KEEP 'EM FLYING
George Peterson, Crew Chief, 334th Squadron
(Originally published in Courage, Honor, Victory)
One of the first B-17G models of the Fortress to be assigned to the 95th Bomb Group arrived at Horham in early October 1943. The new airplane, which differed from the F models, incorporated several improvements, including a two-gun chin turret. This was a replacement for B-17F 4230045, "She's My Gal," missing in action during the mission to Saarlauten, Germany, on 4 October 1943.
The replacement, B-l7G 4231299, was assigned to the 334th Squadron and I was her crew chief. She was named "She's My Gal II," and an appropriate picture of a female was painted on the nose of the airplane underneath its name. The squadron call letters on the fuselage were BG-M with a yellow letter M on the vertical stabilizer just below the airplane's serial number.
Following the initial acceptance inspection, the plane was released for a test flight. A pilot, co-pilot, and flight engineer arrived on the flight line for the test flight but while they were taxiing round the perimeter track near the end of runway 31, the pilots momentarily lost control and the airplane ran off the perimeter track, crossed a grassed area, and ended up straddling a drainage ditch at the edge of Horham Airfield.
It wasn't a pretty sight for a brand-new camouflaged aircraft, lying pathetically in the ditch near runway number 31. The left landing gear had been forced up and back under the wing, and a main-frame member inside number 2 engine nacelle had been broken completely into two pieces.
Fortunately the plane could be repaired, but it required the services of the mobile repair unit, which had the facilities to fabricate the necessary parts required. Keeping the aircraft intact while waiting for the mobile repair unit to arrive got quite hectic at times. Other crew chiefs from the 334th and the three other squadrons hovered like vultures around the stranded new arrival, just waiting for the chance to pounce and salvage spare parts urgently needed for the repair of their own ships.
The mobile repair unit finally arrived and we jacked the plane up by using inflatable air bags (borrowed from the Royal Air Force) under the left wing. The damaged landing gear was temporarily secured so that the airplane could be towed back to the hardstand. Once there, the necessary replacement parts and repairs were speedily completed. In order to gain access to replace the damaged parts, a large section of the outer metal skin on the outboard side of number 2 engine nacelle was removed. After the completion of repairs this skin was replaced but it didn't get painted with olive drab to match the rest of the airplane's camouflage. This turned out to be a means of quick and easy identification of my aircraft when it was returning from a mission and circling the base.
"She's My Gal II" flew two or three missions with spare crews before Lieutenant Garland Lloyd and his crew were assigned to the plane. When they weren't flying, Lieutenant Lloyd and his crew came out to their bomber to assist in its maintenance and to learn more about the mechanics and engineering of their plane itself. I flew with Lieutenant Lloyd several times during test flights, and I had complete confidence in his ability to fly that aircraft.
I'm reasonably certain that Lieutenant Lloyd and his crew flew over twenty-two missions before that fateful day, 6 March 1944, when they were shot down over Holland during the second mission to Berlin. Mercifully, all ten crewmen managed to bail out in time, and Lieutenant Lloyd was apparently on the loose in occupied Europe for two months before being captured by the Germans.
In 1986 I learned that Klass Niemeijer, a WWII aircraft researcher in Holland, had located the crash site of "She's My Gal II" in a farmer's field in northeastern Holland. She will supply many interesting souvenirs and museum pieces for the new generation of WWII aircraft researchers, as she provides fond memories for me as her crew chief.