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and through the barrage he saw a Me-109 fly straight into the tail of the #4 plane in his flight. 42-107597 was a silver replacement ship, a B-26C flown by Lt. Ralph Lesmeister and the impact immediately rolled the plane over so that it was upside down. Succeeding in getting the ship back onto an even keel, Lt. Lesmeister found himself the subject of a concentrated attack by both FW-190s and ME-109s which came in to within a few feet, firing all the way, would half roll before coming in for another run. Still trying to control the plane, which was locked in a 30 degree dive, due to the tail being jammed and partly destroyed, Lt. Lesmeister, tried to break loose the controls by pushing against the instrument panel with his feet. It was then he saw fire in the right engine and knowing he could never raise the nose for a landing, called for a bail out. The radio had been shot out, along with his instruments, so there was no response to his call. He tried the bail out bell, which, thankfully worked and the crew began to abandon the doomed ship. Because the hydraulics had been shot out, the nose wheel door couldn’t be opened, the air-bottle took care of that and the co-pilot, 2nd Lt. Albert Stark, and the Bombardier, 2nd Lt. Carl Pollock, jumped. In the rear, S/Sgt Frank Stanton, waist gunner, had been knocked unconscious by a German shell, and believing there was no other way, the top turret gunner, S/Sgt Glare Oliphant, snapped Frank’s parachute on him and bundled him out. He was to wake up on the way down and pull the cord. Lt. Lesineister himself let go of the controls and the plane went into a near vertical dive. Shedding his flak jacket and helmet, he dragged himself back to the bomb bay and dived through the still-open doors.

some times, you just got to be lucky

http://www.billsb-26marauder.org/391st_Arhweiler.htm
 
 
Very good story of the raid and what happened to it
 
Funny, I had just read about this attack last week while doing some work on the GE side, from the GE point of view
 
so was nice to see it from the US side
 
what a waste

More Interesting
 
got the mission Docs from Aug 17th 1943 for the 320th BG
 
they sent out a 36 plane raid this day (37, the spare ? didn't take off)
 
but found it odd by the ranks
 
out of 37 planes
5 were Capts
27 1st Lts
2 2nd Lts
and 3 FOs
 
totally not what you would expect
 
(from other Docs, when you get a chance to follow a unit for a while, you seen the BGs gained rank fast (well, at least to 1st Lt)
 
I wish I could find more Docs like this one
 
now comes the fun, got to go to the roster and find the rest of the pilots names
 
 

Hmmmmm
(he was also a member of the 319th BG)



"DEKE" SLAYTON 438th. PILOT - A26- OKINAWA
FAMOUS ASTRONAUT'S LAST FLIGHT
World-famed astronaut Deke Slayton, crew member of the 1975 US-USSR Apollo-Soyuz mission, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, former top test pilot with the USAF, and an avid racing plane pilot, died at his home in Texas at 3:22 A.M., June 13, 1993.  With him was his wife, Bobbie and their daughter, Stacey.
Later that same day, June 13, 1993, at 7:58 A.M. local time, at John Wayne Airport in California, at a Formula one Racing Plane with large FAA-required registration letters on and numbers on the fuselage, N21X registration.  The Federal Aviation Administration determined that a noise level mandated by law had been exceeded, and issued a letter of citation against the registered owner and pilot.
On July 20 Bobbie Slayton received a letter in the mail dated June 28, 1993 from the FAA to Donald K. Slayton, notifying him that he was being cited for violating FFA regulations.  The letter had been sent to a condo at which the Slaytons sometimes stayed, and its delivery was delayed until Mrs. Slayton picked up the mail there.
Upon receipt of the letter, Bobbie Slayton telephoned the FFA and inquired if they had all gone crazy-pointing out that Deke Slayton had been dead for six hours before the reported incident at Orange County.
She further added that this particular racing plane, N21X, had been in an aircraft museum at Sparks, Nevada (located northeast of San Francisco) since March 1993--and that before being placed in the museum, the engine had been removed from the aircraft and was still in the museum!
To save weight, this plane had no electrical starter, and the engine can be started only by a person outside the plane, who swings the propeller while the pilot works the controls inside.
Bobbie Slayton remarked that the reason for the delay Deke took before getting into the air in his racing plane was that, "he probably took six hours to find Gus (Gus Grissom, his best friend, and who died in the Apollo 1 fire on Pad 34 at Cape Canaveral) to prop the plane for him."
This information was released by Mrs. Slayton on June 28 to Martin Caidin, and is a joint effort with Loyd Auerbach, Office of Paranormal Investigations and FATE Magazine.

Interesting read indeed, but always take anything Martin Caidin had anything to do with, with a grain of salt the size of Mt Rushmore.