Production-block:
B-17G-70-BO: 43-37674 to 43-37873
Manufacturer:
Boeing
- Bomb Group:
- 100th Bomb Group
- Bomb Squadron:
- 350th Bomb Squadron
- 418th Bomb Squadron
- RCL: LN-U, LD-V
Fate:
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History of
B-17 43-37808 / Milk Run Mabel
Delivered Cheyenne 24/5/44; Hunter 3/6/44; Grenier 14/6/44; Assigned 350BS/100BG [LN-U] Thorpe Abbotts 16/6/44; 418BS [[LD-V] ; battle damaged Cologne 10/1/45 with Alt Calder, rest unknown; force landed Gestel, Belgium. MILK RUN MABEL.
Last updated: 6. January 2018
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20. July 2020 access_time 22:15
Milk Run Mabel was shot down on her first flight with a new crew after a mission to Berlin. She crashed in freed Belgium after her left wing was on fire and off at engine one. My uncle, John Wiley Stack was the co-pilot on that flight. After the belly caught fire from flak over Berlin, the pilot ordered everyone to bail out. John talked the pilot into nursing the plane away from the area as he stated they’d all be killed if they bailed out in a place they had just bombed. The pilot came back from the bombay door to help John keep the plane going. Later when the wing came off, they all had to bail out and found they were in freed Belgium. Later when the crew got a new plane, John talked with a man in a bar about his feeling that his pilot was a coward and he did not trust him. The man told him to go to his CO and tell him this. The CO took John off the crew as he did not want him to fly with someone he did not trust. The crew left the next morning and were all killed in a head-on crash into a ME-109. John did not remember any of the details of his first mission until years later when he was in a used book store and found a book on the Flying Fortress which opened to a picture of Milk Run Mabel. He immediately remembered all the details. He wrote a poem about it and contacted the man from the bar who had saved his life. They corresponded, met once, and stayed in contact until my uncle died.
26. July 2020 access_time 10:55
Hello Patricia,
thank you for sharing your uncles personal story!
24. February 2021 access_time 23:25
Dear Miss Patricia C. Wiley and b17flyingfortress.de
on the following website you will see where the B-17 ” Milk Run Mabel” crashed after the persons on board bailed out the plane. This is the url : https://kaart.onderderadar.be/?relic=44cb3570-4921-40df-8967-560a6afad1c1
B17flyingfortress.de if you zoom out on this map , you will find the commune of “Gestel” above the ” Albertkanaal” . The plane actually crashed in the village “Ham’ in the province ” Limburg”
on a picture that belong with this crash site you can find all the names of the crew.
Kind regards ,
30. December 2021 access_time 4:09
My father, Stanley Russell, was the navigator on Milk Run Mabel — his name “Stan” on the plane’s fuselage. His crew flew 33 missions before it was sent home. Years later, his pilot, Ted Harris, told me that “as deputy lead crew we had seen so much heavy action that command felt sorry for us and sent us home early — before the required 35 missions.” My father told me that the crew that took over the aircraft was shot down on its first mission and most of the crew died. The book Flying Fortress, begins the chapter on the 100BG with a photo and anecdote about my father.
03. September 2022 access_time 19:21
Hi Lincoln. I remember reading in Ed Jablonski’s book Flying Fortress about your father and the “Bloody 100th” bomb group. I never did understand why the girl dancing with him abruptly stopped and said she didn’t want to have anything to do with him, not after what his men did. Did your father ever figure out what she meant. In the book he was perplexed. Respect and honor to your father and we thank him for his service.