Aircraft History
Delivered to the US Army on July 10, 1942. Assigned to the 19th Bombardment Group, 28th Bombardment Squadron.

Later, it was transferred to the 43rd Bombardment Group, 65th Bombardment Squadron. Nicknamed "Georgia Peach", the early nose art was simply the name. Later a seated red headed woman wearing high heels and lingerie and holding a paper with V and Morse code (dot, dot, dot dash).

On February 23, 1943 on a night mission over Rabaul, this B-17 was caught in searchlights and dived steeply to escape. Tail gunner Pfc Arthur Mirarchi, 12029834 of New York bailed out, thinking the plane was hit and going down. He was taken prisoner by the Japanese, and did not survive captivity and was officially declared dead on December 17, 1945 and is memorialized on the tablets of the missing at Manila American Cemetery.

Mission History
One of seven B-17s on an mission to strike Vunakanau Airfield. Over the target, this B-17 was hit by anti-aircraft fire at 0345 while flying at 6,000' but continued under control for about five minutes after bomber were released, and then went down. While a Japanese night fighter had been seen in the area, the loss was attributed to heavy anti-aircraft fire.

In fact, it had fallen victim to J1N1 Irving piloted by Shigetoshi Kudo after it had been caught in the beams of search lights at 0314 who set it on fire and caused it to crash northeast of Ubili Airfield, Ulamona. Two crew were known to have bailed out.

Two other bombers were damaged on the night of June 13. One 65th BS B-17 and B-17F "The Old Man" 41-24403 was badly damaged by anti-aircraft and nightfighter attacks.

Jose Holguin noted in his diary on June 13, 1943:
"As we made our getaway we saw Major Luntly (sp?) being hit by night fighters, but he managed to shake them off. We circled wide around the target area and then headed for home at 03:26. As we got on course, we saw something burning in mid air and then crash to the ground about 20 miles south of the target. A great explosion followed. We knew it was one of our bombers and radioed in to Port Moresby. On the way home we could easily see the stars and arrived home without loosing any time. 07:00 we were briefed and when Lt. Woodard did not arrive we concluded it was he who crashed." [Holguin's bomber, B-17E "Naughty But Nice" 41-2430 was later shot down by the same J1N1 Irving piloted by Kudo on June 26, 1943]

Fates of the Crew
Two crew members were known to have bailed out and survived, Lt. Phillip Bek and Lt. Jack K. Wisener. Both were captured and taken to the Japanese Navy POW camp.

Bek was executed on November 25, 1943 with several other 43rd BG POWs. Japanese records (falsely) stated that Bek was sent to Japan on the Kokai Maru on February 20, 1944.

Lt. Jack K. Wisener was beaten and interrogated. Later, he was sent to Japan and survived the war. He died in 1980 in Dallas, Texas.

Wreckage
The crash site was investigated during the war by the Japanese. Likely, they buried remains at the crash site.

In 1947 (or possibly 1949) two US Army AGRS personell walked to this crash site from the coast and spent a few hours at the crash site, and recovered a human remains.

Later, circa 1989(?) another team from US Army CILHI visited the crash site, but did not stay for an extended period.

Brian Bennett adds:
"After walking in to the crash site in 1985 with Bill Holswich and being on site for two days we were both struck by the fact that the site was not disturbed, there was a lot of wreckage impacted into the ground. It was a fairly complex site and I had difficulty confirming the serial number. I located a servicing platform on the site that had a different serial number. It took me the two days to confirm identification.

The site was visited by CIL-HI about 20 years (circa 1989) ago but they were not there very long. The site was big enough to warrant a full 30 day mission--never happened. There is a very good chance that there are still significant remains on site as there is at least several on 41-24543 which is just over the way."

Memorials
Remains of Woodard, Emerick, Nisbet, Sayer, Cousino, Parker, Hamershlag were recovered and are interred together at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery (Section 78 Site 991-992).

The body of T/Sgt Skarr may be buried at another cemetery.

Edward Rogers adds:
"Lt. Bek's name is not listed on the tablets of the missing at the ABMC website. While this suggests that his remains were recovered all of the other men who were executed with him are still listed as missing."

References
Moonlight Interceptor page 38
Pride of Seattle page 9
File 6950646 [Unidentified] Missing U.S. Aircraft [Part 1] p.22 National Archives, Australia
Thanks to Edward Rogers, Brian Bennett and Steve Birdsall for additional information

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Last Updated
November 8, 2009

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