Production-block:
B-17G-70-BO: 43-37674 to 43-37873
Manufacturer:
Boeing
- Bomb Group:
- 379th Bomb Group
- Bomb Squadron:
- 525th Bomb Squadron
- RCL: FR-K
History of
B-17 43-37832
Delivered Cheyenne 26/5/44; Hunter 5/6/44; Grenier 15/6/44; 302 BU Hunter 23/6/44; Assigned 525BS/379BG [FR-K] Kimbolton 8/7/44; detailed Munich 18/7/44 with Nolan Sparks, Co-pilot: Paul Grider, Navigator: Horst Weber, Bombardier: Bob Hall, Flight engineer/top turret gunner: Alton Watson, Radio Operator: Dick Marple, Ball turret gunner: George Porter, Waist gunner: Lambert Roedersheimer,Tail gunner: Bob Allen (9 Returned to Duty); battle damaged over target, KO’d #3 & #4, but limped home to crash landed RAF Hawkinge, Kent, UK., Salvaged.
Last updated: 8. May 2018
01. September 2021 access_time 7:17
The navigator, Horst Weber, more commonly called Jack, was my dad. He always credited their pilot, Nolan Sparks, a former TCU football star, for saving their lives on the mission where they ultimately crash landed in England. After my dad passed in 1997, I was able to locate Sparks, who had lost track of only my dad from his crew because he had gone up as co pilot with another crew and gotten wounded. By the time he got back, my dad had been transferred to the Pacific. The one funny line from what must have been a horrific mission in July of ’44 was, my dad wrote in is memoir, Sparks calling him on the radio and saying “Weber I don’t want to see any more of this flak” to which my dad wrote: “I assured him I didn’t want to see it either.”
Their crew was all youngsters except for Watson, a regular Army man who was 30. They called him “Pops.”