Photo of the Day

It is September 15, 1943.

B-17s over Germany 1945.

Three waves of B-17 heavy bombers have taken off from air bases in England,

escorted by P47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft.

P47 takes off from the deck of an aircraft carrier.

They are headed to the western suburbs of Nazi-occupied Paris

to bomb German weapons factories there.

Among them is the B-17 nicknamed “Pat Hand,”

carrying a crew of eleven and

piloted by Ken Murphy, a 25-year-old from rural southeastern Colorado.

The flight south, over the Channel and into northern France, went well.

And the B-17s began their bombing runs.

Lt. Kenneth Eugene Murphy, pilot of the Pat Hand.

Airmen in other planes say the Pat Hand dropped her bomb load

over the target at 5:50 PM,

but then flak from German ground-based anti-aircraft fire

struck the aircraft’s right wing, igniting a fire.

The Pat Hand.

The Pat Hand then plunged to the ground, exploding before impact.

When the four-hour bombing raid ended,

the residents of La Garenne Colombes,

a northwest Paris suburb located six miles from Notre Dame,

emerged from their bomb shelters.

And they found bomb craters in their streets,

two dozen buildings destroyed

and a hundred others damaged.

And in front of the old house at 34 Rue Du Château

they found the incinerated remains of the front section of the Pat Hand.

Murphy and his co-pilot lay among the ruins, still strapped to their seats.

The bodies of other crewmen were found scattered across the town.

Of the eleven men aboard the Pat Hand,

two had managed to parachute from the aircraft as she went down.

German sentries killed one as he landed

and took the other prisoner.

A B17 which has crashed in France, July 1944.

4,735 B-17s were lost in combat operations during the war.

This is the story of just one of them.

The memorial plaque on the front of the house where the aircraft crashed. Translation: "In memory of the crew members of the B-17 Flying Fortress Pat Hand, shot down by the Germans on September 15, 1943, over La Garenne Columbes. They fell on the battlefield for the liberation of France."

From the French city’s memorial webpage dedicated to the Pat Hand:

“[T]he city has regained its peaceful face;

and yet years later,

still persists the painful memory of those men,

young and valiant,

who lost their lives in appalling circumstances,

so that a land which was not theirs,

`would regain peace and freedom.”

B-17 crewmen at a 2014 Memorial Day reunion.

When I am tempted to lose faith in America,

I try to remember what we once did and what we once stood for.

I live in hope that our national character has not changed.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda