BULL SESSION
43-38911
B-17G-100-BO
91/323 OR-

Assigned to the 323rd Squadron's Edward Bull, and his crew on 5th November 1944, Bull Session was in combat just four davs later supporting ground forces fighting around Metz. Bull's crew flew the ship on another ten of their missions, including a trip to Berlin on 5th December and two visits to Merseburg. The plane was on its 18th sortie on Sunday 14th January 1945, to Cologne, but the Bull crew were not flying that day and Bull Session was taken by William Meyer's crew instead.

Bull Session was the only 91st Bomb Group plane to be lost on the mission to destroy the Deutz bridge in the center of Cologne. The 91 st despatched 37 aircraft to the target and met only light fighter opposition but were mauled by intense and accurate flak. 2/Lt. William Meyer's Fortress took a direct hit which blew engines 3 and 4 completely away and sent the plane falling out of formation. George Kesselring was flying next to Bull Session that day and noted in his diary "We caught flak at the front lines and were under fire for 15 minutes, our No. 2 wing ship blew up,the Pilot was on his 5th mission - swell kid, married (such is war)..."

Years later he recalled the incident in detail, "Johnny (Flynn) had just tapped me on the shoulder and taken control of our ship. In my stretching to relax my muscles I just leaned forward and looked out of my window at our right wingman to check his position," George recalled. Trust as I did this, our wingman's plane started to disintegrate in slow motion - the wings dropped off, the nose, the mid-section and the tail all came apart and fell out of sight. The strange sight of this plane coming apart is high- lighted by the fact-that I could see no external explosion. This could only be explained by the explosion of the 88mm shell being inside the B 17 - there was no external sign. It is one amazing sight that I cannot forget."

George did not see anyone bail out but a single chute was seen by other observers to drop from the stricken plane before it crashed into the ground and exploded killing seven members of the crew. In fact, two men, the navigator and bombardier, both survived.

“Story taken from Plane Names & Fancy Noses”