B17 42 31831 lost April 6 1944 Zagreb

[David Layne]

I am hopeful someone can tell me how B17 42 31831 was lost and the location of the crash site.

[RSwank]

42-31831 from the 463rd BG, 775th BS went down near Zlatar (Croatia) on 6 April 1944 according to German reports. The pilot of the plane was Michael Wistock. There is no Walter H Layne listed on that crew. The crew bailed out over a period of about four minutes or so. One location given as where several (maybe 5) would have landed is 46 03N, 15 54E. A total of eight chutes were seen but it appears the entire crew of 10 survived. The plane was under attack by ME-109s after it left the formation. It is not clear if it was attacked while in formation or something else caused it to leave. The MACR has no crew statements and if they all survived they may not have gotten the post-war forms.

[David Layne]

Thank you RSwank, I realise there was no Layne on the crew. Completly different research.

[vathra]

Airplane was hit by AA before reaching target, and right wing was set on fire.
Zlatar is also named as place of crash.
All crew survived, 7 were PoW, and Lewis, Majewski and Ballard evaded with help of partisans. They came back after 32-35 days through Petrovac by C-47.