My father’s brother was the bombardier noted in this section of a B17 book. He and all his brothers served, 2 never came home.
On August 26, 1942 one of eight B-17s that took off from Mareeba Airfield at 4:45am piloted by Captain John Chiles with co-pilot Lt. Jim Dieffenderfer on a bombing mission against a Japanese convoy off Milne Bay. The magneto on engine no. 1 was dead and during take off blew a spark plug on engine no. 2 but proceeded on the mission anyway. The weather inbound to the target was horrible with a ceiling of only 2,000’ or less. Over the target between 6:30am to 7:45am, the formation bombed from roughly 1,500’ and experienced accurate anti-aircraft fire from the ships. A shell exploded above this B-17’s nose wounding both crew members inside. Bombardier Sgt. Earl W. Snyder was hit in the head by shrapnel. Although mortally wounded, he managed to drop their four 500lbs bombs before expiring. Navigator 1st Lt. David Hirsch’s left leg was nearly severed by shrapnel. Engineer Sgt Wathen Cody left the top turret to investigate and found Snyder dead and applied a tourniquet to Hirsch’s leg and dragged him to the flight deck and returned safely. During the attack, B-17F 41-24354 sustained a direct hit from anti-aircraft fire and crashed near the convoy
“My father’s brother”
You mean your uncle?