CHAMPAGNE GIRL
42-107075
B-17G-35-
91/323 OR-Q

Joining the group on the 22nd March 1944 Champagne Girl was on her 45th sortie when powerful turbulence caused by propwash caught her on the bomb run over Lechfeld airfield on 19th July. Suddenly thrown to the left, the wing crashed into the right horizontal stabilizer of Bunky and her props sliced into the fuselage by the main hatch. On his sixth mission in the aircraft, 2/Lt.Cyril Braund wrestled desperately with the controls and managed to keep his plane under control while his crew watched helplessly as "Bunky" plunged earthwards, severed in two. The badly damaged Champagne Girl was pulled out of formation and the pilot radioed that he would try to make the safety of neutral Switzerland. A combination of luck, skill and the lack of Luftwaffe interference enabled the crippled plane to reach the skies over Obersaxon in Switzerland but there was no chance of a landing. The crew abandoned the plane before it plunged into a rocky mount and was totally destroyed except for the battered tail that stood like a monument to her passing. The crew parachuted safely and were interned by the Swiss authorities for the duration of the war. Edward Register was the first pilot to take the plane on a combat sortie, on 24th March to Frankfurt. His crew completed ten of their missions in the ship before the end of April, claiming at least one Me109 destroyed on 29th March over Brunswick. One of the many pilots who later took the plane was John Kerr, who had been Bob Sheriff's copilot in Sheriffs Posse. When Sheriff became a group lead pilot, Kerr took over the crew to complete their tour and flew eight missions in the plane. Although currently unconfirmed, it is possible that this plane was named Fancy Pants at that time, May and June, but it has not been determined if this was a prior title or an additional one to Champagne Girl.

"Story taken from Plane Names & Fancy Noses,by Ray Bowden"