It was December 20, 1943 and in the freezing air high above Germany, 2nd Lieutenant Charles “Charlie” Brown struggled to keep the mortally damaged American bomber on course. Brown had been wounded in the shoulder, his tail gunner Sergeant Hugh “Ecky” Eckenrode was dead, and several other members of the crew were wounded, some severely. Their aircraft, B-17F Ye Olde Pub, had been hit twice by flak as it approached its target, the Focke-Wulf plant in the German city of Bremen, forcing the crew to shut down one of the engines and throttle back on another. This had left it...
