B-17 Flying Fortress B-17 42-97833 / Silver Dollar

B-17 #42-97833 / Silver Dollarzoom_in

Source:
www.fold3.com

Manufacturer:
Lockheed/Vega

  • RCL: FR-L

Project-Number:
92697-R

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History of
B-17 42-97833 / Silver Dollar

Delivered Denver 10/3/44; Kearney 14/4/44; Grenier 13/4/44; Assigned 525BS/379BG [FR-L] Kimbolton 26/5/44; mid air coll with 42-97170 on 9/12/44, with Chas Faught, Carroll Sears, John Cox, Melvin Townsend, Joe Carroll, Harry Hall, Fred Knock, Pat Dalton, Ron Guerttman (9 Returned to Duty); repaired & ret 29/3/45; Returned to the USA Bradley 6/7/45; 4168 Base Unit, South Plains, Texas 8/7/45; Reconstruction Finance Corporation (sold for scrap metal in USA) Kingman 28/11/45. SILVER DOLLAR.

Last updated: 12. September 2021

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B-17 42-97833 / Silver Dollar Details

via Phil Walpole

Mid-air-collision with B-17 #42-97170 Julie Mae on 09 December 1944. Landed safely and repair. Then return to the USA after war.

Photo shows the moment of the collision. The tail of #42-97170 is visible.

Transcription of voice recording with Ronald A. Guerttman

I guess one of the closest calls we had was on December 9 1944. We were flying a mission to Stuttgart and we were about 160 miles southwest of Paris flying at about 24,000 feet. One of the planes in our own group got caught in a prop wash and came up underneath us. ( The aircraft was 42-97170 Julie Mae) We cut the aircraft right in half with our propellers. Our aircraft (42-97833 Silver Dollar) had part of the nose cut off and had some bad damage to her left wing. Our pilot (Lt. Charles V Fought ) lost control right away and he hollered for everybody to bail out.Well, the radio man S/Sgt Harold W Hall and the ball turret gunner Sgt Frederick A knock bailed out. They were picked up by the allied armed forces on the ground. Before any of the rest of us could bail out, the pilot said that he could land the plane and that he had it under control again. But the plane was vibrating something terrible because of the way the propellers were bent up. We still had the bombs on board, so I had to crawl back into Bombay and put the pins back into the bombs. We had to take the pins out on every mission so the bombs would explode. Finally, we landed at the airport in Paris and they put a guard on the plane because the bombs were still on board. There was not much for us to do, so we went into town, but we could not find any place for us to stay the nightWe ran across a civilian engineer and we slept in his apartment room for two or three days and finally got a ride in a C 47, right back to the base so that we could continue with our missions.

Ronald A. Guerttman
Transcription provided by Phil Walpole

Photos of 42-97833 / Silver Dollar after landing

via Phil Walpole
via Phil Walpole
via Phil Walpole
via Phil Walpole
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B-17 42-97833 / Silver Dollar Crew

Position Rank Name Status Note
P 1LT Charles V. Fought RTD
CP 2LT Carrol B. Sears RTD
ENG/TT T/SGT Joseph F. Carrol RTD
RO S/SGT Harold W. Hall RTD
BT SGT Frederick A. Knock RTD
WG S/SGT Patrick J. Dalton RTD
TG S/SGT Ronald A. Guerttman RTD
TOG T/SGT Melvin W. Townsend RTD

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