MISMALOVIN’

The US Army Air Force’s major plans and operations in Europe involving heavy bombers usually resulted in heavy losses for Allied air assets and men in addition to the successes they achieved. Operation Argument, more commonly referred to as ‘Big Week’, between the 20th and 25th of February, 1944, was supposed to be the first important step in the quest for definitive air supremacy over Europe. The strikes by the Allied air forces, both the USAAF and the RAF, were therefore aimed mainly at the aviation industry and its associated infrastructure - logistical targets, air bases and many smaller targets of opportunity.

The Allies lost 357 bombers during the six days of ‘Big Week’. One of them, on the last day of the operation, was B-17F 42-30788 named Mismalovin' of the 350th BS, 100th Bomb Group. Losses of the Hundred during these six days, during the attacks on Posen, Stettin, Brunswick, Alhorn, Vorden, Rostock and Regensburg, amounted unusually to ‘just’ four aircraft.

Mismalovin' was assigned to the 100th Bomb Group at the beginning of September, 1943. The crew commanded by Lt. Stewart A. McClain arrived at Thorpe Abbotts a month later. Most of their missions, the first of which was completed on the 1st of November, 1943, were flown in ‘their’ B-17F, which carried noseart on both sides of the nose, unusual for the 100th Bomb Group. While the right side was decorated with a scantily clad, well...actually completely nude, young lady (which was also unusual for the 100th BG) with the name of the aircraft, the left, in front of the pilot's windows, sported a large gremlin type figure, taken from the unit patch of the 350th BS, climbing up the plane and releasing bombs from a chamber pot. Their number varied. Originally, it could have been an unusual record of the number of missions flown, which would be evidenced by the fact that a small number 13 was placed above one of them. Later, however, they became a rather prominent drawing across the entire height of the nose, part of the noseart, and others were no longer painted.

On Sunday, November 5th, Mismalovin' was seriously damaged by flak over Gelsenkirchen , puncturing engine number 4’s oil tank.

Lt. McClain, the aircraft’s pilot, later recalled: ‘We flew a little ways further, still in formation. Another burst caught our number two engine. With two engines left to get home on, we had to drop out of formation.’

A group of Messerschmitts targeted the lonely Mismalovin'. They came from behind at a bad time, just as the rear gunner, Sgt. Bennett struggled with the frosted glass of his gun turret. The top turret gunner, Sgt. Walters, was however able to answer. He managed to shoot down one of the attackers, the others retreated out of range. The pilots struggled with the controls as fuel was continuously leaking from the punctured fuel tanks.

Co-pilot Lt. McBride added: ‘We started back, losing altitude all the way. By the time we reached England, we were down to six thousand feet.’

They eventually landed on the runway of their own base at Thorpe Abbotts. An Army PR message added: ‘The Fortress landed with less gas you can get on a A card (authors note: during WWII a special card/sticker that allowed the car owner to purchase about 4 gallons of gas each week), and so full of flak holes that it looked like a mechanized sieve.’

Mismalovin' suffered various damage in the following months as well. Even so, her and McClain's crew's mission credits were rising.

There were cities whose names, when uttered during briefings at the 100th Bomb Group, sent chills down the spine, to say the least. Berlin, Schweinfurt, Bremen, Münster, Merseburg, Ruhland… and also Regensburg. Since the legendary mission on August 17th, 1943, The Hundredth had not been over this target. The return was to come at the end of Big Week, February 25th, 1944. McClain's crew took off again in Mismalovin', their 22nd mission. They almost saw themselves on their way home…

Flak over the target knocked out engine number 2 on the left shortly after 2 pm Immediately, the oil pressure dropped and the entire aircraft shook violently. Before the pilots managed to shut down the engine and feather the prop, the engine appeared to be torn apart. Lt. Delbert S. Pearson, a pilot flying a nearby B-17, observed the event: ‘A/C #788 was observed to be hit by flak just after bombs away over the target. Gasoline immediately began to flood back over the wing and the A/C began to fall behind.’

With the engine shut down, the B-17 began to rapidly lose altitude. The crew had to leave the formation. She had over 800 kilometers to return home alone. Most of it through Germany and the territories of the occupied continent. It didn't take long for German fighters to pounce on the lonely and damaged Mismalovin'.

A chase began which ended up just above the tops of roofs and trees, at a height of 200-300 feet. It almost seemed that the situation of November 5th of the previous year might be repeated. However, this was not the case... At low altitude, the aircraft became an easy target even for light flak, and in addition, fighter attacks did not stop. Their rounds inflicted additional damage on the B-17 and gradually killed the navigator, radio operator and co-pilot, and seriously wounded the top turret gunner, tail gunner, bombardier, pilot.... Nevertheless, the plane slowly dragged itself through Germany, Belgium, France, while it continued to be attacked by fighters. Miraculously, the shot-up B-17 stayed in the air. The tail gunner, Sgt. William T. Cook recalled the event: ‘In spite of the licking we were taking, we still managed to give a pretty good account of ourselves. The engineer shot down two fighters, the bombardier had one possible, and I shot down two of which I am sure.’

In the area of ​​Calais, France, the plane came over the English Channel. At one point, glimpses of England could be made out. At the same time, however, the attacks of German fighters intensified and increased in number. At that moment, Sgt. Cook noticed that instead of flying towards England, the plane was turning left and slowly losing altitude. He tried to call the pilot on the intercom, but there was no answer. He figured that the pilot had been wounded or killed by the last rounds. As he had partial experience flying a B-17, he decided to go into the cockpit and possibly try to fly to England himself. As he climbed out of his rear gun position and into the fuselage, he just saw one of the airmen parachute out. However, they were only about 50-100 feet above the surface and the crew's replacement, waist gunner Sgt. Knudsen, died after falling into the water.

Sgt. Cook continued in his memoirs: ‘Out ball turret gunner, S/Sgt. Lawrence Bennett, was standing in the door ready to jump. I reached for him, pulled him back into the plane, and told him to take off his chute because we were about to crash. He was having some difficulty removing his chute and I was assisting him when the plane crashed into the English Channel. I was knocked unconscious in the crash and woke up floating in the Channel. When I regained consciousness, I saw one other person, a spare gunner flying with us that day, who had survived. We were picked up by some German Marines, taken to a hospital in Calais, France, where we stayed for about three or four days, and I was then moved to an interrogation center in Frankfurt. I spent about 20 days in Frankfurt (in solitaire) and was then sent to a POW camp.’

That gunner, whose name Sgt. Cook could not remember, was Sgt. Clade Zukowski. Only he and Cook survived. Other members of Lt. McClain’s crew died either as a result of being hit by German fighters, or by hitting the surface of the water. The plane went down about 2 miles off the coast near Calais. In addition to the two survivors, German sailors also recovered the bodies of some of the crew members.

Official German reports stated: ‘The aircraft crashed in the water at Sangatte about 1701h during an attempted return flight to England. The dead man (Lt. McClain, authors note) was recovered and buried at the cemetery of Marquise on February 28th, 1944. Passport papers and identification tags were no longer recognizable. The name was determined by two captured members of the same crew.’

Two of the crew members of the last Mismalovin' flight remain missing to this day - navigator Lt. Mordkowitz and tail gunner T/Sgt. Fernandez. Their bodies rest with the wreckage of Mismalovin’ at the bottom of the English Channel, not far from the French coast.

Postscriptum: Some of the aircraft names in the unit were inherited by newly arriving aircraft. This was usually due to the ground crew, who, when they lost their aircraft, sometimes named its replacement after it. Sometimes a new aircraft was named by the flight crew when their original was lost on ‘loan’ or they received a new, more modern one. In the 100th Bomb Group, their successors were named after original B-17s - Horny II, Skipper II and Skipper III (KC-135R), Rosies' Riveters II (and III, also KC 135R), Alice from Dallas II, Humpty Dumpty II, Hard Luck II, Fletchers Castoria II, Holly Terror II, King Bee II and more. Among them, the legendary machines of Frank Valesh's crew Hang the Expense stand out, which made it to number IV.

Mismalovin' also had a successor in a certain way, although the transcription was somewhat different. The pronunciation and meaning remained. After the original Mismalovin' sank in the Straits near Calais on February 25th, 1944, a new silver B-17G s/n 42-97127 arrived at sister unit 349th BS. She was named Miss Ma' Lovin'. After several weeks of service, she was shot down on May 12th, 1944 in a raid on a synthetics factory in Most (Brüx) in the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. A direct flak hit above the target and a subsequent explosion in the air killed the ball turret gunner. The rest of the ten-member crew of Lt Jack C. Moore took to their parachutes. They thus became the first airmen of the 8th Air Force to be shot down over Czechoslovakia.