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Variant 2: B-17F 42-3307 EP
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N ”Skipper“,Lt. Archie J. „Four Mile“ Drummond crew, 351st Bomb Squadron,
100th Bomb Group, Thorpe Abbotts, late 1943
Skipper in her later form, with her technicians. Standing
on the ladder is the ground crew chief, M/Sgt. Dewey R. Christopher.
Left: Maj. Ollen O. Turner, com-
mander of the 351st Bomb Squadron
(according to his wife, the correct
name was Olle N. Turner, but the Air
Force misspelled it, and Maj. Turner
used this form during the war).
Right: Lt. Jack R. Swartout, Skip-
per’s pilot, later left the 351st BS
to become commander of the 350th
BS. He was a respected pilot and
recognized as the leader of the
group’s combat formations in raids
on Germany and occupied Europe.
He was one of the few members
of the original 100th Bombardment
Group crews to complete
the operational tour.
nicknamed ‘Skipper’ by some friends from the unit,
and so the name also appeared on the nose of the
plane. Originally, however, it was a nickname that
Maj. Turner gave his wife.
During August and September, Skipper, under
the care of Dewey Christopher and his ground
team, flew several combat missions. As the com-
mander’s aircraft, she understandably had fewer
of them than other machines over a given peri-
od. On October 10th, 1943, she was included in the
group of bombers designated for a raid on Münster.
Yes, the flight from which only Robert Rosenthal in
the B-17F ‘Royal Flush’ returned out of the entire
unit. Skipper was saved from certain destruction
by a series of breakdowns and a poorly running
No. 2 engine that forced her crew to abort and turn
back early. Almost a month later, on November
5th, Skipper was heavily damaged in an attack on
Gelsenkirchen.
After repairs, she continued to fly missions with
various pilots until the 24th of January, 1944, when
the 100th Bomb Group went over Frankfurt. That
day, Skipper was flown by the crew of Lt. Archie
J. Drummond. Archie “Four Mile” Drummond had
flown many missions with Skipper before, as
co-pilot of Jack Swartout’s crew. Swartout later
became commander of the 350th Squadron, and
Drummond took over the crew as its pilot. Shortly
after takeoff, at a height of barely 700 feet above
the ground (about 210m), the pilots were dazzled
by the sharp landing lights of a B-24 aircraft, tak-
ing off from another, nearby base and, like Skip-
per, cutting through the morning air, trying to gain
valuable altitude in a climb to the level designated
for forming up. Since the B-24 pilots evidently did
not see the B-17 in front of them, Lt. Drummond
pushed the bomb-laden aircraft towards the
ground in an attempt to avoid a collision. Skipper
thus avoided the Liberator in a descending right
turn, but at the same time got dangerously close
to the ground. While leveling out, the B-17F’s left
wing sliced into the roof of a barn about 15 miles
from base. Gasoline from the punctured tanks
turned the plane into a burning torch. The machine
flew through a small wooded area and landed in
a field behind it. The impact with the ground threw
the navigator through the plexiglas nose, Lt. Mau-
rice G. Zetlen, who succumbed to his injuries at
the scene. Miraculously, the rest of the crew man-
aged to stagger out of the burning plane. However,
Skipper burned up where she had landed.
Dewey Christopher and his team took care of
a new aircraft, which they named ‘Skipper II’.
It was an olive drab early B-17G and was destined
to survive the war with over a hundred missions
flown. Humpty Dumpty, Humpty Dumpty II (Nasty
Nan) and others also came later.
‘It was having the satisfaction of knowing I was
giving my crew the best airplane I possibly could.
You don’t compromise when working on airplanes
– you can’t just pull over to the side of the road and
raise the hood when you’re up in the air!’…
Dewey
commented on his work. Although aircrews, if they
managed to complete an operational tour, usually
returned home, the men of the ground staff usu-
ally remained until the end of the war. It was the
same with Dewey Christopher. As part of the unit’s
original ‘stateside’ cadre, he served with the 100th
Bomb Group throughout its combat deployment.
Dewey stayed true to his profession after leaving
the military and worked as an aircraft mechanic
for United Airlines for 41 years.
Many years after the war, at the 100th Bomb
Group Reunion in 2011, I listened in awe as he
F/O (later Lt.) Archibald J. “Four Mile” Drummond,
Skipper’s last pilot.
Skipper after the crash on 24 January 1944.
Skipper in her later form with new national insignia
and moved fuselage letters.
B-17G s/n 42-31708 Skipper II, with 111 missions to her
credit, survived the war and returned to the US.
Speciál B-17F / The Bloody Hundredth 1943 INFO Eduard
51
June 2024