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Source:
www.americanairmuseum.com
Production-block:
B-17F-50-BO: 42-5350 to 42-5484
Manufacturer:
Boeing
- Bomb Group:
- 303rd Bomb Group
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History of
B-17 42-5357
Delivered Denver 20/11/42; West Palm Beach 11/12/42; Assigned 303BG Molesworth 1/1/43; transferred AFSC 19/3/43; Written off 27/8/44.
Last updated: 12. September 2017
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13. May 2019 access_time 16:32
Quote from “P-40 Warhawk Aces of the MTO, by C. Molesworth (Osprey #43).
“[Chase and Gray of 33rd FG] were flying over enemy-held territory between Gabès and El-Guettar on 5 January 1943, when they spotted an apparently undamaged B-17 being towed along a road. Although they did not know it at the time, the four-engined American bomber had force-landed nearby after becoming lost on a ferry flight to North Africa. Captured by the Germans, the aeroplane was being towed toward a Luftwaffe base when the P-40 pilots found it. Chase and Gray did not like the idea of the B-17 falling into enemy hands, so they dove earthward with guns blazing and strafed the bomber until it caught fire and burned to a hulk.”
19. August 2021 access_time 20:55
My father, James Hugh Ross, was the radio operator on this plane. It was shot down on January 3, 1943, and was strafed and burned on Jan 5 by Chase and Gray.
All member of the crew survived the crash, and all of them each spent the next 28 months in various German POW camps.
C. Ross