The First B-17 to Bomb Berlin in World War II

On this episode of Our American Stories, it was never supposed to be their mission. But in March 1944, through a twist of circumstance, Lt. Bill Owen’s crew became the first to fly a B-17 Flying Fortress into Berlin during World War II. Against heavy defenses from the German Luftwaffe, they dropped bombs in the heart of the Third Reich and returned to tell the story. John O’Neil, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, shares the account as his father—the tail and waist gunner on that historic plane—first told it.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. And up next
an incredible story from John O'Neill at the National Museum
of the Mighty Eighth Air Force in Pooler, Georgia, outside
of Savannah. In nineteen forty three, John's father, John J.
O'Neill Junior, served as a tail and waistgunner on an
experimental B seventeen that became the first American plane to

(00:34):
bomb Berlin, all by some extraordinary chance. Here's John with
the story.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
In nineteen forty three, the United States Air Force had
one problem. Weather was hampering operations. The British came over
and said, look at we need the real hardware, guns, boats, ammunition.
We have some secrets that we're willing to trade for those.
One of them was radar. The United States was so

(01:04):
far behind in radar, the British were so far ahead.
So when Roosevelt heard that, he said, give them what
they want. We want their information. Because the Germans had radar,
they knew when bombers were coming over and where they
were crossing. So MIT three thousand scientists took this information
and built the first operational United States radar sets to

(01:28):
be put in specially equipped B seventeens, all top secret.
They could literally do navigation and bomb through overcast. My
father's friend, Major Fred Rabo, was tasked with bringing these
twelve B seventeens from Boston what's now Logan Airport with
the first radar sets in them. So they brought those

(01:49):
over in nineteen forty three and they formed a bomb
group called the forty second Bomb Group out of Alcanberry.
They took crews from every one of the bomb groups
and they trained them how to use radar. The very
invest navigators, the very best pilots, the very best crews
were tasked with this, so the first operational radar mission.
So these guys would get up the night before. They
were told you're gonna lead the one hundredth bomb group.

(02:11):
So these special planes would fly the night before to
a base park there. The next day they would work
with the lead ship who was doing dead reckoning navigation
and provide them radar fixes. So nobody knew. They couldn't
name their planes most did you know. The guys would
take a lot of pride and putting their nose art off.
But there were these contraptions sticking out from underneath the plane,

(02:33):
either under the nose if it was an H two
S set, or underneath the ball turret, or underneath the
front of the nose if it was an H two
X mickey set. Very top secret, and they were called
the pathfinders, the Eighth Air Force pathfinders. My father's patch
on his jacket is of a lightning bug with the
light on the tail lit up, holding a bomb. So

(02:53):
it was basically that the lightning bug would light the
target and when they were over it, they would drop
the bomb. So all the different four Squadron PA I
just had very similar type. Either it was an eagle
holding a bomb with a flashlight, but they were called
the pathfinders. We wanted to reach Berlin going back to
November of forty three, and there were attempts to reach

(03:14):
it because remember now we had the long range P
fifty one. They also thought it was a great target
of morale boost because remember we hadn't landed on the
beaches of Normandy yet, so they wanted to send a
message that Hitler's capital could be reached. So they tried
six times starting in November nineteen forty three, and each

(03:34):
one of those missions was scrubbed fast forward March fourth,
my father's ship is sent to the ninety fifth bomb
Group the night before at Horn they were going to
lead the thirteenth Combat Wing to Berlin maximum Effort mission
seven hundred and fifty B seventeen and B twenty four bombers,
or to leave for Berlin fighter escort all the way

(03:58):
to the target and back. Target is the Bosh Electrical
Components factory in Mainklingkyle, a suburb of Berlin, just on
the southeast. They're going to hit that target because they
make the fuel injection systems for the Hinkle bomber and
the Looff wafflas measure Schmidt and also the fock Wolf
one ninety. They get up that day, they pull the

(04:22):
curtain for the briefing and they see the map of
Europe and they see the string which would take them
to the target. Everybody sees Berlin. My father's waistgunner, a
guy named Beans from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, leans to my father
and goes, well, we're dead. Make sure you get everything
to my parents back in Pittsburgh. And now. Of course

(04:43):
Beans would say that if they were going on a
training mission, he was like the e or of the crew.
So every time they were to go anywhere. But he says, no,
this time, I really mean it. They called my father
one after O'Neill. It was like the short name one.
They all had shortened names. The other waistgunner was Hoppy.
The top turrek gunner's name was Don White. It was Whitey.
So they all had these names. So Moffatt was the

(05:04):
ball turret gunner. So Bean says, we're not gonna come
back from this. We're not going to come back from this.
They take off for Berlin, maximum effort, entire eight Air
Force is going. Weather's real bad, delayed and take off.
I mean, we could talk about formation flying and how
how long it took. Imagine seven hundred and fifty planes

(05:25):
trying to get information with no anti collision radar on
our ships. It was all by sight. You'd get into
clouds you couldn't see. There were so many collisions, and
when you collide two B seventeens or two B twenty
fours together with two thousand gallons of high octane aviation fuel,
seven thousand rounds of fifty caliber ammunition, and a twelve

(05:46):
thousand pound bomb load, they would just explode and bodies
would just never be recovered. So anyway, they get over
the continent, there's a radio recall issue, whether targeteds or
too much weather. Returned to base. My father said, we
had gotten a really good position in the formation. We

(06:08):
were in the middle of the seven hundred and fifty
bomber streams. So there were squadrons in front, squadrons in back,
and this whole armada is headed to Berlin. They're in
the middle. Why the middle was important or why it
was considered safer. The loofwaffle would come up and try
to wipe out the lead squadrons in front. Then they
would have to go down and refuel. So the front

(06:30):
squadrons usually took the brunt, and then the tail end squadrons,
the low squadrons would take the brunt. All of a
sudden they start seeing these be seventeens turning around. My
father's Lieutenantt's on the radio. He's the pathfindership. He's given
the course corrections. He says, sir, radio recall. You know,
maintain radio silence. We will continue that the target is briefed.

(06:52):
That was it, and then crew crew conversations. Where has
the kernel gone mad? So he's a ninety fifth kernel anyway,
long story, short the mission Commander Griff Mumfort's plane was
using dead reckoning. They were drifting further and further off course,
so they weren't taking the fixes that the radar ship
was given them. So finally they get on the radio
and said, if you do not allow us to course correct,

(07:15):
you're forty nine miles off course right now. We're not
going to have enough fuel, we're not going to hit
the target, and we're not going to get home. So
at that point Mumford says, take the lead. So if
the seven hundred and fifty bomber stream thirty nine bombers
continued to the target, it was the charge of the
light brigade. They get to the target that fifty ones

(07:35):
are there, including Chuck Geger, who had his first shootdown
that day. If the p fifty ones weren't there, thirty
nine ships would have gone down wiped out, no doubt
about it. They get to the target. The colonel wanted
to be the first one to bomberl in. It was
a huge prestige thing going back to the States. He says,
back off to the deputy lead position. So he begins

(07:56):
to back off. The colonel gets on the IP or
the final bomber on can't open his bombay doors. Their
frozen shot, bad weather. He says, take the lead, will
bomb on the pathfinder. They bomb, They shoot a flair
opened the bombays. My father's crew is the first United
States Army Air Force B seventeen to reach gets credited.

(08:20):
They thought for sure that he was either going to
get the Silver Star or court martialed for disobeying on
radio recall. Whatever their explanation was that their radio man
on the I'll be around to be seventeen that was
the name of it, who was the lead ship, was
interpreted as a false radio recall sent up by the Germans.

(08:45):
My father's radio operator, who had the opportunity to talk
to said that radio recall was as real as they got.
That was no o thing, because they had special codes
they were given before every flight, and he says, I
verified that. But they stuck with the They didn't divert.
They stuck with him all the way to Berlin, but
the P fifty one saved him. Four seventeens were lost
over the target. Thirty five of the thirty nine got home.

(09:08):
They flew over horm they landed. My father's crew went
up to Alconbury, which was about another twenty five minutes
near Cambridge. They got out of the plane exhausted. It
was like twelve hours in the air, combat cold, and
they were met by one press person. Meanwhile, there was
a huge Life magazine, Andy Rooney, Walter Cronkite, all these

(09:31):
famous journalists were there at the base at the ninety fifth.
They got all the credit in the world of these
favors except for one guy from the New York Harold
Tribune was at Alcinberry and he heard the story and
he interviewed the crew. They were ordered to meet with
this guy after their mission debrief and he told him
this story, and he hands them a copy of a teletype.

(09:53):
He's typing it out on a special typewriter because it
went across the Transatlantic cable back to New York and
it was kind of in a code. And he hand
to my father's pilot and he says, hold on to this.
This is the true story of the mission to Berlin.
Because he led. My father's pilot would only talk to
them if he was allowed to tell them who the
crew was. But the original trans Atlamic cable was sent

(10:17):
to me by my dad's pilot and he said, hold
on to this for history. And I have the original
navigation maps that were in the B seventeen that Al Inglehart,
the Mickey operator, had made, all the times, the chart courses,
how far off target they were, and how they ended
up being the first BE seventeen to bomb Berlin.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
And a special thanks to Monty for the great job
on the production. The story of John O'Neill as told
by his son here on our American Stories