The last flight of a B-17

After an apparently 'ordinary' bombing flight, Commander Maurice Mangis' bomber took the full brunt of enemy fighters. Two crew members died in the air battle. A further two didn't survive the unpreventable crash either, including the commander.

Nonetheless, this was not the end of the story for all of the occupants. Crew members Bennett and Dabney reached the ground in one piece, where they were met by contacts from the resistance. Jos van Aalderen from Hoogeveen took them to safety.

Tracy, Aldrich and Svobada also survived the crash at what the people of Echten called the 'hoge bossie’ (high small forest). However, they were unlucky enough to be taken prisoner of war by the Germans. This was done under false pretences.

Sergeant Jacob Zwier played a questionable role in this. In his report, we read that he was in Steenbergen when he saw a plane crash in the north-west.

"After immediately making my way to the place where the said plane had come down, I saw a plane lying there at Lage Veen, municipality of Zuidwolde, in a plot of meadow, this plane, which appeared to be of American nationality. Four persons, also of US nationality, who had jumped out of the above-mentioned plane with parachutes, were captured." In addition to Tracy, Aldrich and Svobada, it was front gunner Celusnak, who had been picked up elsewhere in the field and was taken away in a truck with the others.

One of the arrestees, Dale Aldrich, talked about it in the book 'The Belly Gunner'. Author Carol Edgemon interviewed him extensively about it several times. What did Aldrich recount? When he jumped, he had no idea whether he had a chance of survival. He expected the craft to explode immediately. Suddenly he saw Tony Svoboda, the tail gunner, who actually had his own emergency exit. Why had he come forward? No idea. They then stood together in the door of the aircraft. “Go ahead!”, Aldrich shouted to Svoboda. “Go ahead!”, he called back. Go for it! Aldrich jumped and landed in a meadow. He stood up, looked around, gathered his parachute to put it away and noticed Bill Tracy walking towards him, followed immediately by Tony Svoboda.

The first thing Aldrich said to them: “Jack and Bill are dead....” How should they proceed? They chose to take cover in a forest as soon as possible, but they had already been spotted. A man in uniform walked up to them: sergeant Jacob Zwier. He informed us that he was a Dutch policeman and asked if we wanted to be put in touch with the Dutch resistance. They were only too happy to do so. They only had to take shelter in that forest for a while. The policeman pointed to the forest where they were heading anyway. "I will go now and find someone from the resistance for you." Things unfortunately turned out differently.

They stood there for half an hour at most. Then they heard the policeman whistle and heard him shouting for them to come out of the forest. It was the same policeman, not with someone from the resistance, but with a dozen German soldiers .... They survived the crash but were imprisoned for the remainder of the war.