398TH BG - Nuthampstead Airfield Museum

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Station 131 Control Tower - 11 Oct. 1944

NAAFI

It appeared to be an impossible situation. The B-17 was intact, save for wing, tail and prop damage. But it was hundreds of yards from the main runway, mired in a mushy barley field on "Gypsy Farm," northeast of Station 131. Towing it out was deemed impossible, and yet the Fortress was surely salvageable.
It was inadvertently "parked" there on February 4, 1945 by a new, skeleton crew who had been "slow-timing" an engine at night. What the crew thought were runway lights were actually part of the RAF "DREM" lighting system on poles designed to "funnel" planes into the landing pattern.
Pilots Allen Ferguson and John Schmidt were cleared for landing. And so they did ... in the barley field ... taking with them a wooden chicken coop and a hundred chickens.
The plane came to rest with one of the funnel light poles lodged between No.3 engine and the fuselage. The most serious damage was to the starboard wing panel, and it was replaced before the "rocket assist take-off' on March 31, 1945. (The old wing panel is on display in the Leo Croce Nissen Hut at the Nuthampstead Airfield Museum.)
The tail fin also was replaced with a reclaimed spare from the 1st Air Division's "2nd Strategic Air Depot" at Abbots Ripton (Alconbury). This explains the "Triangle S" marking of the 401st BG from Deenthorpe, rather than the "Triangle W" from the 398th.
The use of rockets to boost a B-17 aloft was unheard of at the time and exactly how the rocket plan originated is still not clear. It is thought it might have been the idea of the pilot sent to review the problem- Capt. Richard C. Holub or M/Sgt. Raymond L. Kirkpatrick, who had worked with Capt. Holub previously. Both were from the 1st Air Division's 2 SAD.
Holub was a skilled pilot specializing in short take-offs and Kirkpatrick, served as co-pilot and "trigger man" with the rockets.
Gen. Doolittle, there to witness the event, asked Holub- "Do you think you can pull this off?"
"I can do it," replied Holub.
And he did.

** The above excerpt is from Allen Ostrom's article in the July 2002 Flak News.

602nd B-17 serial# 43-39159 K8-C. Landing gear collapsed while returning from a practice mission on 26 February 1945. To salvage on 28 February 1945.

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