Thursday, March 28, 2024 -
Print Edition

How Littleton’s Sol Gins saved his crew on a B-17 bomber

Gins doesn’t remember the exact date or even the country his B-17 bomber was flying over. But he knows that his “Flying Fortress” was flying at somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000 feet and he believes the target was a German military airport. He also knows that the B-17 was dropping extremely destructive fragmentation bombs, and that one of them had failed to leave the aircraft. Which was a very serious problem. “We were over the target, dropped our bombs and unfortunately one bomb got caught on the wire that they hung on,” Gins says. One of the bomber’s 10 crewmen, Gins was both a radio operator and an aerial gunner. His “radio shack” was located directly behind the bomb bay on the airplane’s belly, so […]
This article is premium content. Subscribe now or log in if you’re a subscriber. One day access also available for $1.80.


Avatar photo

IJN Assistant Editor | [email protected]