B-17 Tragedy
The tragic story of the loss of B-17 Miss Donna Mae
Air combat during the Second World War was a deadly exercise pitting airmen against one another as the knights of the sky duelled for supremacy. For the men of the Allied bomber forces of the US Eighth Air Force and RAF Bomber Command, the threats included anti-aircraft fire and Luftwaffe fighters. There existed also another very real threat, that of posed by friendly fire.
The below video is the tragic story of one such incident, that of the B-17 Flying Fortress nicknamed by her crew Miss Donna Mae.
81 years ago this month, the United States lost the ‘Miss Donna Mae II’ over the center of Berlin.
The waist gunner on that flight was Richard E. Brennan.
He was my Uncle... and as the first male born into the extended family after the war, not unsurprisingly, I carry his name.