OLD " 666"

W.W.2 USAF pilot Jay Zeamer & his"renegade" aircrew rescued this old Boeing B-17E("666"-an abbreviation of the tail number,it also had a reputation for getting"Shot to Hell",on every mission) from the scrapheap.They "hotrodded"it with extra,larger calibre cannons...an amazing story.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• OLD
• 666
• Boeing
• B-17
• Flying
• Fortress
• Jay
• Zeamer
• Joe
• Sarnoski
• Medal
• of
• Honor
• USA
• W.W.2

[sjp092]

America's greatest generation....I wish I could have thanked them all....

[TheYeaters]

i have seen this episode 500 times and it still almost brings me to tears to think that his last thoughts were that he had to protect his friends no matter how much it hurt or how hard it was to complete the process

[nimitz1943]

Zimmer got at least 6 medals in WWII. Belief it or not he kept his amazing military career as a secret until his daughters, then in highschool, found by chance one of his medals. He was deeply hurt buy sarnoski's death and forever wondered why he survived and sarnoski didn't

[nimitz1943]

I read zimmer's biography published recently. His military career in WWII would make a great war movie. And it wouldn't be needed to make anything up. He flew the b17 in a way that the military thought to be impossible. This mission is just one example of it. Even how he recruited his men: reminds me a bit that movie "The dirty dozen". By the way, in this mission not all the mgs were used at the same time. Some were kept on the floor so that, if one jammed, could be quickly replaced

[texvanwinkle]

Anyone interested in this video should check out KensMen.com, the online home of the 43rd BG. This video is one of the most accurate accounts of that particular mission, but it tells nothing of the context in which it happened. The air war in the South Pacific was literally and figuratively the polar opposite of Europe. Visit the KensMen site, or the 22nd BG site, and you'll get a sense of the primitive, scrounging existence the crews endured down there in '41 and '42. It's astonishing.

[texvanwinkle]

Ack, my fingers got tangled up. 412666. What's ironic is that after doing all the work to fix that plane up—they dragged it from a dead pile at the end of Seven-Mile Strip in Port Moresby for the trimetrogon cameras they needed for photo mapping—they barely got a chance to fly it before this mission scattered them to the winds.

[texvanwinkle]

@altooname Actually the plane's serial number was 41366. I have a copy of Jay Zeamer's flight log. And the plane never received a nickname or nose art. They just called it "Ol' 666." It wasn't a priority for them, in addition to the fact that they were flying as often as Zeamer could manage. He was SOO of the 65th after April '42, so he got to fly pretty much as often as he wanted. Which was a lot. That's why the nickname the *crew* received was the "Eager Beavers."

[texvanwinkle]

@navyclock You're thinking of Martin Caidin's account in his book Flying Forts. Unfortunately his account is riddled with mistakes and hyperbole. I was fortunate to get to know know a few of Zeamer's crew, including Herb Pugh, Bill Vaughan, and Ruby Johnston, as well as J.T. Britton, the co-pilot on the MoH mission featured in the video. They all scoffed at many parts of Caidin's account of them. Caidin deserves praise for highlighting an historic mission, but his hyperbole disserves them.

[ProphetChaser]

They are heroes, everyone of them.

[hindukushdestroyer]

Joseph Sarnoski was my great uncle. My dad has his medal of honor

[navyclock]

Old 666

Old 666, B-17E 41-2666 was a World War II B-17 Flying Fortress Bomber which was assigned to the 43rd Bomb Group in 1943 and was the aircraft piloted by Lt. Col. (then Captain) Jay Zeamer on the mission that would earn him and bombardier Joseph Sarnoski each a Medal of Honor, and every other member of the crew a Distinguished Service Cross.

HideHistory

By 1943, Old 666, tail number 12666, had suffered heavy battle damage and had gained a reputation as a cursed bomber, often coming bac

[navyclock]

I read this article from a book published many years ago.

The pilot of the Old 666 was a co-pilot for so many missions, that eventually he was so relaxed during heavy flack attacks, he would put on a WWI helmet and fall asleep while being flaked.

No one would give him command, so he scrounged a plane and made a crew of misfits.

The misfits fixed up the plane and then the base commander tried renege on the deal and take the plane.

He and his misfit crew holed up in the plane with small arms