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Frantic, where the bombers would land at air-
fields in Ukraine after completing their mission
and then return to England via 15th Air Force
bases in Italy. The first took place from June 21st
The 100th Bomb Group over the target. Smoke trails come from ‘flares’, special bombs dropped by the lead aircraft, signaling others in the formation to drop bombs. (Don
Bradley collection)
B-17G 43-38514 ‘E
-
Z Goin’, with which the crew of Lt. Joe C. Martin returned home after being collided from behind
by a German Bf 109 fighter. (Joseph A. Ciotola collection)
to July 5th, 1944, the second between September
18th and the 22nd. The second Frantic mission
was aimed at dropping supplies and weapons
to aid the Warsaw Uprising. It was not the Hun-
dredth’s first such operation, as the unit had pre-
viously participated in supplying the resistance
movement in the south of France.
The apparent calm during the fall and early
winter of 1944, when the unit flew another 45
sorties after the Ruhland mission with combat
losses of seven aircraft, was shattered by the
very end of the year with a raid on the refiner-
ies in Hamburg. On Sunday, December 31st, 1944,
The Hundredth’s statistics were to fluctuate con-
siderably again. The unexpected ferocity of Luft-
waffe fighters and flak meant the loss of twelve
aircraft.
In the following months, two Berlin missions,
on February 3rd and March 18th, 1945, were
among more the memorable for the Bloody Hun-
dredth with the loss of four aircraft and their
crews in each of them. With the loss of ‘only’ two
machines, the mission to Buchen on April 7th,
1945 also went down in the history of the unit,
with reasons for the losses being unusual for
the unit. That day, some formations of Ameri-
can bombers were met with ramming attacks
by German fighters. Even the Hundredth did not
escape these attacks. In addition to two lost
B-17s, there were also several that suffered se-
rious damage, which by combination of miracle
and pilot skill, managed to return home.
HISTORY
INFO Eduard
Speciál B-17F / The Bloody Hundredth 1943
24
June 2024