B-17 Flying Fortress B-17 41-24459 / Hellsapoppin

History of
B-17 41-24459 / Hellsapoppin

Assigned 401BS/91BG [LL-B] Bangor 2/9/42; Bassingbourn 1/10/42; Missing in Action Bremen 17/4/43 with John Wilson, Waist gunner: Walt Bohaczyk, Ball turret gunner: Gil Andrews, Waist gunner: Cliff Cadle,Tail gunner: Bob Ade; (5 Killed in Action); Co-pilot: Art Bushnell, Navigator: Bob Barton, Bombardier: Harry Romm, Radio Operator: Howard Barney, Flight engineer/top turret gunner: Norman Thompson (5 Prisoner of War); enemy aircraft & intense flak barrage and dropped back to crashed Hassel, near Bassum, 12 miles S of Bremen, Ger; Missing Air Crew Report 15520. HELLSAPOPPIN.

B-17 41-24459 / Hellsapoppin Details

The aircraft took part in a bombing mission to the Focke Wulf Plant at Bremen, Germany. 17 April 1943, at which time several aircraft were lost. Three or four minutes after the target there was a very hard jolt under the left side of the plane, close in to the fuselage. An anti-aircraft shell had exploded just under “Hellsapoppin”. Flak ripped into the left front side of the aircraft, flaking off chunks of metal from the fuselage and throwing them trough the interior of the plane. At the same time, three feet of the right wing was blown off by a flak burst. A one and one-half foot hole appeared in the nose compartment and all the nose window Plexiglas blew out. There was fire in the left wing and nose compartment. The radioroom became engulfed in fire from broken oxygen lines.