Did This B-17 Tail Gunner Survive the Impossible?
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- Опубліковано 11 жов 2024
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The is the story of three tail gunners from World War II that cheated death and survived a fall from 20,000 feet in the B=17 Flying Fortress and the B-24 Liberator. This was made using the World War II flight simulator War Thunder. Hope you enjoy! Please like, comment, and subscribe. #WW2 #WWIIHistory #WarThunder
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Will check out ground
Loo
Love your vids
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My father was a tail gunner in an 8th Air corp B 17 fighting over Germany... The tail gunner position was actually sought after by gunners because it was the only gun position with an armor plate between you and the guns. His plane was downed over Germany and my father became a POW. In the camp he met Eugene Moran. My father told me that Eugene suffered from "Battle Fatigue" due to his experience.
Thanks to your father and His service my country(Hungary) did not become a nazi-like country because eventually Hitler was defeated. Also, these stories the most important because it is a reminder of humankinds best and worst times. Glad he survived and you were conceived because this way you can spread his stories. All hail to whoever fought, died and returned home victorious, every veteran has my topmost respect!
@@sunlightcrusader But, you fail to realise that the Germans were in fact the good guys... who would not be happier speaking German that living under this degenerate world of jewish tyranny we now find ourselves in???
It had armor plate because it was also the position that took the most fire
I had the privilege of flying on a B-17 a few years ago. While on the ground, I did a complete walk through; let me tell you, walking from the aft to the front, you only had very narrow metal corridor to pass over the bomb bay. I can't state enough how awkward movement was, and that was grounded. It must have been extremely cumbersome for an aircrew that had to bail out of a crippled plane.
Thank your dad for his service sir Ret. USN⚓️Chief Petty Officer 🇺🇸 Deleon Steven L.
One of the most interesting stories I was ever told about the gunners on the B-17 was related to me by my grandfather. He was a captain of an armor unit (having been granted a field commission, first to lieutenant, then to captain) commanding a strike group of Sherman tanks. It was early April 1945, near to the end of the war. He and his column were somewhere in Eastern France, getting ready to cross the river and enter Germany. They were near a recaptured airfield where B-17s could land if they had received damage during their sorties into Germany. One such damaged B-17 was inbound, having had it's landing gear shot all to hell and gone, and it's hydraulics were heavily damaged. They had to land, but their ball turret gunner was trapped inside the ball turret.
Now this happened from time to time, and if the plane had to belly land, it would of course crush the ball turret, along with the poor bastard trapped inside. Anyway, it looked like this was what was about to happen, when suddenly, as the plane came in low and slow to land, my grandfather and his tank crew watched as the ball turret gunner kicked out the glass at his feet, wriggled out of the hole in the center of the turret, and drop nearly 60 feet to the marshy, mucky, swampy ground at the end of the runway. My grandfather and his crew ran in the direction of what they assumed would be a dead ball turret gunner, only to find him lying, flailing in the middle of a huge, nasty, dead cow carcass. The cow had gotten stuck in the swamp and had died there, it's body bloated with decomposition gasses, and this had cushioned the impact enough so the gunner had only a sprained ankle as a result of his fall. Of course, this had also caused the carcass to explode into a rank, filthy, rancid mess. They found this dude trying to get up out of that mess, screaming in what sounded like a thick Brooklyn accent: "DON'T JUST STAND THERE, GET ME THE (BLANK-ETY-BLANK-BLANK) OUT OF THIS (BLANKING) STINKING THING!!!!"
My grandfather shared that story with me when I was 11, 40 years ago, and he laughed like hell when he told me. Damn, it makes me laugh to this day.
Thanks for your storie gou deserve respect for all of that
Nice story. But I've done some research and there are zero cases of a ball turret gunner being smashed by a belly landing plane. They had hand controls they could turn if their hydraulics failed so that they could exit. Also, the crew inside could jetison the ball if they wanted.
The tail gunners had visitors on occasion since the head was located in the rear of the bombers.
Let's not forget the airmen that fell to earth without a parachute and survived the landing. A GI in France observed the crew of a stricken bomber bailing out as it flew overhead. He watched in horror as one fell with a parachute that failed to open to hit the ground not far from his position. He said the airman landed spread eagle and bounced up a foot then fell back down. He ran over to find the man groaning! He survived the fall by hitting wet ground that helped to cushion the fall but still suffered multiple bone fractures. Then there's one British gunner that bailed out without a parachute that landed the same way except became embedded in the soil. He was found by the Germans that were amazed that he survived falling over 15,000 feet. The airman had multiple injuries so was taken to a hospital for surgeries and recuperation. Once being able to be moved, the Germans contacted the British so they could send him back home instead of a POW camp since they felt he deserved that after surviving such a fall.
Nice Germans
@@Redwhiteblue-gr5em The German doctors said he faced a long recovery so would be better off doing that at home instead of a POW camp infirmary.
@@Redwhiteblue-gr5em The Germans treated POWs far better than the Japanese did. I had a cousin who was a POW of the Germans.
just like Peggy hill
Lol. Enemies so impressed they just sent him home
Historical notes - First off, I am not entirely sure that this is the correct "Rikki Tikki Tavi" nose art. There were 3-4 B-17s with that name in WWII and without seeing the serial number, it is impossible to determine which is which, and this is the only photo I could find. Secondly, for your info - Eugene Moran had a lot of injuries and broken bones. He was operated on in a POW camp by two Serbian prisoners that saved his life. But I couldn't fit it in. James Raley was essentially unhurt. Thanks everyone :) And thanks to the CAF Airbase Arizona for letting me shoot with B-17 Sentimental Journey! Check them out here! facebook.com/cafairbasearizona
When I spoke with Eugene Moran, before he passed away, he faithfully described the nose art that you see in the video.
@@gergodews9987 Very cool! Thanks for sharing that!
James fell like a meteor then would catch air and flutter in cycles. He hit the ground during a flutter. He was found by Greek monks, hidden, and rat lined out, retired a full Colonel, not bad for a private in the horse calvary
Thank you young man for this story. I've had tears in my eyes. Our military family were in WW2. They flew the Corsair, Mustang and the great P47. And my one uncle flew photo and combat missions in The B29. Thank you again made this veteran feel good.
I wanna thank you and your family for service!
@@cabriskus4700 Thank You sir for your support. We still believe in America and don't take it lightly. Sincerely Thomas.
I salute you, soldier. 🫡
My grandfather was on the 301st raid that turned tragic. It was his 50th and final mission and he almost didn’t make it out Alive. Their plane was badly damaged and some of his crew members bailed out . Apparently this is because the pilot and a few others including my grandfather felt obligated to stay in order carry out their final mission and return home. My grandfather and his few crew mates made it back, I’m thankful to say. I’m very proud of my families legacy in WW2. Thanks for sharing the video, it was a surprise to say the least.
A family friend flew 90 missions
So many of our fathers and grandfathers gave all.
Another one about a British Lancaster(ED614) that had its tail section severed. The tail gunner glided it down to earth using the force of firing the 303 machine guns to gain stability. During the decent he was still being attacked by a Me 109. Tail gunner Sgt Pattrick Craymer although injured survived the fall
This is the one I knew about.
OMG. Imagine the German pilots thoughts. Seeing that thing.
It was night, so they would see nothing @@jacobrzeszewski6527
@@jacobrzeszewski6527Grandson: These videogames are so unrealistic! The gunners keep firing even after the plane breaks up!
Veteran: Don't be so sure, sonny
F/Sgt Patrick J Cramer RAAF died later that same night at Five Hospital.
I had heard of a crew member falling to the ground without parachute and surviving landing on snow covered pine trees but these three stories are also incredible!
It was Nicholas Alkemade who fell 18,000 and survived. RAF Berlin raid 24th March 1944 Most of the crew perished.
@@normannokes9513 Was he the one whose parachute was burning so he jumped rather than burn to death?
Yes.So many other brave chaps would have chosen this course with a different outcome.@@dneill8493
@@dneill8493 yeh
@@normannokes9513 Busted up pretty good, but alive is alive. (Read the readers digest story years ago). 6000m in metric. The prison commandant had the proof and signed off on it, from memory.
Years ago, I read of a tail gunner who was in a plane that was hit. He lost communication with the rest so he started to go forward to see what was going on, but the tail began to pitch forward, making him thing the plane was not stable. So he road it out, as the plane appeared to be coming in for a belly landing. After it stopped, he climbed out and was shocked to find out that the rest of the plane was missing. The tail had glided in on its own. He stated that he never heard from any of the rest of the crew, so he assumed they were all killed in an explosion. Other aircraft had reported that his plane had been hit and exploded but no one saw the tail fly off on its own.
I read his telling of that story, and as I recall he actually engaged at least one enemy fighter on the way down (an FW 190 I believe), and mentioned how he thought it strange when the enemy fighter didn't return fire, and simply flew away. He said when he landed it was nearby to a German anti-air emplacement, and the German officer wrote a note detailing his observation of that descent. However, I think the note was later confiscated in a POW camp.
Andrew Mynarski VC. The plane broke up after all the crew except the tail gunner, Brophy, escaped. He survived the crash. But what Andy did before he jumped earned him his posthumous VC. Quite an amazing story.
I just did a search and it certainly warrants a video by TJ.
Incredible story. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Mynarski
My grandfather was the only survivor of his B-17 going down (he was also a tail gunner) - unfortunately he didn't talk about it much, and lots of records were lost in a warehouse fire. I'd love to know more about it.
Have you ever heard the story of Andy Mynarski? A Canadian
Lancaster pilot. His plane was shot down and after everyone bailed out he realized that the rear gunner was trapped. After several failed attempts to free the gunner, the gunner insisted he bail out. The gunner remarkably survived but Andy died of severe burns, he received exiting the burning plane. If you do not know the story check it out. There is much more than I have explained. I would love to see you do a story on this flight.
He was a mid upper gunner with RCAF 419 Sqn . Awarded the VC posthumously
God bless.
There is also an account from the 1960s of a Yugoslav airliner that broke up mid flight, and the only survivor was a stewardess in the tail section. She rode it all the way down, and survived with serious injuries, eventually returning to work.
Yes this story is true she survived and eventually returned to work but unfortunately she actually died in another plane crash I do believe
Correction she actually died from natural causes in 2016@@jasonhughes-on7ui
This story is told quite differently, even here in the comments section there are multiple versions of it, happening in multiple different countries (the US, Yugoslavia...). Don't know if it's true, because mostly the details are quite rare. A story that's definitely true happened on December 24, 1971 over the Andes. LANSA Flight 508 broke apart mid-flight at 22,000 feet and the passengers got thrown out. 91 people sadly lost ther lives, one lived. A 17-year-old girl, Juliane Koepcke. She got thrown out of the plane still belted to her seat when the plane broke apart, lost consciousness and woke up 20 hours later, still in her seat, somewhere in the middle of the Peruvian jungle. She was in shock, severely injured and due to the thick jungle nobody knew where the crash had happened, and she didn't find the wreckage or other survivors. So she started walking. It took her 10 days to find other people, a lumberjack camp. She was then transported to a clinic where her injuries (some of which had become maggot-infested) were treated, and she made a full recovery. With her help the wreckage of the plane was found on January 5th or 6th, 1972, no other survivors were found, even though it's assumed that up to 14 other passengers had survived the crash, but were too heavily injured to look for help and had died before the wreckage was found.
All 3 of these stories were amazing. Hard to believe that these 3 tail gunners could live through something like that but they did. Unbelievable!
There's another similar story that was to do with a Lancaster bomber that had its tail cutoff too, though this in this incident the tail section didn't tumble to ground but actually glided to ground, apparently enough of the fuselage remained that it countered the weight of turret, the gunner himself even kept shooting at passing German night fighters, then he noticed each time he fired the gliding sped up so in a sense he flew his tail section to the ground, not sure of outcome for gunner himself after landing because he was apparently pretty badly wounded
What a badass
He had been hit in the chest twice by 20mm cannon shells. I believe he was almost immediately tended to by a civilian doctor upon landing, don’t think he made it
Totally impossible, the guns do not fire without electricity and the recoil would be too weak to propel the tail.
Ever heard of a plane that escaped pursuit by firing its rear guns?
@@fafnir-fasolt look up The Broken Lancaster tail that flew and landed itself Uploaded by FlakAlley
@@fafnir-fasolt the turrets themselves were electrically operated, but guns themselves aren't also those turrets had manual drives too, you know how much it would suck to have your electric drive fail and have no back up.
I have two diaries. One from a 100th BG pilot who was very detailed and saw lots of combat between July - Oct 1944, including a shuttle mission and two to Berlin. Also have a diary to a 19yo Tail Gunner who didn't see much action over MTO, but he was brutally honest in how scared he was. Could share if you were interested
jam- give me the scary details he wrote
Well hell.....now I wanna read it
@@seanodwyer432216:57
Keeping It Real: B-17's had an intercom system for the crew to communicate (if not shot out from battle damage). It was used for each individual crew member to call out
the positions of attacking enemy fighters, etc.
Exactly!
TJ3 History are you going to address this? All crew had in-plane comms, they sure as hell couldn't hear each other very well over the engine and wind noise in an uninsulated/unpressurized plane with open side-gun ports...as was seen in the Memphis Belle film.
@@mailboxthirteentwentysix7673 Well, The crew had throat mikes (so that oxygen masks could be worn) Head phones over the ears cancelled out some of the noise that you mentioned.
About 40 years ago a civilian airliner in USA suffered a catastrophic structural failure and broke up at high altitude. The tail section broke away and fell relatively slowly to the ground with a member of the cabin crew inside it. She was seriously injured but made a full recovery. I forget the more intricate detals, but that is the gist of the story. During the war, a small number of aircrew, about two or three, fell thousands of feet without a parachute and survived. A few bullets can easily go through your parachute without doing serious damage or greatly increasing your rate of descent.
Something equally remarkable happened on December 24, 1971 over Peru. LANSA Flight 508 broke apart mid-flight at 22,000 feet and the passengers got thrown out. 91 people sadly lost ther lives, one lived. A 17-year-old girl, Juliane Koepcke. She got thrown out of the plane still belted to her seat when the plane broke apart, lost conciousness and woke up 20 hours later, still in her seat, somewhere in the middle of the Peruvian jungle. She was in shock, severely injured and due to the thick jungle nobody knew where the crash had happened, and she didn't find the wreckage or other survivors. So she started walking. It took her 10 days to find other people, a jumberjack camp. She was then transported to a clinic where her injuries (some of which had become maggot-infested) were treated, and she made a full recovery. With her help the wreckage of the plane was found on January 5th or 6th, 1972, no other survivors were found, even though it's assumed that up to 14 other passengers had survived the crash, but were too heavily injured to look for help and had died before the wreckage was found.
The P47s were not provided with drop tanks due to the doctrine of "the bomber always gets through"!.
I hope you are kidding?
He’s not completely kidding. As that doctrine was proven laughably false, Drop tanks were used on P-47s but Mustangs had more range than Jugs.
@@ellisvener5337 people decided to put drop tanks on the P47s insultingly late in the war.
@@ellisvener5337
Not only were drop tanks also required on P51's for escort missions but like P47's with drop tanks P51's also had to use the relay system to escort bombers, because even with drop tanks they couldn't take off with the bombers and escort them all the way to the targets and back, people who think they did don't understand how bomber escort missions worked and don't understand that you can't simply Google the distance from an airfield in England to a target city in Germany then go to Wikipedia and look up the range of a fighter and compare the two, it's far more complicated than that the way escort missions worked.
First and foremost I don't know where anyone ever got the idea that P51's were capable of escorting bombers without drop tanks but nothing could be further from the truth, chances are someone did exactly what I just said you can't do and then made the claim online that P51's used to escort bombers without drop tanks and every eager P51 fanboy believed it and started repeating it themselves leading to this common myth of late that they used to escort without drop tanks but they didn't.
To start with the fighter's and bombers didn't take off from the same airstrips in England in the first place, they were at different bases and had to meet up in the sky on the way, but most importantly is that the altitudes and speeds that fighter's got their maximum range at was completely different from what the bombers were flying at, especially when the fighter's had drop tanks on them, when they flew with the bombers they were guzzling gas flying at their speed and altitude, also once enemy fighter's were encountered they had to drop their tanks no matter how much fuel was left in them, you can't fly in aerial combat with the severely reduced performance from having drop tanks strapped to a fighter, plus they consumed a tremendous amount more fuel during aerial combat, for those reasons the range listed in Wikipedia for any fighter doesn't do you any good when figuring out the actual range of fighter's on an escort mission, it's a lot different than just taking off and flying in a straight line at your optimal speed and altitude, so what they had to do was use the relay system, and this is how it worked.
The first flight of fighter's would take off and meet up with the bombers usually somewhere over the English Channel, at the speed and altitude they'd be forced to fly that reduced their range they'd stay with the bombers until somewhere before the target, then a second flight of fighter's that took off after them that caught up flying at the speed and altitude that gave them their maximum range would relieve them, at that point the first group of fighter's who were starting to see their fuel supply getting low from the speed and altitude they were forced to fly at escorting the bombers would turn back and usually attack targets of opportunity on the way since at that point they'd still has enough fuel left to fly down and attack targets on the ground and then climb back up to altitude and still get back with a little fuel to spare, the second group of fighter's that relieved the first would escort the bombers to their target, if attacked by the enemy they'd have to drop their tanks, at this point they were the furthest they'd be from their base and are now on internal fuel only from having dropped their tanks and they'd be chewing up fuel in aerial combat at a highly increased rate, they only had enough fuel for 15 minutes of combat then they had to turn for home at the speed and altitude that gave them their maximum range, they couldn't escort the bombers after that because they'd have never had enough fuel to make it back given the amount burned up from being in combat, they also wouldn't have had enough fuel to attack targets of opportunity on the way back for the same reasons, at this point a third flight of fighter's that took off well after the second flight did would link up with the bombers at about the time they were coming off the target, if they had to drop their tanks and join in the fight then yet another flight of fighter's would have to take off to pick up the bombers at some place on the way back because of the third relay having to have dropped their tanks and participate in combat, by doing that they wouldn't have enough fuel to escort the bombers all the way back at the speed and altitude they had to fly at escorting them, if a fourth flight wasn't available that meant the bombers had to return a good bit of the way unescorted.
Another factor which is why you can't look at straight line distances on a map is because the bombers never flew straight to their targets, that would have made their targets too obvious to anyone looking at a map, their missions would have several "dog legs" in them which would increase the distance and quite often at one point they'd split into two formations going after two different targets, so it took 3 or 4 relays of fighter's all taking off at different times to cover their leg of the mission for the bombers to be escorted no matter what kind of fighter's they were even P51's, the only real advantage there was with the P51's is since they did get better mileage that meant you could fly more of them with a given amount of fuel, but that was a mute point anyways since in Europe the US never had a shortage of fuel anyway since the U-Boats in the Atlantic had pretty much been neutralized and the shipping lanes were running uncontested.
Also if bombers were late getting to a check point which happened a good bit of the time the fighter's couldn't fly around in circles forever waiting on them, at a certain point they'd have to turn for home which means the bombers had to fly that leg unescorted, the whole thing gives you a lot of respect for the mission planners who figured out the time schedules to tell the different fighter relays when they had to take off to meet up with the bombers and their escorts they were relieving, that took a tremendous amount of planning and math to schedule the different relays involved on an escort mission.
But it was far more complicated than looking up the range of a fighter on it's Wikipedia page then looking at the distance from some airfield in eastern England to Berlin on a map and assuming that any fighter even the P51 could fly escort missions without drop tanks, there weren't so many variables and factors involved with everything it just wasn't that simple.
So even if P51's had been there all along it wouldn't have changed anything since no fighter's were supplied with drop tanks early in because going into the war the powers that be thought that bombers wouldn't need escorts and any aluminum used to make drop tanks was aluminum wasted that could be used for building more planes, the P51's just happened to come online right when the powers that be realized that the bombers needed to be escorted, the powers that be started the false claim that before the P51 came along fighter's didn't have the range to escort bombers to cover their asses for not providing fighter's with drop tanks all along because of their screwed up strategy of thinking the bombers could do it on their own, they didn't want to get drug in front of a Congressional inquiry into the heavy losses over the early unescorted missions, that's the reality of what happened, the fact is after supplying the fighter's with drop tanks P47's and P38's were also escorting bombers deep into Germany.
The P51 was a good fighter but it didn't change the course of the air war over Europe, that's an old myth based on a lie created to cover high ranking peoples asses.
@@dukecraig2402 agree 109%
Dude, the quality of these videos has gone up drastically. Major props to you
Thank you!
Agree totally, he does a great job both finding these stories and with the visual narration
@@Maxtowers71 bro... its a game called warthunder
its a game called warthunder
@@mangieygaming yes I know that, but still, he has to spend time on that platform to create the appropriate scenes, that's what I meant, sorry if I wasn't clear enough
A tail end charlie in a Lancaster bomber with the RAF fell to earth without a parachute from about 18000 feet. He passed out and fell through a pine forest which broke his fall and he landed on about 18 inches of snow. He was captured and served as a POW. His story has been recounted alot of times. He survived the war and if I remember correctly he only passed away in the 1980s
My grandfather witnessed a similar event during WW 2 in the south of the Netherlands, where he and my grandmother lived.
A couple of hundred meters away from the edge of the town where he was standing, an allied bomber was hit and started to sink. It released all its bombs in an attempt to lose weight and gain enough power to pull up. The tail broke off and the engines screamed insanely loud, as my grandfather recalls, as the pilot(s) in the tailless plane gave full throttle to keep the plane from falling. Its nose pointed direction sky for a short moment before it started falling down and crashed in the fields. The tail, on the other hand, glided down to the ground. On the ground, out climbed the gunner and the crew dog that they had on board!
Thank you so much for this, & moreso, for helping our next generations appreciate what our "Greatest Generation" did for us. My Dad volunteered to be a tail-gunner on a B-17. He & 4 of 5 uncles served in WWII (the 5th in Korea), & their mothers, fathers, & sisters served & sacrificed so much at home. I chose a career to teach history to honor of them & all our generous ancestors who deserve so much of our humble gratitude.
The tail gunner had interphone communication with the rest of the crew. Amazing story for an amazing generation that defended the free world. Thank-you for your service and sacrifice.
There used to be a restaurant in Savannah, Georgia, who had newspaper clippings of a story like this. I believe one of the waitresses was the granddaughter. Now it makes me curious if it was one of these three thank you so much for this video!!
If the restaurant was in Savannah, GA, the tailgunner in the article was probably Joe Frank Jones, Jr., who was from, or lived in Savannah. He is yet another survivor of a severed B-17 tail!
In the US Military Dependents' School in Wiesbaden, Germany, I got to meet then Major Jones. He was apparently stationed in Wiesbaden or thereabouts, as his son was a friend of mine, and we attended school together there. On one occasion, his father came to our school and told the assembled class the story of the midair collision and the fall into the farmer's field. We were probably somewhere between 11- and 13-years-old, but I remember that event and that his story had just been written up in some book (the title of which I can no longer remember). That would have been about 1963-1965 - I don't remember the exact year, but that is in the middle of the time when my father was stationed in Wiesbaden and we were living in the Hainerberg Military Housing Area. If you look up MAJ Joe Frank Jones, Jr. on the internet, you'll find his story, and in at least one account, they mention that in 1961, he was able to visit with the farmers who rescued him from the wreckage.
@Ben Jones Interesting! It is amazing how some of those guys survived! Thanks for the link.
I never comment on things like this and was actually intending to reply to Susan Beth because the comment she made fit what I was aware of and her belief that one of the ladies there was a granddaughter of the guy in the article. If y'all were in the same restaurant, I wonder if they may have had different articles posted at different times...
@@dennisjones4156 😮
That was S/SGT Joe Jones. 385th BG. Look up B-17 Mr Lucky. Lt Chuck Armbruster’s crew . I met the original bombardier who was pulled from the crew stateside to go to Radar Nav school. He finished the war with the 100th.
This also happened to the tail gunner in a British Lancaster. And then there is a tail gunner who leaped out without a parachute and survived. There are documented stories from World War One where a pilot stood up to clear his guns and fell out of his plane, only to fall back into a few thousand feet lower.
The tail gunner in the Lancaster wouldn’t have been F/Sgt Jack Cannon of Melbourne Australia would it?
He was mentioned in the book Flying into the Mouth of Hell by Laurie Woods DFC a crew member of an Australian Lancaster.
@@covenantor663 The Lancaster Gunner was Flt Sgt Nicholas Alkemade. The Pilot in WWi was Captain Louis Strange.
Lancaster tail gunner bailed out at 18.000ft without his chute and survived.
how?
@@HeyItsMeSebhe was wearing his light fall suit.
There is a story of a B17 belly gunner on a raid over Germany, their plane was hit by flak, the pilot called on the intercom and said he would try to get to France to bail out. The belly gunner came up out of the turret and saw the plane was full of holes where he hung his chute, he put it on and jumped, pulled ripcord but the chute didn't open, it had taken shrapnel. The pilot was flying at 1000 feet. He reached back and grabbed the drag chute and pulled, it stilled didn't open, the ground was coming up real quick. HE figured he was going to die and bang he hit a tree and his drag chute caught on a limb, he didn't get a scratch. An amazing story, I wish i could remember his name. All his fellow crew members survived. GOD BLESS THOSE MEN! GOD BLESS AMERICA!! GLORY BE TO GOD!!! IN JESUS NAME I PRAY!!!!!!!
Thanks for putting this on. Read about the British guy who survived such a fall without a parachute when I was a kid. Now we have some Americans who survived being stuck in broken tail units. The chances of surviving WW2 under such conditions is astronomical when so many things can and do go wrong.
Also happened in a training flight in England. The bomb bay door sheered off severing the tail. He survive even with the Fort landing 100 yards away. He went up again but didn't last too much longer as a combat gunner.
As a child, I learned my neighbor, a widow, lost her son, an only child, as a tail gunner in a B-17.
I'm sure she sings a holy song now...God bless her and her family
There's also a story about a guy getting blown out of his bomber over ItalyI think it was, got knocked out and didn't have time to pull his chute, hit the side of a mountain covered in snow, tumbled down it, and survived, albeit really messed up. Also a story out of vietnam where a US service member was in a helicopter that broke up in midair and the guy got slammed into the back of the tail as it was spinning to earth, and he survived too. People survive crazy shit sometimes.
Truly incredible what these people sacrificed. I can't even imagine the bravery they showed.
"Tailspin" is the written account of Wisconsin's Gene Moran if anyone's interested, amazing what these guys went through and survived.
February 13,1945 a tail gunner on a 301st BG B17 was trapped in the tail when the wing on his 17 folded up after a flak hit. The Ammo boxes fell on him and he passed out. He woke up on the ground in the wreckage of the plane. One other crewman was still inside when it hit the ground. He didn’t survive. The rest of the crew bailed out. This 301st gunner was not the one you mentioned
Absolutely amazing, thank you for sharing these stories and keeping history alive all the best TJ3
We must understand than they fall down only, ” if I can dare ”, at 890 km per hour, wich is the constant of gravity. The speed of plane is lost. Of course it’s a great impact but less than what we imagine, that is the proof. 😮
Just incredible! Thanks for keeping history alive! Well done!
I know another one I have heard of in my research. Tail was shot up and fell off with the badly wounded tail gunner in side. The tail was perfectly balanced and made an almost perfect landing. Sadly the gunner died of his injuries a short time later.
There is at least one other tailgunner who survived a fall in the tail section - Joe Frank Jones, Jr.
He was the tailgunner on a B-17 named "Mr. Lucky". Toward the end of the war, they were flying at greater than 13,000 feet over Belgium in very poor visibility and, as a result, collided with another B-17. The collision separated the tail from the rest of the fuselage, and Jones, who was unable to get out of the tail section, rode it into a farmer's field. He was the only survivor from "Mr. Lucky". He eventually retired as a Major in 1966. You can find much more of his story on the internet if you look up his name, but I'm glad I got to hear it from him directly sometime between 1963 and 1965. His son and I were friends (which started because of our same last names - but no relation) and attended the same US military dependent school in Wiesbaden, Germany. His father was invited to our school to tell the story to our class. It was such an amazing first-person account that I remember nearly all of the details nearly 60 years later.
so haven't you heard about Vesna Vulovic, who was the only survivor of an accident in a DC-9 in 1972 in the tail section on a flight from Copenhagen to Zagreb from an altitude of 10,000 m
Tony Haynes mentioned a tail gunner in a Lancaster who survived.
If it’s the same guy his account is recorded in Laurie Woods DFC’s book Flying into the Mouth of Hell.
The following is an extract:
F/O Richen’s Lancaster was hit over the target [Essen], and his mid upper gunner, F/Sgt Jack Cannon of Melbourne, was wounded and rendered unconscious. On the way back to base the plane crashed into a hill, blowing up on impact. F/Sgt Cannon, the only survivor, was blown clear still trapped in his turret.
The turret landed in a tree, approximately a half of a mile away. In the dark Cannon recovering consciousness, climbed from his turret, not knowing he was up a tree, and in doing so fell to the ground injuring both ankles. To hide any evidence of someone landing by parachute, he buried his parachute and harness.
He then took a knife from the hidden pocket in the top of his flying boot and cut the tops from his flying boots, giving them the appearance of local work boots. He wandered round for two days, and then seeing a large stately building and believing himself to be in Germany was being extra careful.
He sighted an old man working in the field and half crawling, half walking crept up behind him. Placing his arm around the farmer’s neck and holding the knife to his throat, he asked in German (from a small multiple language card we carried): “Where am I?” Receiving no answer, Cannon asked in French: “Where am I?” still receiving no answer, in exasperation he said:
“I wish you b…..ds could speak English!” to which the elderly farmer answered,
“Thee be in Norfolk lad, over yon is Kings Lynn!” Lol !!!
I have seen the tail of a B17 being severed from the rest of the plane in war movies or documentaries, but the outcome of the fall was never mentioned, until now. Thank you for the video. As a result, I will subscribe to your channel, and honor and glory to all those brave airmen.
My uncle was a navigator on one of the B-17's lost in the mid-air collision. His story of surviving the fall with a "candled' chute, then evading capture for over 4 months is, in itself, a miracle. As he was being rescued by Greek partisans, he was joined with other USAAF survivors. One of them kept yelling, "I have to tell someone my story!" This was James Ramey. My uncle told Ramey that he would remember and tell his story when he returned to allied lines. He escaped out of Greece and was rescued by the British. He recounts this story in his book about his experiences entitled, "Evadee". My uncle survived the war, and lived into his 90's.
My mother's cousin was a navigator on a B17 of the 305th BG. In June 1944, his bomber was hit by FLAK over Hamburg just after bombs away. The aircraft was hit just aft of the wings where the waist gunners were and the tail was torn off. The bombardier managed to bail out at the last moment and spent the rest of the war as a POW. The tail gunner was thrown free - without a 'chute. At least he got his own grave. The rest of the crew, including my relative, are buried in a commo grave.
Excellent work my man I'm not a vet. My father is. I grew up on Eglin Airforce base so military is part of my life. Love to hear unbelievable true story's like this. Very encouraging and appreciate you bringing this to us all.
"I hear you man, sI grew up an army brat myself; was even born over seas Camp Zama Japan U.S. Army Base😊
@@kemgreene8525 Awesome thx for sharing 😀
id like to share a story from b-17 tail gunner art kemp. a friend and i met him at an airshow awhile ago.
his b-17 had already been damaged and was straggling out of formation. a 20mm shell hit and exploded above arts head knocking him unconscious for awhile. when he awoke and checked in on the intercom, his crewmates told him to stay down until they gave him the word. in the interim while he was unconscious, and me-109 had been methodically working over his b-17, shooting at it with just his machine guns a bit, pulling up even with the fuselage looking over the damage. the other gunnners that might have shot at it had been wounded or otherwise incapacitated or their gun put out of action. my guess is that the 109 was low on ammunition and wanted to conserve his shots. in any case his crewmates alerted art when he nex was dropping back to open fire again. art popped up before he could do so and "took him out at point blank range. i could see the pilot taking hits." art said that his crew credited him with their survival that day.
no small wonder.
I absolutely love the documentary style videos, keep it up!❤️
Thanks!
My father was a tail gunner on a B17. His plane actually flew more missions than it was suppose to. His group was really good at what they did. He was lucky to make it home in one piece. He met for many years with the crew of that B17 and he was the last airman alive when he passed away. He was 15 years old when he signed up. My father told the story of the army Air Corp asking if he was over 16. He said yes sir I am. He didn't want to lie. So he had put a piece of paper in each of his shoes with the number 16 on it just before he was asked and answered the question. He earned a bronze v star for his service. He never talked mush about what they had gone through.
Not so long ago Vesna Vulovic (if I am not wrong she was Serbian) died of old age .... Only thing .... She was a flight attendant who survived a 10,000-metre fall in the tail section of a passenger jet. ... Although she suffered her entire life as consequence...
TJ, One of the strange things that Dad had told us about was of a B-17 that had been hit while on it's bomb run. Not sure who was out of formation but Dad said that it had a 500# bomb in each wing and was limping back to England. He said the plane was told to ditch in the Channel as they didn't know if the bombs had fallen far enough to arm or not. The B-17's were amazing planes. Dad was a Pilot in the 447th Bomb Group, 710th Bomb Squadron. If you could find information on this it may make a good story as well. Thank you for your GREAT videos.
Very cool! Thanks!
My uncle was a tail gunner on a B17 that exploded. One second he was in his position and the next he was free falling. He landed in occupied France and he and the only other surviving crew member were found by the French resistance and it took six weeks I think before they were smuggled back to England.
My Grandmother was even notified that he was missing in action and presumed dead as other crews stated that their plane just exploded and no one saw any chutes.
All of these stories of airmen falling from great heights are truly amazing. I remember reading several books on the air war in the Pacific and there are several amazing stories of fighter pilots bailing out at over 10,000' with inop parachutes and surviving the terrific impact into the ocean. Once surviving such a fall, a new challenge is immediately introduced to the lucky survivor... keep from drowning and hope a rescue plan is underway to get you. Just amazing stories that come out of war.
That is Wonderful. I've been reading WW2 stories since the 1950's, and never ran across any like these. I truly appreciate hearing this wonderful Miracles.
There was a Lancaster tail gunner related in the book Bomber Boys that survived when the detached tail landed on telephone cables bounced into a tree and he was basically tipped unconscious out like a die out of a cup into a snowdrift and found alive by the Germans.
My old neighbor of about 20 years ago (Jim Morris) was a door gunner in a B17 next to this plane and witnessed the incident. He shared this story with me. He was a treasure of a neighbor.
I heard the story several years ago, and like you, I heard this from an individual who claimed to witness it from a nearby plane. I do not know the man's name, but I believe he was from Jackson county Alabama. This story was told to me by world war II veteran who knew the Jackson county veteran who claimed to have witnessed this happen and was a personal friend of Moran.
Happened to a RAF Rear Gunner in May 1943 over Holland. He was in a Lockheed Ventura which broke apart after catching fire.. The rear fuselage and tail section he was in came down like a sycamore seed and then hit a tree. He survived with minor injuries.
Actually the tail gunner was in a good position to know if the airplane was damaged because he was able to see out both side of the aircraft and spot any smoke or parts coming off, because everything had to go past him.
But, crawling out to the main part of the fuselage was risky when the rear of the aircraft skin was ripped to shreds.
My Dad was a Bomber Mechanic in WWII in the European Theater. He had a lot of stories, but was always reluctant to share them because he didn't want to scare us, and really didn't want to relive what he saw and dealt with. He did tell me once on a long cross country drive, after Mother passed, about how he always hated to get to know his crews because it would tear at his soul when he had to wash their blood and body parts out of the damaged aircraft after tough missions. I can't imagine having to do that!
Dad was 24 when he joined and was considered too old to fly, but was a mechanic for the railroad when the war broke out, so he was a natural fit for keeping the planes flying.
Dad went on to join the Air Force after the war and spent his career in SAC. I grew up on military bases and literally grew up in the shadows of Heroes!
Here’s something you can live when you are falling 10 miles in the tail of a plane because it has wings it has tail but if it loses the tail you will still be ok because your flying downwards, also if u lost one of the wings at the tail yes you might be in a free fall but you won’t go fast you have to lose the 2 wings and the tail to Free fall. So remember this and it might help you in a passenger plane when it detach off the plane just remember it can’t connect together and thanks for seeing this and it might help you but hey we will *never know*
My late uncle, F/O Allan Zinman was a Lancaster tail gunner with the RCAF and flew operational missions in 1945. The worst
mission for his squadron was when some bombers went down into the North Sea due to ice forming on the wings.
It's not a plane story, but... a sailor was blown overboard by an explosion, only to be blown back on board by another explosion next to the ship. Bad day? Or good day? You decide. Great episode as always.
I think it is a day of all time
@ArloOdom Nuts story or what! I bet he had a few drinks at the next port.
Sound like a pinball lol.
@@hectorgrijalva1754 agree
Thanks
Soo co0ol
The De Havilland Mosquito could carry 4000lb, which was the typical long range load of a Fortress.
“Damn pilot is getting wicked with these maneuvers” - tail gunner, probably
Thank God that Tail Section became a Glider and saved that gunners life..
Well that makes sense because the severed tail's had the components needed for it act like a glider (the horizontal stabilizer and vertical fin).
On the descent if your "tail plane" is oriented correctly, as that newspaper article described, it may indeed flutter and flap down to earth.
And as it gets close to the ground, his "plane" will stop flying, but once again he lucks out with the tree breaking the tail's impact into the ground.
Amazing stories, thanks.
There was another B-17 tail gunner who survived the tail crashing to the ground, but almost died in the process.
A Lancaster tail gunner managed to use his machine guns to propel his tail section back to England after is was severed, just perfectly to keep its balance and fly on by itself.
Video really starts at 1:23
Thanks
I read a story of a ball-turret gunner who fell 18,000ft without a parachute. The bomber was shot down, and when he went to bail out, his parachute was on fire, so he chose to jump out without it. He landed in a snow-laden forrest and survived.
I read that story,or one like it, in Readers Digest magazine probably 50 years ago.
The tail unit on a Lancaster had a similar issue and the tail gunner didn’t realise that it had broken away. Tried calling the pilot to complain about the bumpy landing and only found out after no reply and he clambered out. Or the British tail gunner who leaped out of his burning aircraft without a parachute, landed in a snowdrift and lived.
There was an equally bizarre incident in WW2 when a bomber crewman, American Staff Sergeant Alan Magee was free falling with no parachute when he impacted the glass paned railway station domed roof at Nazaire, France, which decelerated him enough to let him survive.
That's amazing.
Iirc Tj covered this already
holy shit.
I planned and was a part of a Purple Heart ceremony that was given to Merle J Hasenfratz in Oklahoma for his time as a POW. He already had one from the flack injury he sustained. this was given to him when the rules changed on purple hearts back in the early 2000s. He was a tail Gunner that rode his tail down and walked out and got picked up by the Germans he’s got an amazing story and has since passed away. I was very proud to be a small part of his story.
"the tail gunner was all alone, not only was he all alone but he was much further away from other crew members"
Aren't those two things the same? Gotta love C rated 'documentaries' on youtube.
No, the ball turret gunner was alone. But not far away from others. Good try though, C rated commenter. Lol
@@TJ3the commenter properly quoted you, starting at 3:40
@aquariandawn4750 I'm aware of that. However he did not understand what the quote was trying to convey, which I explained.
@@TJ3 no TJ. Look at his comment and look at your response to him. You literally denied that you said he was much farther away from other crew members. You denied a verifiable fact, and then you were too small to apologize for that. You said he was much farther away from other crew members in the video, but in your reply you say that you did not say that. You are either mistaken or you are lying.
My uncle Willard Christensen was the tail Gunner on the Donna Mae II there is a video on You Tube of what happened to the Donna Mae II
My Great Uncle was the tail Gunner in a Lancaster Bomber during the war (RCAF). He ended up losing his hand when an enemy fighter made a pass on his plane and a round mangled it. He was the only member of his plane's crew to become a casualty, the rest survived the war unscathed. My Grandma talked about how after the war he liked playing tricks on all the family kids with his prostetic hand.
Although the worst position in a B 17 is the ball turret, the tail position is still pretty bad!
Indeed the ball turret was the most dangerous. I had to scroll too far to find this comment.
My parents were friends with an older couple. She was a nurse and he had been a tail gunner that was shot down and taken as a POW. They said he never talked about his experiences but he had a mortal fear of bugs and insects. 😬 His story would go straight from landing on the ground to getting off the boat in New York after being liberated.
fiarly recently saw on another channel where a lancaster tail gunner survived after his tail got severed and it was just aerodynamic enough to enter a slow spiral to the ground.
Incredible! I seem to remember, as a teenager, reading an article (Reader's Digest?) about a tail gunner on a Wellington bomber who survived his fall.. without the turret!!
Nicholas Alkemade. 18000ft (6000m), without a chute. I read that one too. (The 50’s car accident article, was in the same book I think, and the truth about smoking🧐). Still got them, come to think of it (white hardcovers). Might come in handy again.
Will have to ask my parents neighbor if he knows of any instances like this. He was a top bubble turret gunner through the war flying in a B24. Never thought this would even be a possibility to consider
Gene Moran lived in the town I grew up in. My highschool history teacher ended up writing a book about him. The book's called 'Tailspin" by John Armbruster. It's worth a read as the story deals not only with his fall, but also his time afterward as a POW.
I have a Similar story about my Grandfather. My dad passed the story down to me and I’ve been able to fact check it through various archives.
My grand dad, Angelo A. LaSalle, was a sergeant who flew with the 100th, 349th, 384th, 544th, and 545th bomb groups in ‘43-44.
I’ll abbreviate the story here but it goes that a few months after the end of the war his crew was flying search and rescue for another downed plane in the alps… they developed some mechanical issue and were flying low , visibility was poor… I don’t know the how’s and whys but for whatever reason my grand dad saw that the plane was about to hit a mountain, seeing this he climbed onto the wing (I don’t know why he thought to do this)the plane hit the mountain and the wing broke off and fell over a 1000 feet into a snow bank. Some how he held on but was knocked unconscious by the fall.
He was subsequently found by a former luftwaffen pilot and his wife who saw the crash. He was the only survivor.
They nursed him back to health. The German pilot later became the best man at my grandads wedding , who married a German Nurse.
There’s more to the story but those are the highlights…
Also life magazine wrote an article about it in ‘46. I read the article many years ago but have not been able to find it since.
I’ve known of this story of a tail gunner using his gun to level out his part of the plane to survived a crash landing, did wonder if this was true fired his gun to level out. But i thought it was in a Lancaster bomber. WOW
Thankyou for showing another example of both sides showing humanity to their enemy - God Bless You
My father Stephen banks flew missions from 1943 to 1945 was a tail gunner and he showed me a picture of him in a squadron with about 35 people and they took him out to transfer him to another squadron and said that he was the only survivor only because he was transferred.my father died of natural causes in January of 2019 at the age of 96 . the b17 bomber is a world war 2 legend.
Ball turrets “finally a worthy opponent our battle will be legendary”
I believe a Polish aviator serving with Canadians in the RAF had a similar story. he was a tail gunner, but was trapped in the turret. all the others bailed out, and he rode the plane to a crash landing. I think he survived but later succumbed to his injuries. I think he was also awarded a medal.
My wife's grandpa was a recon photographer in WWII. He told me during a mission in the fall of 43 they were headed to Italy. Two B24s were quite a distance ahead of his group. Suddenly the pilot called everyone up to the cockpit to see the two B24s were under attack, by two small fighters. The guys were amazed at how fast these two planes buzzed around the B24s. Both of the 24s went down, and then the two small fighters just whisked off to the west. They were gone in a blink. When they'd finished their mission they gave their after mission briefing. They told the officers what they'd seen. Gramos said that the officers dismissed the crew, thinking that his crew were crazy or air sick. Then, at 2a.m., granps fkight team were all woken up and interrogated well into the morning about what they had seen. Gramps said those small fighters had to be German jets.
The wind resistance alone of a falling tail section is enough to reduce its speed to between 40 and 60 mph. That’s without rotation which would slow the fall even further. The compression of hitting a tree would reduce the g forces considerably as well, making impact the equivalent of a 10-15 mph car crash. Very survivable but the potential is there for serious injury. Another story from ww2 is that a tail gunner over Berlin had his B-17 hit by flak and the tail severed. The weight was just right for it to become an improvised glider and actually glided to a landing in a field. The gunner was taken prisoner by the germans. There was no damage to the elevators or the vertical stabilizer, just a jagged cut where the flak separated the tail. The gunner remained at his position, thinking they were making an emergency landing and was surprised when he found the rest of the aircraft missing.
Undoubtedly, the hand of God. I had only heard of one tail Gunner who survived having the tail of the bomber severed. That's a miracle. Great stories
Not a war story, but there´s also that lady flight attendant that survived a fall from 33.000ft.
I like how the WT gameplay has the gunner still giving it his all after the tail is in free fall spinning.
Another great video TJ3. Where i live in the UK iam surrounded by these airfields where these brave men were based.
If you look at alot of plane crashes, it seems pretty common that no matter what, the tail section is the only really recognizable part.
Thats where I'll be if I'm ever on a plane.
You should cover the story of Ye Old Pub’s encounter with German pilot Frans Steigler. The book is called “A Higher Call”. Incredible story. Love the content!
Sabaton has a song about them.
Hasn't he already covered it, everyone else has covered it.
I actually heard a first hand account of this exact circumstance from my grandfather, he was in the maintenance battalion of the 3rd armored division and they had just finished setting up in a quary when the saw German fighters go past overhead and were starting to panic when the saw the bomber stream, around that time debris started impacting around them and saw a man parachuting down, when he was about 15feet from the ground he was struck and killed by debris, then they saw an entire tail section of a B17 impact the ground, thinking that the gunner was dead the went to extract his body to give him a proper burial, when they finished cutting him out and went to grab the gunner he woke up and exclamed "Where am I?"
I for get the exact location but this was late war after crossing into Germany
Man those bomberplanes are legendary for their survivability, and these astonishing tales only add to the legend.
My father's friend , a tail gunner got his B17 disintegrated by a direct hit by a German 88 he road the tail down to the ground and survived.
That scene in Memphis Belle where the BF109 splits the tail of "Mother and Country" and you hear the radio operator screaming, haunted me as a kid.
I think the ball gunner was the position people avoided the most. Very claustrophobic and dangerous from what I hear. I remember hearing a story of one that got stuck dangling from the bottom of a plane when then had to make an emergency landing without any landing gear. The guy had no way out, and got smeared down the runway.
That gunner was located in the belly. You could not exit into the plane. Landing gear won't go down you are not going to make out alive. Tail gunners had a short life expectancy in that rear bubble.
The poem Death of a Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell.
Wow, this was a great one!! Thanks TJ!