Produktionsblock:
B-17F-75-BO: 42-29832 bis 42-29931
Hersteller:
Boeing
- Bomber-Gruppe:
- 351st Bomb Group
- Bomber-Staffel:
- 510th Bomb Squadron
- RCL: TU-K
Geschichte der
B-17 42-29887 / Mehitabel
Delivered Denver 3/3/43; Gore 12/3/43; Presque Is 8/4/43; Assigned 510BS/351BG [TU-K] Polebrook 17/4/43; Missing in Action {7m} Tricqueville 28/6/43 with Derward Copeland, Co-pilot: Don Parker, Navigator: Ralph Reback, Bombardier: Bill Shanley, Flight engineer/top turret gunner: Bob Wood, Radio Operator: Vince Klanka, Waist gunner: John Castello (7 Prisoner of War); Waist gunner: Frank Hanan, Ball turret gunner: Merwyn Ranum,Tail gunner: Ed Tuminiski (3 Killed in Action); flak damage, crashed island of Belle-Ile, 45 miles W of St Nazaire, Fr. No MACR. MEHITABEL.
Zuletzt aktualisiert: 10. Oktober 2017
10. August 2022 access_time 6:27
My father was Robert Foster Finch & he was the pilot of the B-17 Mehitabel. He was the one that named it. Was for a character of a cat in the book “Archy & Mehitabel” by Don Marquis. I donated almost all of my father’s WWII belongings to the Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, GA.
29. Januar 2023 access_time 22:10
I am Irish. I am a keen sailor and cruise the waters of South Brittany in my yacht most summers. In June of 2018 I happened to be on Belle Ile and decided to hire a bike and do some exploring on the island. Towards evening I came to a little road that lead through a stone arch which led through the Napleonic-era fortifications on to a secluded beach just below the village of Samzun on the south-east of the island. There at the entrance to the beach was a plaque commemorating the fallen crew of a B17 – shot down on the way back to England from a raid on the shipyards of St Nazaire on the mainland to the east. I remember that someone had laid flowers beneath the plaque.
I don’t know if the remains of the three fallen flyers were repatriated after the war. I could find no trace of any grave in the graveyard of the little Church in Samzun just above the beach.
Peace has of course long returned to this well-named Beautiful Island, and the only reminder of the long ago war is a stark concrete German pillbox, crumbling and overgrown, overlooking the beach. I often wonder what the many Germans who holiday on Belle Ile must think when they see these relics of unhappier days.