Three other crew members managed to parachute out (they were never heard from again they are believed to have drowned in the English Channel).
The ball turret was disabled and Smith had to abandon it. The Germans hit Smith's B-17, causing a fuel leak and a fire inside the fuselage. Because of this, came under heavy anti-aircraft artillery fire and was attacked by German fighters. The problem came on the way back: due to a navigation error, the bomber formation descended to an altitude of 610 meters, believing that it was already flying over England, but it was still over French Brittany.
That mission went relatively smoothly to the target, at least by the standards of daytime bomber missions carried out by American B-17s (the British bombed at night). State in which the B-17F-65-BO with number 42-29649 ended up bombing, in which Smith flew on his first mission on May 1, 1943, for which he received the Medal of Honor (source: This Day in Aviation). Smith chose the Army, joining the ranks still handcuffed and led by a sheriff. The judge gave him a choice: jail or the Army. He was a rather messy child, married and divorced twice (he had a son with his second wife), and was sentenced for not paying child support for his son. This man had an eventful life before the war. One of the gunners assigned to that position was Maynard Harrison "Snuffy" Smith, born May 19, 1911, in Caro, Michigan. Short aviators were required for this position, due to the limited space available at this defense post, equipped with two heavy machine guns Browning M-2 in. Of the 10 crew members on each plane, one of those most at risk of dying in combat was the gunner of the spherical turret (also known as "ball turret"), inserted into the belly of the plane in the model B-17E and later in September 1941. Ye Olde Pub: The American B-17 bomber saved by a German Bf-109 fighter pilot Saburō Sakai: the story of a Japanese samurai pilot whose honor made him a hero During World War II, the crews of the American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers recorded a very high number of casualties.
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