Memorial

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A/C first started to get into trouble over Mayen, Germany, before ever reaching the ball-bearing factories at Schweinfurt. Egender and Vender both remember the vicious and unrelenting head-on attacks of German ME-109's and FW-190's which passed literally within feet of the bombers as they rolled past them. Egender reported that a string of 7 FW-190's were attacking at a near-level altitude from dead ahead, a popular attack strategy that exploited the Flying Fortess' weakest area of defensive gunfire in the nose of the aircraft. The fighters pumped a continuous stream of shells into A/C, raking the ship from left to right as they passed and rolled away at the last second. The fighter in the middle of the attacking group found is mark. Gunfire hit and destroyed the number 2 engine, ran across the inboard wing setting it a fire, and then hammered into the flight deck. Both Pilot Everett Kenner and Co-Pilot George Bryan were killed instantly. According to a later report by Flight Engineer Sgt Glen Chase, both Pilots were decapitated in the attack. Egender recalls that he was leaning over the bombsight when the attack commenced. He remembers the Plexiglas nos getting hit and a 20mm cannon shell exploding under the bombsight, throwing hiw from the nose back into the tunnel below the flight deck. The dazed bombardier remembers the aircraft's nose being filled with smoke and the smell of cordite permeating in the air. Egender, now with a minor wound on his right leg, regained his wits and stuck his head up into the cockpit. Chase came down from the top turret when the fire hit his cockpit. From the flightdeck he informed Egender that the pilots were dead and that he should get out.