B-17G 'Tail End Charlie'

[Cees Steijger]

21 February 1944 again... B-17G 457BG/750BS 42-31596 'Tail End Charlie' was lossed due to flak. Target was Gütersloh but that was obscured by clouds. Another target of opportunity was bombed. Which? According to MACR 3004 the plane was last seen between ca. 52 25N - 7 40E, which is ca. village Halverde, and ca 52 33N - 7 20E wch is ca. Lingen, this is an area which is just north of Hopsten and west of the Fliegerhorst-triangle Achmer-Vörden-Hesepe.
According to the 8th AFHS the B-17 went down Bottorf which is 5 km west Quackebruck and ca 33 km north-east of Halverde.
http://www.8thafhs.com/get_mia_aircr...ate=1944-02-21

According to the website of 457BG the B-17 was hit by flak on the bomb run (of the target of opportunity). http://www.457thbombgroup.org/Narratives/MA1.html

I looks like 42-31596 was on an bomb run to Hopsten, but that doesn't really matches with Bottorf. Who can shed light in this?

--Cees Steijger

[RSwank]

Cees,
This may be difficult to figure out. The MACR actually does not contain much information. It does not have any eyewitness statements of the loss, only the notation that the plane’s last known location was between the two points you have listed. There are no German KU or AV documents which often give actual crash locations, places of capture or of burial. The AAF sent questionnaires to the surviving crewmen after the war and six of them returned the forms. A point of confusion is that the AAF was asking both about Schenkel, the tail gunner AND Barnes, the co-pilot. Schenkel was badly wounded in the plane and he was parachuted out by the crew using a static line. Schenkel was found dead on the ground and the crew was generally aware at the time of their capture that Schenkel was dead.
Barnes, however had bailed out with the rest of the crew and was captured with them. The men returning the questionnaires wondered why they were being asked about Barnes as Barnes had survived the war and was then back in the US. Some of them even had Barnes’ current address.
The men returning the forms mention several “place names”, but most names are clearly garbled and hard to identify. Even places that can be identified seem to be quit far apart. One mentions that they left the formation near Dümmer Lake and another says they were all captured within 20 miles of Damme. The pilot said they left the formation near Oldenburg. One way to try and reconcile the “left formation” places would be to argue that it may mean different things to different people. The pilot may say he “left formation” as soon as he went out of his assigned position in the formation. He may have continued to fly roughly parallel or following behind the formation, so his men could still clearly see other planes in the formation. The men might consider that leaving the formation occurs when they can’t see any other planes from their group or when they have clearly turned onto a different course.
Some of the “garbled” place names they give:
“Brackenburg” may be Quakenbrück.
“Huntsburg near Holland” may be Huntebruch (which is not near Holland, but is near Dümmer Lake). It appears the “first” man to bail out was Schenkel (who was pushed out). The last two men to bail out were probably the co-pilot, Barnes and then the pilot, Bredeson. “IF” Schenkel was found near Huntebruch and the pilot and co-pilot were captured near Quakenbrück, then that might give a rough idea of the final flight path, leading to the crash site at Bottorf.