Crash of B-17 42-37841 of 303 rd BG (H) - 27/8/1944

[Larry]

Dear All,

This is an account by my friend Guy Chambers, who is not in the best of health, which may be of use to members;

During WW2 my mother- in-law’s parents, Mr & Mrs Chilvers, farmed Bowling Green Farm, Badingham, in a very rural part of Suffolk, about 13 miles inland from the coast. In WW2 the area was surrounded by airfields, mostly allocated to the USAAF for use by their Boeing B-17s and Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers. One Sunday afternoon, on 27th August 1944, a B-17 nearly killed my wife’s large family! Luckily, they all escaped! Thankfully Mr & Mrs Chilvers were out with their eldest son Peter & his wife Elsie visiting Elsie’s parents at Old Hall Farm, just a quarter of a mile away from home. Left behind at Bowling Green Farm was Mr & Mrs Chilvers’s eldest daughter Cathy, two other daughters and Johnny, Peter Chilvers’s young son. Also absent were the Chilvers’s two other sons, who were away in the armed forces and Grace Waitt (my future mother-in-law) who was away getting ready to see her husband Sqn Ldr Alan Waitt, who was returning from the Middle East after 5 years away.

Had it been a week day when the B-17 crashed, there would have been several German POWs in the farmyard at this time waiting to be picked up and taken back to their camp. It seems all of the German POWs liked working on our Farm, as they were treated with respect, and far better than any treatment they could have expected as a POW of the Russians, on the Eastern Front. Meanwhile watching from Old Hall Farm, the four Chilvers family members were horrified to see the B-17 circling overhead (and getting lower and lower with each circle) , with the distinct possibility that it was going to crash nearby, but hopefully not on either farm, or on any of them!

Back at Bowling Green Farm, the three Chilvers daughters and young Johnny also became aware of the circling B-17 and walked up the farm track to get a better view. Having kept it under observation as it circled their farm, for what seemed like ages, it was getting lower with each circuit, and on its last circuit it skimmed over their heads by a few feet, under full power from all four Wright R-1820-97 Cyclone engines, and smashed into the farmyard.

On one side of the yard was the Farm House (parts of which were 600 years old), and the starboard wing just missing it. However, on the other side of the farmyard was a barn and a large part of the port wing and outer engine smashed into this killing some of the calves. Entry into the farmyard from the public road was by a large gate and on each, side of the gate are two large trees, The B-17 went exactly between these trees, taking off its wings and catapulting the engines 50 yards into the field on the other side of the road. The airframe broke up with a big bang, although there was very little residual fire as it scraped over the road and into the field. The only damage to the Farm House were two large cracks (possibly from the ground being shaken by the impact).

Speaking to Johnny (in January 2022), I asked him what he remembers of the crash, and he stated that it was still quite vivid in his mind, but the one memory above all was the smell of the aircraft as it passed just over his head. He said he can still smell it now.

Over the years I have talked to all the other members of the Chilvers family who were there. They all say the same story. The pilot visited the farm the next day to see what his plane had done and told the family that everyone on the plane had parachuted to safety without injury. No doubt he was relieved to know he hadn’t killed anyone on the ground either.

Unfortunately, the calves were not the only casualty of this crash, as a young member of the recovery crew, presumably the 2 SAD of the USAF, was in the habit of picking up machine gun rounds found at the crash site and putting them in a vice in the barn and hitting them with a nail and a hammer! Sadly one "backfired" and took fingers off one of his hands! But one of the good things that came out of all this, was that one of the airmen from the local air base, married Cathy and they went on to lead a long and happy life in America, raising a large family.

During the mission over Denmark, the plane had received a direct hit from flak, in the tail, removing much of the rudder and a large part of the fin and the elevators and killing S/Sgt Milt I Ross the rear gunner, instantly. Somehow the Pilot Bert Hallum managed to get the plane to fly level and brought the B-17 home from the reserve target at Esbjerg Airfield, Denmark, in the hope of reaching his base at Molesworth, Huntingdon. Unfortunately, Hallum had no proper control over his B-17, certainly not enough to bring the aircraft safely in to land with his crew onboard. Consequently, near Middlesham (sic) but possibly Rendlesham, Bert Hallum ordered his crew to bale out, and he set the controls with the intension of allowing the crippled B-17 to fly out to the North Sea with the engines at full power and hopefully crash safely away from land, shortly after he bailed out himself.

However, on reaching the coast the B-17, 42-37841 named ‘Banshee’ and coded PU-P started to ‘misbehave’ and began flying in circles instead. By this time Hallum had taken to his parachute and could only watch as his B-17 circled over him and rural Suffolk, no doubt in the hope that if it didn’t hit him first, or the sea, it would come down on farmland without any serious harm to anyone on the ground.

The Boeing B-17G was part of the 360th Bomber Squadron, of the 303rd Bomber Group USAAF, known as the Hell Angels. The B-17 had taken off earlier that day from Molesworth Airfield, near Huntingdon as part of a 303rd Group mission to attack the Focke-Wulf assembly plant at Johannisthal, near Berlin. Unfortunately, the weather and cloud cover weren’t that good, so the 303rd Group attacked their reserve target instead, which was Esbjerg Airfield, in Denmark. It is not clear whether the Group took a direct route back to their air base, or one that took the formation round the bottom of Suffolk and then NW towards Molesworth. However, at the time that ‘Banshee’ was abandoned, near Bowling Green Farm, it was 75 miles away its base at Molesworth in Huntingdon, about 15 mins flying time, so perhaps Banshee’s route home was dictated by the need to get back to the UK as soon as possible, and then the necessity to bail out just before the sea, once it was determined as it was not in a state that would allow a proper wheeled landing!

1st Lt Bert Hallum’s Account
The Germans were shooting at us as usual (over Esbjerg). Flack (sic )was very heavy and thick. They had our altitude the second time around. Our commander did a 360-degree turn and came around back on the same heading, same altitude, back to that same target. We didn't get hit, but my wingman did. It (his B-17) broke right in half.
German artillery set those antiaircraft shells to go off at a certain altitude. Sometimes we would see a Luftwaffe aircraft a way off, flying at the same altitude and we knew he was radioing back our altitude.
They would set those shells to that altitude. The shells would explode where we were flying. Shrapnel went everywhere. Besides, making two runs over the same target gives defenders two chances to get you. I was in the formation going back over the target, and I got hit in the tail. I didn't know what hit me. The guy flying behind me said that everything just exploded.
My tail gunner was blown out and he did not survive. It took most of my aircraft’s tail section off. I had ailerons, no rudder, no brakes, and a little bit of elevator. I lost oxygen, but I was still flying so I fell out of formation. We were just across the English Channel, so I wasn't worried about German fighter aircraft. I could fly the airplane, but I couldn't trim it up.
When I took my hands off the wheel, the aircraft would start to bank. With only ailerons and some elevator, I flew across the Channel. There was an emergency field just a few miles away, but I had already decided that I couldn't land that airplane. I had all the crew bail out and told the co-pilot to go ahead. He wanted to try to land the airplane.
He wasn't flying it, so he didn't realize the shape it was in. I told him, “If you kill yourself, you’re a damn fool, and if you make it, you’re a hero.” Then I told him, “There are a lot of dead heroes.” He bailed out.
They told us in training ‘when in doubt, bail out.’ I radioed those limeys and they said, “Head it out to sea.” Well, there wasn't any way to head that aircraft anywhere. I wanted to land that airplane more than anything in the world, so I kept checking it and checking it. I was up some six thousand feet, and I’d slow it down and try to control it. I had no control; the rudder pedal went right to the floor. There was no way to trim the aircraft. I would get it flying the best I could, then I would start back to the back to bail out. When I let go of the controls, the airplane would start to bank. I made several attempts to get out before I succeeded. I pulled the rip-cord and looked around and you know, that airplane was circling me! Those four engines were running. I had to leave them running to stabilize the airplane so I could get out. I thought those props were going to get into my shroud lines. I was just lucky it went down faster than I did. After it got below me, I quit worrying.
I watched it all the way to the ground. I heard that it hit a barn and killed a guy’s cows. When I got down so low, it was out of sight, but I could see the explosion. I landed in a ploughed field. They had taught us that just before you hit the ground, turn where you would hit facing forward. I grabbed the shroud lines and managed to turn forward. Before I hit the ground, I had started turning back and landed backwards. I finally figured I was all right. I took that parachute over and hid it in an old rotten tree, but when I went back to get it, (a few days later) it was gone. The supply people were hard on those who lost a parachute, because silk was so expensive. I believe they would rather lose an airplane than a parachute. The supply people gave me a hard time about that. I had no idea where my crew was, nor where I was. I walked to a highway and thumbed some old boy down to ask where I was and where the closest airfield was. There was a USAAF airfield four or five miles away. I made it there and they sent an airplane to pick me up. Finally, we all got back to the base. One of my gunners went through a roof (on landing). They thought he was from Mars, or some such (as he looked quite a mess).

[RSwank]

Previous thread on the crash. (No MACR or Crash Report):

http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/archiv...p?t-61475.html