An Airman's Odyssey

The straggling B-17, with its number two engine on fire, was now alone over unfriendly skies.  The German fighter pilots saw the crippled bomber as an easy kill and formed up for a second pass.  Bullets soon riddled the plane’s nose, radio room, ball turret and tail section.  The second German fighter attack wounded the radio operator, navigator, ball turret gunner and tail gunner.  The German machine gun fire also shredded the parachutes belonging to the navigator and bombardier and set fire to the number three engine.

Lieutenant MacDonald struggled to keep control of his aircraft.  A moment later, the voice of Lieutenant Moskowitz came over the intercom: “Mac, the fire destroyed both our chutes.”  The plane carried only one spare parachute, which meant that with the two damaged chutes of the navigator and bombardier, the crew still needed one more parachute.  MacDonald replied to Moskowitz: “Stand by.”  Lieutenant Godsey, the copilot, broke the momentary silence on the intercom:  “Mac, I think we better do something.  We’re on fire and with two engines out, we’re losing altitude fast.”

MacDonald did not wait long to make a decision.  He sounded the alarm bell, signaling the crew to evacuate the plane.  Immediately the voice of the navigator came back over the intercom: “Mac, I have no chute.”  Without hesitation MacDonald replied: “Come up here and take mine.  Get out now.”  Jack Moskowitz complied with his pilot’s instructions and obtained MacDonald’s parachute from the cockpit.  Lieutenant Harris grabbed the plane’s spare chute and got ready to bail out.  After opening the hatch on the underside of the plane’s nose, Harris, Godsey and Moskowitz jumped free of the burning aircraft. 

While preparing to evacuate the plane, Wendell Dowell and Willie Rowden noticed that the ball turret had lost power, leaving Bill Valigura trapped inside.   The two airmen started to manually crank the turret around to allow access to the ball turret hatch from the interior of the aircraft. 

Mearl Cline made his way from the top turret toward the back of the plane, per the pilot’s orders, to ensure that the wounded got out.  As he moved through the radio room, he observed the efforts of Dowell and Rowden to free Valigura from the ball turret and decided to assist.  The three airmen manually cranked the ball turret around to expose the turret’s escape hatch.  They released the locking levers and opened the hatch, allowing Valigura to climb back into the relative safety of the aircraft. 

As Dowell, Rowden and Cline worked to free Valigura from the ball turret, Batdorf glanced out his right waist gun window and noticed a German FW-190 fighter plane flying straight at him from three o’clock level.  He aimed his .50-caliber machine gun at the nose of the oncoming German fighter and held down the trigger.  A steady stream of bullets headed toward the fighter, but the German kept up his attack.  His machine gun continued to send more bullets toward the attacking plane until, about 150 yards from his gun position, the FW-190 exploded.  Batdorf had made his first kill.  Unfortunately, as no other allied aircraft witnessed the event, he would never receive credit for downing the FW-190.

Batdorf immediately returned to the task of getting ready to bail out.  As he turned to his right, and looked back in the direction of the waist door, he noticed the motionless body of Bob Allen crumpled in front of the exit.  Wounded in the hand, Allen had disconnected from the plane’s oxygen supply at the tail gun position.  He crawled to the door next to the right waist gun in an effort to escape from the plane.  As the bomber was still at approximately 20,000 feet, he had passed out from the lack of oxygen. His body now blocked the door that was the only remaining exit for the crewmen. 

Batdorf and Dowell rolled the unconscious tail gunner away from the door to clear the exit.  They then opened the door and pushed Allen clear of the aircraft.  Valigura and Dowell were next out the door.

Willie Rowden headed toward the waist door to make his exit when he realized that his G.I. shoes were still in the radio room.  Once on the ground, the heavy flight boots would be cumbersome and the G.I. shoes would be a necessity.He returned to the radio room to retrieve his shoes. Distracted by the FW-190 and then by the incident with the tail gunner, Batdorf realized that he still had not put on his parachute.He headed back to the right waist gun to retrieve his chute and clipped it to the rings on the front of his harness straps.