The crew of "The Bearded Beauty/Mizpah" after force-landing at Yeovilton, with 2 British officers. Note the damage to the #3 engine, absent of its cowling.

photo National Archives

This would prove to be a true test of the self-defending bomber theory, as the American fighters lacked the range to provide fighter escort all the way to the target. This also required massive formations of bombers, locked together in a tight defensive formation known as the combat box, affording mutual protection for the bombers by bringing the maximum number of defensive guns to bear on attacking aircraft.

The large numbers of aircraft over England made identification a priority, and in the last week of June 1943, all groups were given high-visibility identification markings that were applied throughout the first weeks of July. B-17's of the 1st Air Division, which the 91st BG was a part of, were to have a large white triangle applied to both sides of the vertical stabilizer as well as the upper starboard wing. The 91st BG was given the letter designation "A," and this letter was applied to the triangle in blue or black.

In addition, a change was made to the national insignia. Two white bars were to be added to both sides ot the blue disc, and the whole insignia was to be outlined with a red border. For several aircraft, this necessitated re-locating the fuselage codes, since they would be obscured by the white bars.

By July 1943, the battle-weary warhorse "Mizpah" found herself in new livery, applied to her faded, almost sandy-yellow, camoflage paint scheme, with fresh olive drab paint covering her previous code letters.

"Mizpah" was flown on 5 missions by the Cornelius Chima crew throughout July. Throughout the month, the 8th began to encounter the full effect of Germany's vaunted Luftwaffe, and American losses began to climb. The month ended in a spectacular week-long blitz on the city of Hamburg, which created a disasterous firestorm that gutted the heart of the city and killed over 40,000 people. The intensity of the bombing campaign was increasing.

One of the new replacement crews assigned to the 91st BG in July of 1943 was the crew of LT Everett Kenner. Kenner, a 35 year-old pilot, was called "Uncle" by the rest of his young crew. His co-pilot was 21 year-old George Bryan, from Starkville, Mississippi. The Navigator was Carlyle Darling, David Lee was the Bombardier, Glenn Chase was the Engineer, George Vender was the Radio Operator, John O'Toole was the Ball Turret Gunner, the Waist gunners were William Hagen and Gardner Moore, and the tail gunner was James Bowcock.

back row, L-R: Hagin, Moore, Vender, Bowcock, O'Toole, Chase

Front row, L-R: Darling, Bryan, Kenner, Lee

photo Jean Darling

"None of our planes went down but a navigator got a 20mm in his leg. I saw three enemy fighters go down. The fighters encountered were Me 109, Me 110, and Fw 190. The mission was successful."

Eighth Bomber Command had something special in store to celebrate the first anniversary of its bombing campaign on August 17. A maximum effort mission composed of two strike forces would simultaneously attack targets deep within Germany. The smaller 3rd Air Division, with 146 B-17's would attack the Messerschmitt fighter factory at Regensburg, while the larger 1st Air Division, with 230 B-17's would attack the ball-bearing factory at Schweinfurt.

In an attempt to confuse German air contollers, the Regensburg force would precede the Schweinfurt force by 5 minutes, with both groups flying along virtually the same flight path. However, the Regensburg force, comprised of B-17's lacking long-range fuel tanks, would fly to Allied bases in North Africa after bombing the target, instead of returning to England. Allied planners hoped that the German fighters would be waiting for the Regensburg force to return west of the city while the Schweinfurt force could make its escape.

At the 91st BG base at Bassingbourne, the crews knew something big was about to happen. Initially, the Kenner crew was not scheduled to fly. The crew had flown two consecutive missions the previous days before, and deserved a break. This was probably a relief to George Bryan, who had celebrated his 22nd birthday the day before, on August 16th. In their desire to fulfill their 25 mission quotas as quickly as possible, navigator Carlyle Darling and bombardier David Lee volunteered to fly with other crews. In the interminable 5 hour delay that kept the 1st Air Division on the ground, the remainder of the Kenner crew was added to the strike force and was assigned to fly B-17F 41-24453 "Mizpah" instead of their original aircraft "I Dood It." Fifteen-mission veteran Bombardier Herbert Egender substituted for Lee, and Navigator Richard Martin took the place of Darling.

A dense ground fog kept the 1st Air Division on the ground while the 3rd Air Division headed for Regensburg. It wasn't until the Regensburg force was over the target that the 1st Air Division finally got airborne. For the German fighters laying in wait for the returning 3rd Air Division, they could not believe their eyes when they saw the approaching formation of the 1st Air Division. Leading this formation of 230 B-17's were the 18 aircraft from the 91st Bomb Group. The Kenner crew, flying "Mizpah," occupied the lead position of the high squadron in the group.

(The following account was researched and edited by Rich Ribaudo, nephew of ball-turret gunner John O'Toole).

"Mizpah" first started to get into trouble over Mayen, Germany, before ever reaching the ball-bearing factories at Schweinfurt. Egender and Vender both remember the vicious and unrelenting head-on attacks of German Me 109's and Fw 190's which passed literally within feet of the bombers as they rolled past them. Egender reported that a string on 7 Fw 190's were attacking at a near-level altitude from dead ahead, a popular attack strategy that exploited the Flying Fortress' weakest aera of defensive gunfire in the nose of the aircraft. The fighters pumped a continuous stream of shells into "Mizpah," raking the ship from left to right as they passed and rolled away at the last second. The fighter in the middle of the attacking group found its mark. Gunfire hit and destroyed the # 2 engine, ran across the inboard wing setting it afire, and then hammered into the flight deck. Both pilot everett Kenner and Co-Pilot George Bryan were killed instantly. According to a later report by Flight Engineer SGT Glen Chase, both pilots were decapitated in the attack. Egender recalls that he was leaning over the bombsightwhen the attack commenced. he remembers the Plexiglas nose getting hit and a 20mm cannon shell exploding under the bombsight, throwing him from the nose back into the tunnel below the flight deck. The dazed bombardier remembers the aircraft's nose being filled with smoke and the smell of cordite permeating the air. Egender, now with a minor wound on his right leg, regained his wits and stuck his head up into the cockpit. Chase came down from the top turret when the fire hit the cockpit. From the flight deck he informed Egender that the pilots were dead and that he should get out.

Other flight crews reported "Mizpah" to be in a shallow but seemingly controlled dive as it passed through 15,000 feet. What they saw was the courageous effort of Glen Chase trying to gain control of his dying ship. The engineer pulled the bodies of the pilots off of the control yokes and made a gallant attempt to level the plane out for a brief period, thereby giving the remaining crewmen a chance to get out of the doomed ship. Since the electrical and intercom systems were shot up and inoperative it is not known if tailgunner James Bowcock or ball-turret gunner Johnny O'Toole were ever actually informed of the disaster at hand until the ship started its dive.

photo courtesy Rich Ribaudo

The subsequent events are a bit blurry to George. They occurred so rapidly that he would have little time but to react and struggle for his life. Just as he reached his parachute, and before he had completely attached it, the fuselage of "Mizpah" disintegrated around him. The window on the roof of the radio room was gone and as the ship came apart, Vender found himself floating in space as he was pelted by junk. He was surrounded by bits of metal, ammunition belts, shell casings, links, and assorted pieces of debris, all of which were being whipped around in the atmosphere by the rapidly moving slipstream, ripping its way into the torn aircraft like a tornado. Wrapped in stray ammunition belts, Vender frantically pulled at the D-ring on his chest parachute in an effort to get the silk canopy that would save his life to pop open and slow his fall. Much to George's terror, each pull of the ripcord only served to spin him in the direction which he was pulling! After spinning completely around three times, he finally pulled the D-ring straight out and away from his body and the parachute opened. However, his troubles were not yet over. This day, George had been issued his parachute harness in haste before the mission and did not realize it was sized for someone of much bigger stature than him. To his horror, George started to slip out of the harness after the chute inflated and took up tension on the risers between the canopy and his harness. At this point he realized a morbid sense of irony thinking he had survived all that mayhem in the destroyed ship only to fall out of his parachute! finally, through sheer force of will he managed to wrestle his way back into the harness as he slowly fell to earth.

Vender, Egender, O'Toole and Bowcock were captured shortly after reaching the earth. They were rounded up and kept together for a few days until they were sent to prison camp; Egender to Stalag Luft 3, and the enlisted men to the infamous Stalag 17-B. However, the story of the doomed waist gunners and pilots was not yet over. O'Toole and Vender hit the ground fairly close to each other. Before they were taken into custody by local authorities, both Johnny and George returned to the wrecked, wingless fuselage of "Mizpah," which by some strange stroke of fate had landed very close to where the two had touched down. They examined the interior of their ship to check for any unlikely signs of life. Inside, still at their positions in the waist, were the crushed bodies of Moore and Hagin. In the cockpit were the remains of Kenner and Bryan. O'Toole suffered from the horror of this image being burned into his memory for the rest of his life. The same was true for the ordeal of Stalag 17-B.

Shortly after being captured, but before they were taken to the town of Mayen for detainment, Vender and O'Toole had yet another astonishing experience. At the time, it probably didn't strike them as fascinating, probably just the opposite. Looking back on it now, George realizes it was something few men encounter. Vender and O'Toole were transported via truck to a temporary airfield outside of Mayen where they stopped briefly. Several Luftwaffe pilots were milling around groups of other downed allied airmen and asking them questions. In broken English, one of these pilots asked "who has LG O on their airplane?" George replied that he and his crewmates did. A young redheaded German pilot proudly approached the beleaguered group of airmen and said, "Me, I shot you down!" He approached Vender, eyed the 8th Air Force patch on the shoulder of George's flight suit and said, "I require this, yes?" realizing this was a request for a souvenir and too dazed and tired to give a damn about it, Vender just shrugged his shoulders. The pilot cut the patch from George's sleeve and claimed his victory trophy. Then, either out of the spirit of chivalry between airmen, or perhaps just arrogance, the German pilot ushered Vender and O'Toole over to a group of fighter planes where he proudly showed off his Fw 190A-4 to his victims. No sooner had Vender and O'Toole met both the man and machine that had ruined their day, the party abruptly ended. A furious German of obviously superior rank ran over to the little group and started reading the riot act to the German pilot. It was clear that he was not pleased with the pilot for fraternizing with these "Luftgangsters" and letting them get so close to his aircraft. What was now left of the Kenner crew was taken away for interrogation. Vender, O'Toole, Chase, and Bowcock spent the next 21 months as guests of the Reich in Stalag 17-B in Krems, Austria.

The original navigator, Carlyle Darling, would also go down that day aboard "Dame Satan," and would spent the next 9 months evading capture in France and Belgium, but would eventually become a Prisoner of War as well. August 17, 1943 would mark the day of the greatest losses that the 8th Air Force had suffered up to that point in the war. Out of the 346 B-17's that took part in the mission, 60 did not return. Appalling losses would again be encountered on the September 6 mission to Stuttgart, and again on October 14, when the 8th Air Force returned to Schweinfurt, losing another 60 B-17's. It would take long range fighter escort, and a withering Luftwaffe to change the fates of the bombing campaign. The Spring of 1944 saw the addition of fighter escort that could accompany the bombers all the way to Berlin and back, and the mounting Luftwaffe losses began to show in the skill and quality of its pilots. The decimation of the Luftwaffe throughout 1944, coupled with the destruction of its fuel supply, kept it on the ground as the Allies achieved air superiority.

The account of B-17F 41-24453 is but one of thousands of similar experiences, faced by the young American aircrews that filled the skies of Europe during World War Two. Some lived, some died, all are heroes.