B-17 Flying Fortress B-17 43-39061 / Round Twip Wabbit

History of
B-17 43-39061 / Round Twip Wabbit

Crash-landed on German fighter field due mechanical problems on mission to Leipzig on 06 April 1945.

Last updated: 27. November 2018

B-17 43-39061 / Round Twip Wabbit Details

The following is a summary by the Pilot:
Final mission; electrical system malfunction; oil pressure gauge on # 3 dropped; feathered the prop; couldn’t see any oil leak so I decided to unfeather the prop but because of the electrical malfunction it wouldn’t unfeather. Stayed in formation to drop our bombs’, after leaving the target we couldn’t keep up with the formation and lost radio contact. Flying over a 10/10 under cast the navigator couldn’t get a fix; finally we broke out over an English fighter field in France; dropped the wheels to indicate we wanted to land and got a green light. My navigator said we now had a heading to an American field. We took this [the wheels wouldn’t retract] but there was no field. In the distance I spotted a large city, Lille, France, and landed on an old German fighter field. At the end of the landing roll the right gear dropped into a sand filled and grass covered bomb crater, bending # 3 & # 4 props. The plane was not repairable and we flew back to England.

Sterling A. Jensen, 1st Lieutenant Pilot