Marshall Zinter Flying Fortress Pilot 398th

Marshall Zinter talks about testing bombay racks. From wikipedia.....The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engine heavy bomber aircraft developed for the U.S. Army Air Corps (USAAC). Competing against Douglas and Martin for a contract to build 200 bombers, the Boeing entry outperformed both the other competitors and more than met the Air Corps' expectations. Although Boeing lost the contract due to the prototype's crash, the Air Corps was so impressed with Boeing's design that they ordered 13 B-17s. The B-17 Flying Fortress went on to enter full-scale production and was considered the first truly mass-produced large aircraft, eventually evolving through numerous design advancements.

The B-17 was primarily employed in the daylight precision strategic bombing campaign of World War II against German industrial, civilian and military targets. The United States Eighth Air Force based in England and the Fifteenth Air Force based in Italy complemented the RAF Bomber Command's nighttime area bombing in Operation Pointblank, to help secure air superiority over the cities, factories and battlefields of Western Europe in preparation for Operation Overlord.[4] The B-17 also participated, to a lesser extent, in the War in the Pacific, where it conducted raids against Japanese shipping.

From its pre-war inception, the USAAC touted the aircraft as a strategic weapon; it was a potent, high-flying, long-ranging bomber capable of unleashing great destruction yet able to defend itself. With the ability to return home despite extensive battle damage, its durability, especially in belly-landings and ditchings, quickly took on mythic proportions.[5][6][7] Stories and photos of B-17s surviving battle damage widely circulated, boosting its iconic status.[8] Despite an inferior range and bombload compared to the more numerous B-24 Liberator,[9] a survey of Eighth Air Force crews showed a much higher rate of satisfaction in the B-17.[10] With a service ceiling greater than any of its Allied contemporaries, the B-17 established itself as a superb weapons system, dropping more bombs than any other U.S. aircraft in World War II. Of the 1.5 million tonnes of bombs dropped on Germany by U.S. aircraft, 500,000 were dropped from B-17s

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Marshall
• Zinter
• Flying
• Fortress
• Pilot
• 398th
• air
• show
• geneseo
• 2008
• heavy
• bomber
• aircraft
• b-17
• strategic
• bombing
• berlin
• germany
• ww11
• army
• force
• USAAC
• aac
• crew
• Herbert
• Buster
• Pingree
• radio
• operator
• gunner

[picguy145]

Thx for capturing this. I was at this Airshow this Year in the Heat! I am looking Foward to seeing this plane in Roch Airshow at the end of the month. Check out some of the pics I took. Wish I could of talked with This gentle men.

[angelica14709]

Thanks for the comment.

[earlyflyer]

Thanks for capturing this! We need to get all the interviews with these guys we can get!

[angelica14709]

There are 4 videos with Marshall.

[corvette724]

tough guy

[pineli02]

My grandfather, Herbert "Buster" Pingree was apart of Marshall's crew. He was the radio operator/gunner and is in one of the crew photos here. My dad and I recently contacted Marshall and received copies of photos and tons of information on the crew. Thanks to all involved-- without this video we wouldn't have found him!