Shooting down of the bomber City of Savannah on 5 March 1945

The shooting down of the bomber City of Savannah on 5 March 1945 is an event that occurred during the thirteenth mission of the American bomber Lockheed/Vega B-17G-20-VE s/n 42-97542 of the 563rd BS, 388th BG, 8th AF, USAAF (~ 563rd Bombardment Squadron of the 388th Bombardment Group of the 8th Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces) over Germany. The aircraft had a nine-member crew on board. After the aircraft was damaged by German anti-aircraft defences, the pilot tried to fly to Poland, to territory then liberated by the Soviet Red Army. However, he did not succeed, and he crashed with the aircraft near Víska in the Frýdlant Hook of today's Czech Republic. Eight airmen survived the crash, but they were captured by the Nazis and remained in captivity until the end of the war.

Damage to the aircraft and its crash

During the raid on Plauen, the aircraft dropped its bombs on the local marshalling yard at 11.06. Subsequently, however, near the Czech town of Kraslice the aircraft was hit by a German anti-aircraft shell, which damaged it and knocked out two of its four engines. At that moment it was clear to the crew that they would no longer make it back to the British Isles with the aircraft damaged in this way. They were over enemy territory and suspected that the aircraft would crash. They therefore tried to reach territory occupied by the Soviet army, that is, as far as possible beyond the war front, which at that time was about thirty kilometres from the border with Poland. The pilot also informed the other aircraft in the formation of this intention by a report. He then left the formation and flew to the northeast. To lighten the aircraft as much as possible, they jettisoned all the remaining bombs prepared for the raid on Chemnitz and also got rid of the weapon systems that weighed the bomber down. As they were flying over the mountains (other sources locate this event over the Frýdlant region), the third engine also stopped, and the aircraft then began to descend gradually. As soon as they had descended to the lower level of the clouds, the crew members began to jump out of the aircraft one after another. Eight of them managed to land successfully either on the ground or in the branches of trees, but the ninth, the tail gunner Warren, who jumped last, did not have enough time for his parachute to open because of the low altitude, and he landed hard in a small sand quarry at the edge of the forest to the east of Víska, where he was killed. The bomber without its crew then flew over Víska from a south-easterly direction and crashed at 11.25, when it struck the ground near the railway line and caught fire.