The chin turret was already old technology towards the end of 1943. Remember the 20 YB-40’s that were tried months earlier. It would not have been hidden by a censor at that point.
Edit:I couldn’t find Frank Fordyce listed at the 91st BG website. I then traced the Black Swan crew whose aircraft originally was the Duke of Paducah. There is a memorial here:
http://www.merkki.com/woodsverne.htm
Frank Fordyce isn’t listed as a member of the crew. The 91st lost 2 planes that day. Could he have been on the other?
Edit: POW Info for a James F. Fordyce
http://aad.archives.gov/aad/record-detail.jsp?dt=466&mtch=2&cat=all&tf=F&sc=11675,11660,11679,11667,11669,11676,11672,11673&bc=sl,fd&txt_11660=fordyce+&op_11660=0&nfo_11660=V,24,1900&rpp=10&pg=1&rid=65381&rlst=65381,65382
Thanks for the POW information, it’ll help when I talk to him. It looks like his record, I knew he was a California native, and many people use their middlenames instead of their first names, but the military always goes by the birth certificate.
The tail number information I had might be faulty note taking on my part. How much difference was there between a B-17F-75-BO and a B-17G-1-BO? That could have mixed up a crew trained on the F’s. Frank says that he parachuted over Holland. The 447th BG seems to be the better fit with aircraft 42-31107 which was lost on 1/11/44 failing to return from Brunswick, Germany. A direct route back to England would fall over Holland. Of the 4 aircraft lost before 1-20-44, when he was reported to be a POW, this is also the only aircraft of the four that doesn’t have a picture of the crew on the 447th BG website. Frank had said the aircraft hadn’t been given a nickname. On the 447th website there are pictures of bare metal aircraft that go back with references to at least March of 1944.
As I said, I’ll put up the information when I get it and may want to have Frank submit it to his BG’s website.
Mike T.
The early Gs did not have the enlarged cheek windows and cheek guns. The reasoning was that the chin turret would be able to cover the entire nose area. Crews proved otherwise and the enlarged cheek windows and guns returned a short time later.