MY DESIRE
42-37965 B-17G
91/323 OR-U

Another December 1943 arrival at Bassingbourn five days before Christmas, “My Desire” completed 12 combat sorties before 3rd March. Basil Hackleman's crew completed five missions in the plane, flying the aircraft's first on 30th December to Ludwigshaven. On 24th and 29th January, Hacklemen took My Desire to Frankfurt and it would make a third visit there on 2nd March with Walter Pickard. Over Oschersleben, with the Harding crew on the 22nd February, the plane was severely damaged by fighters that struck the ship from head-on and fatally wounded he bombardier. The damaged nose was repaired and three days later Walter Pickard began the first of his three sorties in the plane, to Augsburg.

On 3rd March, the 8th Air Force headed for Berlin but deteriorating weather conditions forced the formation of heavy bombers to divert to a target of opportunity, Wilhelmshaven. .

As the formations of 1st Combat Wing turned and flew back along a reciprocal course they encountered heavy contrails of the 4th Combat Wing units. In the dense clouds of condensation the pilots of hundreds of heavily laden For- tresses struggled to maintain control and avoid a mid air collision. An eyewitness from the 94th Bomb Group described how the two groups met head-on with one B-17 going up over them and another below. One ship that dove below him struck the Fort following behind. High above the cold North Sea, in a blinding flash of brilliant red, the ships crunched into each other. Fuel and bombs ignited; men and wreckage spilled out over the sea leaving a huge pall of smoke hang- ing in the sky.

For many years it was believed that one of those planes had been Walter Pickard's “My Desire” and that it had collided with the Fort flown by the 94th Bomb Group's Don Ahlwardt. However, two years after the war was over, Walter filed a report to the Army Air Force Headquarters that recalled in detail his memories of what occurred that day. The intention was to set the record straight but, like so many others, the report gathered dust and the record remained unaltered.

Walter Pickard's report stated "As we were circling over the coast, awaiting radio instructions from England, we ran into some fairly intense flak. One of the bursts hit the oil lines in my No.2 engine and I could not feather it. The added drag that this caused plus our extremely high attitude caused us to drop out of formation instantly. We salvaged the bombs immediately but by this time we had dropped down into the undercast... we could not get enough power out of the three good engines to climb back into formation, so we set a course for England." At about this time, the engine that was out and had been windmilling began to catch fire so Walter Pickard prepared his crew for bail out. Unsure where they were and afraid that they might be over the North Sea he decided to dive the ship in an attempt to put the fire out. Finally, after dropping through 21,000 feet of cloud they broke out into the clear and discovered they were still over Holland.

The report continued, "By this time we had been able to get the ship under better control and so were able to hold our altitude. We thought we were out of danger then and had relaxed slightly but were still worried about enemy fighters. Then," wrote Walter, " we ran into trouble that really put the finishing touch to our plane. We flew almost directly over a German flak battery that was not marked on our maps. At 8,000ft it is almost suicide to fly over a flak battery. I put the ship through the most violent evasive maneuvers that are possible with a B17. But we could not escape the gunners and they shot the ship up very badly. They got an almost direct hit on No.3 engine.... and they shot out both the VHF and Liaison radio sets, and in general the plane looked like a sieve. But none of the crew members were injured."

Finally, they were out of range of the flak and out over engines now out and out over the sea. With two engines now out and windmilling, their speed was cut to 115mph using full emergency power. Pickard estimated their chances at 50/50 and the crew began to throw out everything they could to lighten the ship. Finally, they were down to 1500ft and only 15 miles from the English coast. As they passed over the occasional boat it was decided that their chances of ditching successfully with a rapid pickup were the best they had. Any choice they had was taken from them as the No.1 engine finally burned out and ceased completely. They had to ditch immediately.” Pickard continued his report, "About all I could do was stick the nose down and try to keep from stalling. The sea was pretty rough that day, waves had crests of 4- 5 feet but I was lucky and made a comparative smooth landing. The ship did not break up and none of the crew was injured..... I got the life raft out on my side... and this was the final blow, it was shot to ribbons. Only one side was intact and could be inflated. The raft on the other side was so badly shot up that it would not even come out of its storage place.... The plane floated for about six minutes after we landed, then we had to get into the water.

In the freezing waters of the North Sea the men had only a few minutes before the numbing cold would claim them. A trawler approached but was not able to come alongside of them because the water was too shallow. A small boat was launched and rowed towards the cluster of men as they clung desperately to the half inflated dinghy. The boat was only able to pick up five men before it became endangered by overloading in the heavy seas and it had to return to the trawler, intending to return for the others. About 15 minutes later a British Air Sea Rescue Walrus flying boat landed in the sea close to the dinghy but it was too late. Those on board the trawler thought their comrades had been saved by the plane but in fact the crew of the Walrus later reported that all had been seen floating face down and none of the bodies were recovered.

The survivors of Walter Pickard's crew returned to Bassingbourn and continued their tour of missions after naming their replacement ship as “Ramblin’ Rebel”.

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