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WINGED VICTORY
42-97563
B-17G
91/323 OR-U
This
aircraft was christened Winged Victory at
a ceremony held at the BAD1 at Burtonwood.
The date of the publicity exercise is not
known but presumably it was prior to its
assignment to a combat unit. For a brief
period, the silver B-17G was assigned to
the 457th Bomb Group at Glatton but not
for long. Just three days later on 16th
March 1944 it was transferred to Bassingbourn
and into the 323rd Squadron.
Winged Victory flew its first combat sortie
on 23rd March to Ahlen and a succession
of pilots and crews took the ship throughout
its service life flying 12 missions during
April, 13 during May, ll through June and
12 in August 1944. On 9th April, Fred Gardner
was piloting the ship when the group was
recalled on their mission to Gdynia. For
some reason, Lt. Gardner did not receive
the recall and pressed on with only Madame
Shoo Shoo for company. The two 91st planes
tacked themselves on to another group and
bombed Marienburg instead, returning almost
out of fuel after nearly 13 hours of flying.
As a result, the 91st was credited with
having flown the mission, although it was
not the one the group had been assigned!
On 29th April the plane was taken to Berlin,
as the group lead ship, by Captain Samuelson.
It was the only time Winged Victory flew
in the lead role although it visited Berlin
four times. Jerry Stunf took over the plane
the day after D-Day, 7th June, and began
a run of nine sorties although three of
them ended in aborted missions due to mechanical
faults.
Winged Victory was another victim of the
slaughter over Merseburg on 2nd November,
its 68th sortie. Oscar Snow’s crew
had flown the ship more times than any other
crew and were on their 14th raid in the
plane. Between 50 and 75 enemy fighters
attacked the group between 1247 and 1310
hours and cut twelve Forts from the formation.
Another was lost to flak. The main concentration
of fighters hit in the first ten minutes
and with so many ships peeling away and
going down, it was difficult for the surviving
crews to note details about each loss. All
the crew bailed out of the ship north of
the target, in the vicinity of Koethew.
One man reported seeing another chute, as
he descended, turn cherry red in color,
then black and finally disintegrate. Undoubtedly,
this was the unfortunate copilot, Alfred
Zwicky, who was the only member of the crew
to be killed. Winged Victory slammed into
the ground 1305 hours and burned furiously.
German salvage teams, sifting through the
wreckage, later recorded that it was 95%
destroyed and there was little left to salvage.
"Story
taken from Plane Names & Fancy Noses,
by Ray Bowden"
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