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hits, the plane crashed into the North Sea. Five
men from the crew perished. The only one left of
the original crew besides DeSanders at the base
was the radio operator, Sgt. Rudden, who also did
not fly that day. He was soon assigned to another
crew as a substitute.
Alice from Dallas and Bill DeSanders were or-
phaned. Because he was not yet in good health,
his Alice was flown by others. This was also the
case on August 17th, 1943, during an attack on Re-
gensburg. Alice was one of nine 100th Bomb Group
B-17s lost that day.
The irony lies in the fact that Roy F. Claytor’s
crew, who lost their Duration + 6 with the original
Alice from Dallas crew three weeks earlier, was
flying Alice that day.
When the 100th Bomb Group formation on route
to Regensburg reached the eastern part of Bel-
gium, a group of German fighters attacked the low
squadron of the formation, led by Maj. Gale ‘Bucky’
Cleven. Its rearguard was led by Roy Claytor in
Alice. And it was on him that the current fighter
attack focused and sent all three of his planes to
the ground. At the same time, the fighters shot
down one of Bucky Cleven’s wingmen, leaving only
two machines of the six plane formation of the low
squadron.
The initial rounds that hit Alice from Dallas were
very serious. Roy Claytor later testified:
‘I had not
seen any enemy fighters nor had any been called
out but then I suddenly felt the ship being hit hard…
I pushed the nose down to get out of formation and
at the same time saw that the left wing was on fire.
The ship was trying to go to a spin to the left. I gave
the order to bail out. I got up, standing between
the seats, flying the plane, when the nose went up
and I was thrown to the accessory compartment.
From there I worked my way out of the nose es-
cape hatch…’
As more parachutes appeared behind the plane,
the burning Alice from Dallas pitched up and down
furiously with the landing gear extended, making
a 360° turn back toward the formation before finally
spiraling toward the ground in flames. At approxi-
mately 8,000 feet, her fuel tanks exploded and the
wreckage crashed near Langerloo, Belgium. What
was left of Alice from Dallas also buried tail gun-
ner S/Sgt. Musant, whose parachute opened too
soon and snagged the horizontal stabilizer. The
second crewman to fall was the ball turret gun-
Port side of Alice’s nose being serviced by a ground crew member. A gremlin from the 350th BS emblem is visible
in front of the pilot’s window.
ner, S/Sgt. William M. Hinton, who probably did not
manage to bail out in time.
Five of the eight surviving airmen managed to
escape capture with the help of the Belgian and
French resistance movements.
Bill DeSanders, who first lost his crew and
later Alice from Dallas, did not return to combat
flying until September 3rd, 1943. He flew as a re-
placement pilot with other crews, and later as
Commanding Pilot for the 350th BS. As October
arrived, so did a new B-17G, which inherited the
code LN
-
O from Alice and was named Alice from
Dallas II. It was with her that Capt. DeSanders flew
his twenty-fifth and final mission. It was February
13th, 1944, and the Commanding Pilot for the flight
was Capt. John C. ‘Lucky’ Luckadoo, who appears
in this intertwined recounting in connection with
Sunny II and who, like DeSanders, completed his
operational tour that day.
Bill DeSanders lived in Dallas with his wife Alice,
his ‘Alice from Dallas’, until his death in 1983.
B-17F 42-5867 LN
-
O ”Alice from Dallas“, Lt. William D. Desanders crew, 350th Bomb Squadron, 100th Bomb
Group, Thorpe Abbotts, Great Britain, August 1943
John H. Luckadoo, 350th Bomb
Squadron operations officer, and
William D. DeSanders completed their
operational tour together in B-17G
“Alice from Dallas II” on 13 February
1944.
Speciál B-17F / The Bloody Hundredth 1943 INFO Eduard
37
June 2024