NINE LITTLE YANKS AND A JERK
Aircraft s/n 42-3271 is certainly one of the most attractive B-17Fs flown by the 100th Bomb Group with its nose art. This B-17 was not among the unit's original aircraft with which it moved overseas to the European theater. The same can be said of her crew, who gave her the name.
The aircraft served for a month with the 91st Bomb Group at Bassingbourn and arrived at Thorpe Abbotts as reconditioned on the 5th of July, 1943. The crew of Lt. Robert L. Hughes arrived nine days later and was the first ‘spare’ crew of the 351st Bomb Squadron. The plane was assigned to them the very next day. Additional training with the group and waiting for their first combat mission took longer than the young crew would have liked, which didn’t happen for a month.
One of the ground crew members, Cpl. Frank Stevens, painted a scantily clad lady in high riding boots and an American hat on the nose of the airplane, sitting on a bomb with the decorative inscription ‘Nine Little Yanks and a Jerk’ below. There are two versions of the origin of the name of the aircraft and its meaning. The first talks about the fact that the ten-member crew under Lt. Hughes was made up of nine boys from the North (Yanks) and only one from the South (Jerk). That was Sgt. Buntin, waist gunner. It came out of the friendly teasing among the members of the same crew. The other interpretation is that "Jerk" meant "dork, dunce, dumb...". Just exactly where the truth lies is difficult to determine. The members of Hughes's crew themselves later downplayed the reasons by explaining that later the ‘jerk’ of the crew was always someone else and everyone took turns wearing the title. Once, radio operator T/Sgt. Boyle, when he forgot to retract the trailing wire antenna and dragged it along the ground on landing, and another time, ball turret gunner T/Sgt. Horace Barnum forgot to unload the guns in the ball turret of the borrowed Piccadilly Lily after landing. The crew was playing this innocent game of seeing who would be the jerk for the current mission.
On October 14th, shortly after the disastrous missions to Münster and Bremen, in which the 100th Bomb Group lost 19 aircrews, the second mission to Schweinfurt, known as ‘Black Thursday’ or ‘the Second Schweinfurt Mission’, took place. The weakened Hundredth could contribute only eight aircraft and crews. These were incorporated into the formations of the other two groups of the 13th Combat Wing. One of the planes flying with the 95th Bomb Group was Nine Little Yanks and a Jerk with Robert Hughes and his crew. In the IP area, the final waypoint before achieving target acquisition, the lead aircraft of the 95th Bomb Group was hit by flak and disappeared from the formation. Immediately afterwards, a B-17F named ‘Heaven Can Wait’ was hit as well, flown by Lt. Keel, flying right next to Hughes. After several moments, the out-of-control aircraft turned sharply towards Hughes' B-17. A quick reaction from the pilots in Nine Little Yanks and a Jerk resulted in a sharp left turn suppression, creating space for Keel's Fortress. But at the same time, they fell out of their formation and found themselves much lower and alone. At that moment, the bombardier saw the target directly in front of him. Flying over it alone was a big risk. Contrary to regulations, the crew unanimously agreed to go ahead and attack the target. Bombardier Lt. Elliott adjusted his Norden bombsight a thousand feet lower, the pilot set a fixed course, altitude and speed, and the Elliot began aiming. The bombs, released at 14:54, hit the target, which the pilot and bombardier had carefully studied during pre-flight preps, dead centre.
After leaving the target, they took a steep left turn to rejoin the 95th Bombardment Group, which was still settling into formation after being pelted by flak earlier.
The event had an impact on the headquarters of the 3rd Bomb Division. Lt. Hughes and Lt. Elliott were called in to General Curtis LeMay. Lt Hughes recalled: ‘This was to be an experience for me, I had never seen so many ‘Eagles’ in one room. I had never been out of formation over a target before. When all of the representatives from all of the groups were assembled, the critique was called to order and we had just been seated when General LeMay asked, ‘Will Lt. Hughes from the 100th Bomb Group come forward.’ When I stepped upon the stage he said, ‘Will you tell this group what you did yesterday?’ I related how we had been forced to dive for our lives and how that when we recovered the target upon which we had been briefed, lay dead ahead. How all the men volunteered. The fact that we had a perfect bomb run and that Lt. Elliott pickle-barreled the target. General LeMay asked how I knew that we had pickle-barreled the target, I informed him that I had studied the strike photos and the fact that our aircraft, ‘Nine Little Yanks and A Jerk’, was designated strike photo aircraft for the 100th BGH, to which he responded, ‘That is right gentlemen, ten bombs MPI. ‘ Stepping up to the strike map he pulled the butcher paper away to reveal an enlarged strike photo, showing the strike. His next comment was, ‘The Lieutenant should have a Commendation.’, to which the reply came from the back of the room in clearly enunciated words, ‘The SOB should be court-martialed for breaking formation!’’
The one who expressed his opinion in this way was Col. Bud Peaslee, who led the mission to Schweinfurt. Many years later, Hughes and Peaslee became very good friends.
Almost the entire crew was able to complete their operational tour. However, one of its members finished their innocent game of ‘jerk’ a little earlier. The previously mentioned T/Sgt. Joseph F. Boyle claimed two downed Me 410s during a raid on the submarine docks at Wilhemshawen on November 3rd, 1943. At the same time, he damaged the vertical tail surfaces of his own aircraft with about 10 rounds, likely bestowing upon him the ‘jerk’ label for the day. It could’ve been considerably worse, and two days later, it was. On a raid to Gelsenkirchen, an 88mm flak shell exploded close to the aircraft and one small piece of shrapnel narrowly licked the edge of his flak vest, penetrating his heart and killing him instantly.
On November 26th, the commanding pilot of the 351st Bomb Squadron, Capt. John ‘Lucky’ Luckadoo, flew on Nine little Yanks and a Jerk as co-pilot.
At least one mission with this aircraft was also completed by the legendary Lt. Frank E. Valesh. On January 4th, 1944, during a raid on Kiel, engine No. 2 was hit by flak, and the propeller was revving the engine above the permissible limit. At the same time, fuel consumption increased enormously. With what gasoline remained in the tanks, Valesh made an emergency landing at the base at Leconfield.
Hughes's crew flew for the last time in their aircraft on January 7th, 1944 to Ludwigshaven. Nine little Yanks and a Jerk was damaged many times during her service with the 100th Bomb Group and spent considerable time in repairs. Therefore, only 28 missions were flown between July, 1943 and January, 1944.
On January 24th, 1944, a young crew borrowed the plane for a training flight. During landing, the left undercarriage leg retracted spontaneously and the aircraft was damaged. Since the unit was already receiving new B-17Gs at the time of the crash, it was decided that this old ‘F’ would not be repaired. She was therefore transported to the technical depot of the unit, where she was used as a ‘hangar queen’ - a source of spare parts for other repaired aircraft, before her remains were finally scrapped.
Nine Little Yanks and a Jerk was one of the few B-17Fs serving with the 100th Bomb Group to have flat perspex glazing in place of the astrodome. It was a remnant of the original service with the 91st Bomb Group, which had a number of its aircraft modified in this way. Three ceiling windows in the nose were also unusual for the Hundredth.
Lt. Hughes completed his operational tour with a raid on Berlin on March 4th, 1944. Most of his crew did so less than a month earlier. He flew at least 18 of his 25 missions in Nine little Yanks and a Jerk.
After the end of combat flying, Lt. Hughes briefly tested and flew the personal planes of President Roosevelt and Gen. Curtis LeMay.