Rosie’s Riveters
True great legends are not born by accident. It takes exceptional and strong personalities to create them. One such person was Robert Rosenthal. When his young crew arrived at Thorpe Abbots in late September, 1943, the 100th Bombardment Group had completed thirty missions and the first 'lucky bastards' of the unit's original line-up were close to completing their 25-mission operational tour.
Robert Rosenthal, nicknamed Rosie, was already a twenty-six-year-old officer at the beginning of his combat career, a true leader for his crew, who respected him for his firmness as well as his friendly and kind nature. His path to the combat unit was not very direct, but from the beginning it bore signs of great determination and a sense of justice and responsibility. After graduating from Brooklyn Law School, he worked in a law firm in Manhattan. On December 8th, 1941, the day after Japan attacked the United States, he volunteered for the Army Air Force. After completing basic training, he worked as a gunnery instructor for several months. But he wanted to fight. Especially against Nazi. Therefore, on February 1st, 1943, he left for further training as a B-17 bomber pilot. After his crew was assembled, he completed training in mid-August 1943 and moved to Europe.
B-17F serial number 42-30758, of the 418th Squadron, was a relatively modern aircraft from the 120th production block from Boeing. It arrived in England on the last day of August in 1943 and was flown to the base at Thorpe Abbotts shortly afterwards. Unusually, the aircraft was assigned to a newly arriving crew. The Fortress was named Rosie's Riveters after her commander. In addition to the commander's name, the title is a play on words and a tribute to the American women who went to the aircraft, shipbuilding, and armaments factories to join the war effort and were nicknamed ‘Rosie the Riveter.’
The mission of October 8th, 1943 may have been the first and last for both B-17F ‘Rosie's Riveters’ and Rosenthal's crew. The term ‘baptism by fire’ took on a full meaning here. During the raid on Bremen, the unit lost seven crews, including the commander of the 350th Squadron, Maj. Gale W. ‘Bucky’ Cleven. Robert Rosenthal was able to bring the seriously damaged aircraft back from his first mission, with many hits from flak and fighters. And it should have been worse.
The rookie crew didn't get much of a chance to shake off the shock of their first mission. While Rosie's Riveters was being repaired, the crew continued their combat flights the next day and the next after that. They replaced their own aircraft with a B-17F named ‘Royal Flush’. The target for the third mission in three days was Münster on October 10th, 1943. If not two days earlier, then on this day the legend of Robert Rosenthal was certainly born. The 100th Bomb Group flew as one of the combat units of the 13th Combat Wing. Out of thirteen aircraft from the Hundredth, only one returned that day. Royal Flush. With only two working engines, countless bullet holes, disabled intercom and oxygen systems, wounded on board and a large hole from a Wfr.Gr.21 rocket in the right half of the wing, the bird limped home. The unit lost twelve crews, including Rosenthal's squadron commander, Maj. John C. ‘Bucky’ Egan.
On board Rosie's Riveters, the crew flew a large number of their operational missions through to the end of 1943. She also became a lead aircraft during this period, leading a formation of the 13th Combat Wing five times in addition to leading the squadron. This demanded a newer aircraft. During January 1944, they received a new, more modern B-17G, which they also named ‘Rosie's Riveters’. The original Rosie's Riveters, a B-17F, was taken over by a new crew led by Lt. Ross E. McPhee, who renamed the aircraft ‘Satcha Lass’ after several missions. Rosenthal's original B-17F became McPhee's crew's ‘own’ plane. They were proud of her and together they were shot down on February 4th, 1944 during a raid on Frankfurt. The aircraft, which had saved Robert Rosenthal's rookie crew on its first combat flight a few months earlier, did not disappoint this time either. The former Rosie's Riveters bellied in on a plowed field in the middle of Germany and her surviving crew were captured.
It is certainly worth noting the fact that the second Rosie Riveters, the B-17G with which Rosenthal's crew completed their operational tour, was shot down on May 12th, 1944 during a raid on Most (Brüx) in Czechoslovakia. The plane exploded in the air near St. Goarshausen in Germany. The entire crew commanded by Lt. Alexander Kinder bailed out and survived.
At that time, however, Robert Rosenthal was no longer flying with the 418th Squadron. He became the Assistant Group Operations Officer of the 100th Bomb Group and later the Commander of the 350th Squadron, and now, with the rank of Major, he began his voluntary second operational tour. He also occasionally flew, mainly as a Commanding Pilot, at the head of his squadron, group or the 13th Combat Wing. This was also the case on September 10th, 1944, when he led a stream of bombers to Nuremberg. Due to heavy flak over the target, Rosie was forced to break away from the formation and attempt to return with the seriously damaged aircraft on his own. The subsequent crash landing behind the front lines in France saved the crew, but also left Robert Rosenthal with a broken arm, facial and internal injuries that put him in a military hospital. He thus missed the mission the following day, when the 100th Bomb Group lost thirteen of its aircraft in the air battle over the Czech-German Ore Mountains during the raid on Ruhland. Not a single one of Rosenthal's 350th Squadron planes returned. When he learned of this in the hospital, it reminded him, among other things, of October 10th, 1943, when, except for his crew, no one from his unit made it back…
After returning from the hospital, Rosie Rosenthal was briefly involved in the training program of the 13th Combat Wing and then, on December 1st, 1944, assumed command of his original 418th Squadron. Due to the demands placed on him by command tasks, he continued his combat missions with less intensity. Even so, he completed a second operational tour and began his third. He was on his 52nd combat mission when he led the 3rd Air (formerly Bomb) Division to Berlin on March 3rd , 1945. Above the target, their aircraft was severely damaged by flak, which killed the bombardier and the navigator. In addition, a fire broke out on board. Robert Rosenthal knew he could not get back to friendly territory, so he continued east in an attempt to cross the battle lines there. When the conditions were such that they threatened an imminent crash or explosion, he gave the order to the crew to bail. Then he also left the plane. He injured his legs in a hard landing in a plowed field in no man's land. Red Army soldiers discovered him lying on his back. With the help of the Soviets, he managed to return to England at the end of March, 1945, where he trained new crews until the end of May. He returned to the United States on June 7th, 1945.
Here he was to be assigned to B-29 training, but on November 30th, he was honorably discharged from the Air Force. However, direct contact with the horrors of World War II was not to end for Robert Rosenthal. His wartime experience, high intelligence, legal education, and, let's assume, Jewish ancestry, made him adept at yet another unusual service to his country and civilization that Rosie believed in. He returned to Europe in 1946 as a member of the American prosecution team at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals. During the trip, he met a colleague, lawyer Phillis Heller, on an ocean liner, whom he married in Nuremberg. They spent the rest of their lives together and raised three children.
When the 100th Bomb Group Veterans Organization was formed many years after the war, Rosie became one of its founders, most active members and for several years its President. He remained active until his death in 2007. Two years before that, he came to the Czech Republic to pay tribute to the men of his unit who were shot down in the largest air battle over Czechoslovakia on September 11th, 1944, at the Ore Mountain Air Battle Museum in Kovarska.
After Rosie's passing, his father's baton at the 100th Bomb Group Foundation was passed on to his son, Dan Rosenthal, who was also the foundation's President for many years and today serves as its Vice President of Philanthropy and a member of the Board of Directors.
In the Masters of the Air film series, Robert Rosenthal is portrayed by actor Nate Mann as one of the main characters in the story. A lesser known fact is that Rosie's grandson Sam was cast as one of Robert Rosenthal's crew members on his last mission to Berlin.