The 109th Evacuation Hospital was a 400-bed unit, usually housed in tents and called semi-mobile since it could be dismantled, loaded onto trucks, moved, and set up again in a few hours. It was a complete hospital since it had surgical staff and equipment to do any type of surgical procedure necessary in combat. During the invasion of Normandy, the hospital had landed on Utah Beach and supported Patton’s 3-A as it moved across France. On November 9, 1944, the 109th Evacuation Hospital was located to the north of the World War One St Mihiel American Cemetery (west-north-west of Rhiacourt-Regincourt (France) and was later ordered to move, on December 4, 1944, to the vicinity of Boulay (France). They were the patients who were remembered years later when the author attended their reunions. Of the over 25.000 patients they had treated during the war, the survivors of this B-17 crash, which many of them had watched take place, were the only aviators the hospital had treated.
Six miles to the east of Hattonville, a farmer was working in his field gathering a late cut of hay with the help of displaced Polish people brought from Poland by the Germans to be forced labor in France. They all stopped and watched, as the wounded Flying Fortress came from the east and was going to pass about a mile north of them. Its right wing appeared to be burning, leaving a blow torch of flame streaking behind it and its left-wing left a broad plume of back smoke which flowed back as far to the east, as they could see. At the time, all the French people referred to all four-engine bombers, as Flying Fortresses. At the time, the farmer did not know if it was a B-17 or a B-24. It was just a Flying Fortress and it could not fly much further. Suddenly, it began a very sharp climb and he thought, it might roll over on its back and crash. Instead, a man appeared and the climb stopped and it began to dive as if it was going to crash. The man’s parachute opened and then, just when they thought the Fortress would crash, it leveled out for a second and began another sharp climb. Again, suddenly, a man appeared, and again the Fortress dove toward the ground. Again, as the man’s parachute opened, the Fortress leveled out, but it was a lot lower and then it disappeared over the National Forest to his west. The farmer had seen several crashes and he decided, he had to keep his workers busy as the two parachutes disappeared to their north, he told the men to get busy. He heard the roar of the damaged engines fade and then, the sound got louder as if the Fortress was flying back toward Germany. All this happened within three minutes and then, he heard the sound of an explosion, not an explosion of bombs, but one that sounded like he had thrown a can of gasoline over a pile of limbs and threw a match on the pile. It was a whooshing noise, not the sharp sound of bombs going off. At the same time, a column of smoke rose above the National Forest two miles to the west of his position. The farmer went back to work and except for discussing the Fortress in the bars for some years, he had forgotten about it, until the author found him in the same field, many years later.
Back aboard the Lady Jeannette, Lt Gott, and Lt Metzger had realized they were going to crash immediately. They had now lost too much altitude to fly over the hill in front of them where they could see a field on top where they might have safely slid into a soft crash. Now, if they maintained the same flight pattern as they had since regaining control, they were going to crash into the village at the top of the hill or into the side of the hill or a village at the bottom of the hill. Lt Gott told Lt Harms to go back and tell the men to be ready to bail as soon as Gott ordered it. He wanted them to bail out where they would not land in the forest, instead, they could land in an open field in front of them.
As Lt Harms crossed the bomb bay into the radio compartment and started to open the door, all of a sudden the bomber began a sharp climb and Harms held on to keep from falling down and possibly out of the open bomb bay. He managed to start to open the door and when he looked down through the radio compartment and waist, he could see that there were only two men there and one of them was going out the hatch as he looked. Lt Harms turned around to go back to the cockpit, suddenly, he had to hold on again, as the bomber started another dive, that became a climb and was followed by another dive. As the plane began to level out, Harms entered the cockpit and told Gott, that one man was gone, another was leaving and the last man was ready to bail out when he began to come back to the cockpit. Gott told Harms and Gustafson to get forward and be ready to bail out, as soon as they cleared the woods. Fross was the first survivor to land right in an open field and saw an American army tent with a red cross on it some distance away. He wrapped up his parachute and began to walk to the tent. As he approached the tent, Americans walked out to meet him, and civilians from the nearby village approached both groups. They took him to the tent and realized his bell had been rung. After a physical check, they put him in an ambulance to take him to the nearby hospital that could be seen on the hill to their south.
Robbins saw that he was going to land in the woods and he crossed his legs and arms with his hands in front of his face as he had been instructed for such a landing. He only felt light limbs brushing against him as he landed standing up in the middle of the woods. He was near the edge of the woods when he heard a motor coming and then he saw a jeep coming across the field toward the woods. Robbins released his parachute harness and left the parachute hanging in the trees, as he walked out to meet the jeep. Just before he landed, Robbins had heard the bomber’s engine noise getting louder, and then, as he entered the woods, he heard the whooshing explosion. As he walked out of the woods, he looked to the west and realized the smoke column he saw had to be from his B-17. When the jeep arrived, the driver told Robbins to get in and he started back across the pasture toward some houses. The jeep headed to the smoke column and Robbins thought the man was going to take him to the crash site. Instead, as they passed between the house and a barn, the driver turned right onto a road and started driving north, away from the crash site. When Robbins asked where the man was taking him, he told Robbins, that he was stationed at the Etain Army Air Base and he was taking Robbins there, so the medics could check him out. Upon arrival, about 15 miles north of the crash site, the man dropped Robbins off at the medics and as they were checking him, the unit commander came in and Robbins told him all about his B-17, its crash, and the condition of the men on board when he bailed out. He also talked about the man who was hanging under the tail. The commander told him, that as soon as the medics were finished with him, he was to go to the flight line, where they had made arrangements for a light airplane to come and pick him up because they had direct orders to get downed aircrew members back to their base as soon as possible.
Robbins arrived at the control tower and they told him it would be some time before his ride arrived. He saw two P-61 Black Widow Night fighters close to the control tower and he told the operator he was going to go look at them as he had never seen one. When he arrived at the two planes, the men working on them saw the blood on his clothing and asked what had happened. Suddenly, they were more than anxious to show him their two-night fighters. After a while, they heard the motor of a light plane. He shook the men’s hands and arrived at the small plane, as it came to a stop. The pilot told him to get in and told him, they were on their way to Paris, where he would be set up for a flight back to his base in England. His November 9, 1944, was now complete. Meanwhile, inside the Lady Jeannette, Harms was out of the escape hatch before Harland who was at the hatch could get out. Gustafson had thought about what he could do to get to the hatch, so he picked up his right leg by the cuff of his pants crabbed down into the nose, and followed the others out. Gustafson was the last survivor to leave the bomber as it approached the village of Hattonville. The hill was now less than two miles away and the B-17 could not clear it.
(Above) T/Sgt Russell W. Gustafson (Flight Engineer), 729-BS, 452-BG, 8-USAAF (Heavy), B-17G #42-97904, standing at the very place where the forward part of his B-17 and the cockpit became to the final rest. Hattonville, September 2000.
By that time in the village, the Americans were beginning to drive their vehicles out of the village and yet, some were held in place by what they were watching happen. These men were ground pounders, who helped aircraft conduct their missions, but most of them had never seen a B-17 or B-24 up close. Especially, one that was flying directly at them, and each thought, it was targeting them.
Maj Yashar A. Venar, Medic assigned to 563-SAWB was standing at the village hall & school house (Hattonville), which had been taken over to become their operations plotting center, and when the first man bailed out, he told the ambulance driver to head to where that man was going to land. As the ambulance driver headed toward the road out to the field where the man would land, he saw one of the women of the village with her son in her arms running to the south away from the village center. (The driver told the author, that he remembered her skirt was flying and she was really moving. Then, just as he was ready to turn off onto the road to the field, the woman stopped and was gazing at the bomber as it was now very close to the village. When the author first visited the village in September 1998, he met the boy who had been in his mother’s arms. He was now the Mayor of the village). As everyone watched the approaching bomber, they realized it might crash on them. Many found they could not move as they watched the flaming smoking bomber approach them. Then, they saw another man fall from the bomber, followed by a third and at that time, none of them knew if anyone was left in the bomber. Was it under human control or just continuing toward them?
Lady Jeannette: Cut a way of the inside as Gustafson, the last survivor bailed out, just before the crash. Metzger had no parachute and Gott was a by-the-numbers flyer and command pilot, even if he could have, he would not, so both pilots rode her down. In the radio compartment is the radio operator, Dunlap. (Not shown is the fourth crewman, the tail gunner, Krimminger, whose parachute had gone over the tail of the plane and Krimminger had been trapped to hang under the plane.
After the second sudden climb, dive, and bringing the B-17 back under control, the two pilots realized something had changed. All of a sudden, they did not have to hold the controls to the right. Now, they could feel the possibility of actually turning the bomber to the right. As the last three survivors bailed out, the sudden loss of weight was going to allow them to fly a short distance further. As Gustafson left the bomber, they were about 1.75 miles from the village. The pilots thought they had no choice, they were either going to crash into the village or overfly it. Obviously, their conversation had to be, with each agreeing, they now had the possibility of flying further and with the sudden, additional control of the bomber, they could continue toward the village. They quickly agreed that if either of them thought they would not clear the village, they would dive into the ground before reaching the small village!
Based on all the members of the Battalion, the author was able to contact those French still living in the village. All of them were amazed as the flaming-smoking Flying Fortress began a turn and passed over the village church steeple with no more than three hundred feet of clearance. All of them had expected the bomber to fly north toward the fields there, but it continued its turn until it was flying back toward Germany. Back along its flight path, the three survivors, still hanging under their parachutes, saw their bomber was now flying back east, about a thousand feet north of where they were going to land. Before the turn, both, Gott and Metzger, had realized they were passing over a large field complex where they could have slid in for a crash landing if only they could control their altitude. Then, as they made the turn to the north, they saw the area in front of them was full of trees, offering no safe place to slide in. So, they completed the turn, thinking they could make another turn to the right and slide into the field they had passed over, to make a safe crash landing. As they completed the turn, Metzger looked out at the field and realized there were people in the area where the bomber would have to crash. In that area, were Americans from a radar unit that had moved the day before. With the vehicles and people, it was obvious they could not attempt a safe crash there. So, they continued to the east, and out in the distance, they saw large fields where they might crash if only they could clear the forest they were now flying over. Both realized they did not have the altitude to do that and their last opportunity to save their lives was to immediately turn to the right and crash into the field just beyond the forest below. However, both realized that landing there would require them to fly into the location where the last crew members had bailed out and were still in the air suspended below their parachutes. Managing to have the plane flying between the two men, the prop wash and air disturbance generated by the engine of the bomber would probably cause both men’s parachutes to collapse. Neither, Gott nor Metzger was prepared to risk another man’s life to save their own and they continued east.
Watching closely, as soon as they thought they might circle back to the field and avoid the first man who bailed out, they started the turn. They were about halfway through the turn when the bottom of the B-17 began to clip the top limbs of the Hattonville Forest. What neither pilot knew, was what had enabled the additional control, was their tail gunner, S/Sgt Krimminger. He had been the first man out of the waist because he had accidentally opened his parachute inside the waist and as it blew out the hatch, the parachute went over the tail and pulled Krimminger out of the arms of Robbins and Fross. As he cleared the hatch, his body swung down and under the tail, where his body slammed up into the tail control plane. Forcing it up, which caused the sudden climb. Then, as his body fell down and away, the dive began. Only to have his body slam up against the control plane again, forcing the second climb. Both Robbins and Fross told the author, that there was nothing they could do and they had to bail out, listening to the screams of Krimminger, asking them to help him. As the bomber lowered into the wood, the limbs began to tear at Krimminger’s body as it hung under the tail. He had been pulled out of the B-17, still wearing his helmet with its ear-protective clamshell ea
