![]() The pilot announced they would have to ditch. In great pain and firing by instinct, he refused aid until the tail gunner was given emergency treatment.Īs the enemy fighters ran low on fuel, their attacks diminished and finally ceased over the North Sea. Fragments entered his eyes, leaving him almost totally blind. Then another 20 mm shell exploded near Vosler. He climbed back into his turret and fired continuously to protect the tail of the bomber. Then he thought: “If I’m going to die, it will be fighting.” Immediately all fear left him. He recalls that he was so shaken, he was unable to man his guns. Fragments of an exploding 20 mm shell hit Vosler in the arms, leg, and chest. The tail gun was destroyed and the gunner seriously wounded. The lone and limping B-17 immediately became the target for a succession of fighter attacks. With two engines out and other structural damage, the pilot could not stay with the formation. As Jersey Bounce began its long flight back to Molesworth, 120 miles of it over the cold winter waters of the North Sea, flak took out another engine and damaged the radio. From his position in the top turret, Vosler saw two B-17s explode into flames-not exactly a confidence builder. Eighth Air Force would lose 27 aircraft on that mission.īefore “bombs away,” Vosler’s B-17 lost one engine to flak. Bremen was encircled by a ring of anti-aircraft guns a half-mile wide and protected by additional fighters that had been relocated from Germany’s eastern front. The Jersey Bounce crew knew how tough a mission it would be. Eighth Air Force had attacked targets in that area on the 13th and 16th of the month. 20, 1943, Vosler flew his fourth mission in a B-17F, called Jersey Bounce Jr., against Bremen in northwest Germany. Although such statistics were not circulated among Army Air Forces crews, the average life expectancy of an Eighth Air Force B-17 in late 1943 was 11 missions. Nothing in the peacetime lives of thousands of young Americans had prepared them for the violence that lay ahead. After his first B-17 mission over Germany, the young radio operator-gunner was convinced that he could not survive 25 missions for completion of a combat tour. ![]() Forrest Vosler, who had grown up in a small New York state town, was assigned to the 358th Bomb Squadron of the 303d Bomb Group, stationed at RAF Molesworth in the UK.
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