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
Built by Boeing at Seattle. One of thirty-two brand-new Flying Fortresses delivered to Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA, between May-June 1942, for the RAF as part of the lend-lease agreement. RAF roundels and numbers were applied at the factory overtop USAAF markings. The USAAF serial number would be over painted after the bombers 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 5th Air Force, via Hamilton Field and Hickam Field then onward to Australia (SUMAC).

Mission History
Took off form Mareeba Airfield on the night of October 29-30, 1942 including B-17s of the 43rd BG, 63rd BS, along with a few from the 19th BG, 30th BS and attacked the Buin-Faisi anchorage (Tonolei Harbor), and then returned to Mareeba. For reasons unknown, this B-17 ditched 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 for additional information Fortress Against the Sun, page 277
B-17 At Black Cat Pass by Steve Birdsall, Flightpath

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Last Updated
January 23, 2012