RAMBLIN’ REBEL
43-37540
B-17G
91/323 OR-B/Z

Although the majority of aircraft were named by its flight crew, it was not unusual for the ground crew to get in first or to be honored by the air crew. When a new replacement ship arrived on the base and it was assigned to Walter Pickard’s crew, they decided to name it in honor of the crew chief, Master Sergeant Howard Sherman. Sherman was a southerner from West Virginia and the choice of nose art showed a shabby hillbilly rebel soldier astride a forlorn and equally shabby old horse. The style was unmistakably that of ‘Tony Starcer’. Walter Pickard recalled the ship clearly. “The truth is,” he wrote, “I was not really too interested in naming my aircraft. Possibly, I just did not want to get attached to an aircraft knowing how they were being shot down during that winter of 1943-44. I flew a number of different aircraft mostly squadron ‘dogs’ as befitted a new boy during my first 10-12 missions. Then after I had to ditch My Desire in the Channel, and lost half of my crew, I was assigned a specific aircraft. My copilot, Bascom Smith, who was more enthusiastic about naming the plane, proposed Ramblin’ Rebel as a name for the new plane. The three remaining gunners and I agreed.”

Pickard was not the first pilot to fly this new arrival, that honor went to Captain Robert Ranzone when he took the ship on a tactical strike on the eve of D-Day. It had been
Assigned to the 323rd Squadron just three days earlier. Walter Pickard climbed aboard his new ship on one of history’s most momentous days - 6th June 1944, D-Day. As the Allied forces stormed ashore in Normand, Pickard’s crew took the plane to pound defense points on the Cherbourg peninsula. It was the first of eight missions that Pickard would fly in the plane. Walter continued, “About this time I started flying group lead and so flew the couple of aircraft that were always used for lead position in the squadron, for the rest of my tour. My copilot then flew Ramblin’ Rebel until he completed his tour.” This was late June and, in fact, Bascom Smith only flew two further missions in Ramblin’ Rebel before passing it on to other crews.

On 16th August 1944, one of Ramblin’ Rebel’s regular crews, that of Lt. Walter Mullins, became the first B-17 crew to exchange fire with an Me163 ‘Flying Wing’ rocket plane. The incident occurred while Ramblin’ Rebel was in the hangar for repairs and Mullins was, in fact, flying Outhouse Mouse on that mission. His crew flew 21 of their combat sorties in Ramblin’ Rebel before completing their tour; Flight Officer William Adams’ crew completed a further 18, their last being on the group’s 300th mission on 24th February 1945. Leland Borgstrom then added more than 15 with his crew.

While flying a repatriation mission to bring POWs and displaced persons back across Europe, after the war had finished, the plane landed at a base on the continent and was abandoned there by its crew. With so many planes now available and few tasked for them to fulfill in Europe, there was little need to rush to repair it and the aircraft inspectors declared the plane salvaged. Eventually it was repaired, returned to England and finally to the USA. With 100+ missions recorded, Ramblin’ Rebel went the same way that so many other B-17s did - south to the burning sands of Kingman, Arizona and the smelter’s furnace.

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