Why German Pilots Couldn't Believe An American Bomber Kept Flying After Losing Every Officer Aboard

Over Leipzig, February 20th 1944, a German cannon shell kills a B-17's co-pilot outright and knocks its pilot unconscious in the same instant. The only two men aboard ever trained to fly a four-engine bomber are now dead or dying. What happens in the next four hours was not written by anyone in Hollywood. This is the true story of the B-17 "Ten Horsepower," and of the navigator and flight engineer who flew it home across enemy territory and the North Sea with no pilot training between them, then refused a direct order to bail out because the wounded pilot they'd have left behind could not save himself. WHAT THIS DOCUMENTARY COVERS ● The February 20, 1944 attack on B-17G "Ten Horsepower" during Operation Argument ("Big Week") ● How a standard B-17 crew's ten roles were divided by rank and training ● 2nd Lt. Walter Truemper and Sgt. Archibald Mathies flying a bomber neither was trained to fly ● The order to bail out, and their refusal to leave the wounded pilot behind ● Three landing attempts and the crash that killed all three men ● The posthumous Medal of Honor citations, word for word ● Where the popular "lost every officer" version of this story oversimplifies the record ● The parallel between Flight Officer Ronald Bartley's rank and the Army's WWII glider pilots ● What Big Week meant for the wider air war over Europe