USAAF
19th BG
30th BS
Previous Units:
93rd BS
Pilot Major Maj. Allen Lindbergh
Co-Pilot 1/Lt. Joshua A Barnes
Bombardier 2/Lt. Joseph D. Howard
Navigator 1/Lt. Jack A. Ryan
Tail Gunner Sgt. Hilario L. Hernandez
Ditched October 29, 1942
Crew History
Pilot
Lindbergh later became C.O. of the 64th BS, 43rd BG. He was later MIA/KIA aboard B-17F "San Antonio Rose" 41-24458 over Rabaul on January 5, 1943.
Aircraft History
One of thirty-two brand-new Flying Fortresses delivered to Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA, between May and June 1942, for Britain as part of Lend-Lease agreement. Boeing applied the RAF roundels and numbers at the factory, but retained their original Army Air Forces radio call numbers on their tails. These would be painted over after the aircraft arrived in England. However, during the first week of August 1942, four of this batch of Fortresses: B-17E 41-9196, B-17E 41-9234, B-17E 41-9244 and this bomber were instead assigned to the 19th Bombardment Group, and ferried to Australia.
Mission History
On the night of October 29-30, 1942, B-17s of the 43rd BG, 63rd BS, along with a few from the 19th BG, 30th BS went over the Buin-Faisi anchorage (Tonolei Harbor), and were returning to Mareeba. For reasons unknown made a nighttime water landing about 20 miles off the Cape York Peninsula near Cooktown on the Great Barrier Reef, then spent two days returning to Mareeba.
Fortress Against the Sun, page 276
" 'We crashed early in the morning' Lindberg recalled. 'We just had time to shove off on two rubber rafts without a crumb of food or a drop of water.' Lindberg continued, 'You've no idea what hell is like until you're crowded in a rubber bubble without food or water and left to drift beneath the broiling sun." Adrift for two days, the men were eventually found by a group of Australian aborigines and returned to the mainland.
Relatives
saintsmo (nephew of Hernandez)
References
Thanks to Edward Rogers, Richard Rudd and IR&P Corporation for additional information Fortress Against the Sun, page 277 B-17 At Black Cat Pass by Steve Birdsall, Flightpath
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