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MAN-O-WAR
41-24399 B-17P-5-BO
91/323 OR-V

This was the first of three Fortresses in the 91st to carry the name of the famous racehorse Man-0-War, a Triple Crown winner. Assigned to the group as part of the initial complement of air-craft, it deployed with the air echelon to England and took part in the group's second combat raid, to Abbeville. It was an inauspicious beginning for the ship, intended to be the group lead and carrying Lt.Col. Lawrence. Mechanical problems caused it to abort the mission and return early. Although it did lead the group on the llth November, six days later, it was plagued with a series of problems which caused several aborts during the following six months. These problems did not, however, prevent Man-0-War from being the oldest B-17F still in the group, and one of the oldest in the entire 8th Air Force, at the time of her loss on 30th July 1943.

Mission 61 for the group, on 30th July, was to hit the Fieseler aircraft plant at Kassel and enemy fighters and accurate flak took their toll. Man-0-War was hit and limped along behind the formation until it was attacked by two fighters which killed two of the crew. Sunshine glinted on the fighters' wings as they banked round and easily out-maneuvered their slowly moving victim and it was not long before parachutes began to blossom below the doomed Fortress. As eight chutes slowly descended, the nightmare vision for many an airman came true as the attackers curved around and poured machine fire into the canopies. Five men were slaughtered as they hung helplessly in their harnesses and a sixth, navigator Robert Duggan, had his chute riddled. He plunged down and hit a cottage roof, smashed through it and fatally struck his head on a beam. The pilot, 2 Lt Keene McCammon, was more fortunate and landed in the river Waal with his copilot John Bruce landing nearby.

Man-0-War crashed to earth near the village of Opijen, Holland and it was here that the bodies of the eight crewmen were buried. These graves remain there today as a result of persuasion by the villagers, their white marble headstones regularly tended and honored by the local people.

This is one of the original Nine B-17 Flying Fortresses that formed the 323rd Bomb Squadron of the 91st Bomb Group.