Shooting down of the bomber Miss Fortune on 22 February 1944

The shooting down of the bomber on 22 February 1944 is an event that occurred during the mission of an American bomber of the (~ 343rd Bombardment Squadron of the 98th Bombardment Group of the 15th Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces) over the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. After being damaged by a German fighter, the aircraft crashed near the Dubeč homestead near Prádlo in the southern Plzeň region. The eleven-member crew, with the exception of one gunner, was killed at the scene; the gunner was captured and remained in captivity until the end of the war.

Damage to the aircraft and its crash

The squadron heading for Plzeň at an altitude of roughly 7 km was being fired on by flak and was pursued by roughly eight fighters. According to the recollections of Sergeant Noury, in this situation the ball turret gunner Carter reported that his machine guns had jammed. According to Noury, one of the fighters attacked the Liberator "Miss Fortune" with fire from a 20mm cannon, but he considered the fatal blow to be a hit by an anti-aircraft shell from below into the wing through the engine. Some sources state a probable hit by a WGr.21 rocket fired from an attacking Bf 110 fighter, and according to another source the aircraft was hit by a shell fired by German anti-aircraft defences from the ground. According to the eyewitness Karel Šlajer, the shoot-down occurred at 12.30. After the hit, engines no. 3 and 4 on the right side of the Liberator began to burn. A second hit into the cockpit followed, and a piece of the right wing with the outer engine was torn off. The aircraft went into a fall, during which another explosion occurred, most likely of a fuel tank. This explosion threw the gunner Sergeant Raymond Noury out of the fuselage of the aircraft, and he briefly lost consciousness. When he regained consciousness, he was under an open parachute at an altitude of roughly 950 to 1500 metres.

The aircraft fell almost vertically to the ground, rotating around its own axis, and came down in a forest near the gamekeeper's lodge by the settlement of Dubeč not far from Nepomuk. The impact of the fuselage created a large crater; the aircraft exploded and burned in the ensuing fire. The ten remaining crew members died at the scene. The torn-off part of the right wing fell near the summit of Buková hora, two and a half kilometres north of the aircraft's impact site, and the separated engine no. 4 near it. Karel Šlajer looked at the impact site after five days, and the wreckage was still smoking.

The eyewitness Markéta Solarová recalled that on that day she was at a wedding feast at a farmstead when the drone of aircraft engines and machine-gun fire were heard in the sky. Shortly afterwards there was an explosion that shook the stone barn and the ground underfoot. She ran into the forest with friends, but at the impact site she saw such a horrific scene that she never returned to it.