BILL COUCH: B-17 Bombardier's Seventh and Final Mission During WWII

On a bombing mission, you could experience terror and ecstasy in the same day. The ecstasy was if you made it back. B-17 bombardier Bill Couch (349th Bomb Squadron, 100th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force) relates the story of his seventh and final mission, one which was shaky from the beginning. They couldn't keep up with the formation. With flak damage affecting the engines, the pilot had to drop out. Bill managed to hit a German fighter with the .50 cal machine gun he had up in the nose but that didn't do anything to keep the big plane aloft. They lost one engine, then another. It was time to ditch. The procedure when you ditch in the ocean is for all the crew except the pilots to sit in a line from tallest to shortest to prepare for impact. As the tallest man in the plane, Bill Couch got the worst of it when the plane hit the water. After a night floating in two life rafts, the crew wondered, who would be the first to respond to their SOS? WitnessToWar.org Follow us on: facebook.com/WitnessToWar x.com/WitnessToWar instagram.com/witnesstowar #VeteranStories #WWII #CombatVeteran #POW