The missions were also voluntary.
“Any member of a crew could request
a transfer,” said Rusty, “but few did so
even though they did not yet have the
P51 Mustang fighter escorts, which
would greatly reduce the loss rates of
bomber crews. Once the B17s crossed
the North Sea, they were on their own.
Even though armed with machine
guns, they were pretty much sitting
ducks for the German fighting planes
and flak fired from the ground. The
second most deadly position to be in
during WWII was in a B17. The first
was being in a submarine in the South
Pacific.”
From August 1943 until January
1944, Harry flew nineteen missions.
He came back only five times
without machine gun bullets from
German fighter pilots or flak holes
46 TOOMBS COUNTY MAGAZINE
from ground fire in his
plane. He flew his last
mission on January 29,
1944. His target was
an engine component
factory in Frankfurt.
As he approached the
target, his plane was hit
by machine gun fire from
three German fighter
planes. Harry fell out of
formation and flew into
cloud cover to evade the
enemy. With mountains ahead, he had
to gain altitude and was forced out of
the clouds. The three enemy fighter
planes were right there waiting to
resume their attack.
Harry’s five crewmen in the back
of the plane, who were separated
from the five in the front by a steel
bulletproof wall, were all killed by
machine gun fire. With the plane on
fire, he gave the signal to “abandon
ship.” As captain, Harry was the
last man out. “Daddy said he was
concerned he was going to land on
the plane as it exploded into fire.
But instead of exploding, the plane
skidded and broke into pieces. He
In 2000, Rusty's son and Mose's grandson Morris moved home from
Athens to carry on the family tradition at Georgia Tire Company.