 10 years ago in his 90’s. One of a generation of great ones who did what needed to be done when called.

I am proud to have known Francis “Pete” Parham.

Man that ain't no bull! My balls are microscopic compared to those guys!!!

Seriously I had an uncle that was a B-24 gunner and flew the hump out of India and China to bomb the bridges in Malaysia leading down to Singapore almost everyday. He said they would destroy the bridges and two days later they'd have them rebuilt. He said it kept the Japanese busy. WWII sounds like it was a ball...

I salute the huge balls of my country men. I hope I could only be that brave in battle!

My MIL was in USSTAF Headquarters 8th AF. She got to England on D-Day on the Queen Elizabeth and was stationed at Brushy Park with General Spatz. After the beach head was established in France they moved part of Headquarters across the channel into St. Germaine. She said when the Battle of the Bulge was fixing to happen, they were giving rifles to cooks, mechanics, anybody who could carry one. She told them she was from Texas and had no problem shooting bullets into Krauts but they shipped her and the other women back to England until the Bulge was over. I was talking to her one night about the 8th and she started crying and said the 8th got all the attention during and after the war but no one ever said a word about the 9th, which had their share of devastating losses. She got out a corporal and said she was doing a sergeants job, but it was rare the Army put Sgt. stripes on a woman. I miss that old gal.

When I was a kid in England, when my dad was stationed over there from 63 to 66....Relics from WW2 was all over the place....Dad was stationed at Alconbury, which was a WW 2 field.. in fact the one that Glenn Miller flew from and was never seen again...even tho it was modernized by 1963 standards....flying RF4Cs out of there from 1964..... the old flight tower from WW2 was still on the field....as were bomb shelters...

I went to school on a peripheral base, RAF Molesworth, where the 303rd Bomb Group was stationed at during the war, flying B 17s... I've walked that Airfield quite a few times.. no one bothered we kids as the flight line wasn't being used.. but could be operational in 72 hours.... the entire base was still with most of the WW 2 buildings still standing.... there were acres and acres of Quenset Huts, boarded up all over the base...I went to the elementary school and Jr High on Molesworth....

The Junior High, was the original HQ Bldg during the war....our cafeteria was one of the squadron chow halls during the war...we had bomb shelters still standing all over the place, along with the fire pools, that were used during the war....the school requested to have one of the buildings made available to use as an auditorium....So they gave us the Briefing bldg... Our Gym class was assigned to go over, and clean it up, and get it ready to use....

It had a stage at one end of it, and the seats were like a movie theater, instead of what I've ever seen in movies....on the stage was a huge purple curtain, covered in dust....we were told to take it down so that it could be sent out and washed....our gym class was like 15 guys and that was it.... after we took it down, you could see pins in the wall, with string attached, going in different directions to the right...the wall was covered in dust....when we got off the stage and walked half way back from the stage, thru the dust, you could make out a detailed map of NW Europe and England....

What we stumbled across was the last mission flew by the 303rd out of Molesworth in April 1945...coordinates and routes to be taken for the last bombing mission.... the unit stood down... the curtain pulled over the wall, and the building locked up.... this was 1965, so that had been 20 yrs of dust we were cleaning off the walls, floor etc...

on one part of the base, still sat parts of several scrapped B 17s, that had been shot up in combat, made it home... pulled to a certain point off the airfield... and stripped of parts in 1945... when the 303rd stood down, they were just left there....in 1965, they were still there....we boys use to love to go down and play in them, reliving thoughts of what it must have been like to go on those missions...I was 11 to 14 when I was there... so I had a mindset like everyone else, no thoughts of people were getting killed daily during those missions..

we also use to go into Quenset Huts, that the doors had rotted off of in the English winters of rain...most of them still had the potbelly stoves... you could find pin ups on the walls, the bed frames were still in some of them....old broken foot lockers ... a trip back in time....

The entire area of East Anglia was still covered in the remains of WW 2 airfields...the main town of Huntingdon nearby Alconbury.. during the war, there were 10 bomber bases within a 10 mile radius of Huntingdon.... We had friends who lived on the other satellite base to Alconbury, that was Chelveston...
The Air Force, still maintained a skeleton crew on base, the base housing etc.... it was just like Molesworth... we could ride our bikes on the runway which was still there... go climb up and into the WW2 Air Tower...
there was a dump there that had many B 17 parts there also.. fuselages, wings or parts of a wing, or tail..
turrents with the Brownings long gone....

it was a 3 dimensional history museum of WW 2, where we could run loose and climb all over it... the war only being over 20 yrs before....

I had a very fortunate experience that few kids in general got to live....

That is why I have been a hard core aviation buff since I was 11 years old..... would have become a military pilot if my eye sight didn't prevent that from happening....

Took my 12 yo son to Wright Pat for the 100th Anniversary of Flight air show in 2003. He was still a skinny little chit. There was a B17 on display that you could enter. Pilots had to crawl over the seat backs to get into the cockpit. My 12 yo son was able. No way that I was going to do so at 6ft tall and 230 lbs. Nose gunner had to belly crawl under the cockpit to get into position. Waist gunners were offset because the gunners had their backs against the opposite side of the fuselage when in position.

Still, very impressive aircraft...

I grew up in the fifties and sixties. Dad sometimes told stories if I showed interest. I certainly wish I had showed more interest as he died in 74. He was a bombardier/ navigator instructor for the B24. Was on leave before going to England when the war in Europe was settled. He was released from service at wartime field in Iowa. And that was it. He failed to report his back injury so he could get out but a training run ending in a crash caused him a bit of pain over the years. He didn't talk much of the Mother's sons who were sent to their death in the European theatre. We all lost much in that conflict. All because someone didn't shoot true enough in WW I. Hitler needed a bullet then. Rusty

I had a Quality Control inspector working for me. Older fellow. 'Was a member of the R&D team that developed the P-36 Seversky, our first low winged monoplane fighter. He had always wanted to go up for a ride on a B-17 when the air shows came to town, but couldn't afford the $500.00 price. We took up a collection to get him on the plane. The aircrew found out about Jack's past history in aviation and kind of took him under their wing for the day. He got to have lunch with the crew and they presented him with a flight cap autographed by the whole team. He was a very happy man.

You and the guys you work with are a good bunch of guys to do that for him . I wish I was a fly on the wall for that, he Must of had a blast.

A very good friend of our family was a navigator on a B-24 in Europe. After the war he never set foot inside a plane again up until the early 2000's.

He was on Cape Cod with my parents when he suffered a stroke and they had to fly him to Boston. That was the only time he ever got into a plane. He survived the stroke, but passed away a few years later when he was in his early nineties. When I was a little kid, I asked him why he wouldn't fly. He would just say that he'd spent enough time in the air and didn't need any more. They went to Florida every year in the spring. They would drive from the Cape to our house and stay a few days. Then they would get on the Auto-Train the rest of the way down. My parents would fly down and meet them, but they never flew.

My father flew 34 missions in B-24's out of Shipdham in '43 and '44. He started out as a ball turret gunner then transitioned to the tail turret. Had to bail out once, luckily just off the coast of northern England. Onshore breeze blew them all to land. They has lost one engine on the bomb run, then a a second on the way out. A third one quit just off the English coast and the pilot gave the bail out order. Of the 120 men he trained with in the states, only 34 came home.

That museum is a "must do" if in the area. Old lady was in New Orleans for a few days for work, then I flew in for a long weekend. Took a day to visit the museum. A day was not enough. If one has any interest in things WWII, is is a hell of a place to spend at least a day. Very interesting, and at times a bit emotional. When we go back to N.O. later this year, I'll be planning on another full day at the museum.

I had one fly over me at about 200 ft off the deck while riding my bike during the EAA Fly-in. It definitely gets one's attention.

My oldest cousin was a B-17 belly gunner. They had to pull him out when flak cut his air hose. The rest of the WWII vets in my family were uncles.

We saw it last night and really liked it. Great movie!

He was a very happy man. The crew really took good care of him. At his age, it was a little tough for him to get around in the incredibly cramped confines, but he poked around the old bird as much as he could, and really had a great time.