It's December the 20th, 1943,
high in the skies above Germany.
Technical Sergeant Forrest Lee Vosler sits in the radio compartment
of his B-17F, Jersey Bounce Jr.
Feeling the explosions rock the flying fortress.
Unbelievably, in a few short moments, he will be begging
the crew to throw him out of the plane.
For now, the plane braves the
heaviest flak he's ever experienced.
All around there are bombers smoking or
going down under the relentless punishment.
“Bombs away.’’
Columns of ordnance fall from the sky and the formation turns for home when disaster strikes.
The B-17 almost rolls over with the impact, but pilot John Henderson narrowly brings it under control.
The ball turret gunner, Edward Ruppel,
watches as the fire engulfs their engine.
“Number one is on fire!”
Henderson rolls over on the left wing and puts the plane into a dive.
The fire goes out, but at the same time, number three engine spews a stream of oil and loses all power.
They fall away from the formation
alongside other aircraft too wounded to keep up.
“We're in trouble now.”
“Yeah, tell us something we don't know.”
Back with Vosler, he abandons his radio and gets hold of the 50 caliber machine gun on the roof.
He peers through the plexiglass and sees the awe-inspiring formation of B-17s above him.
They stretch as far as the eye can see, moving as black puffs of smoke materialize from thin air.
But then, suddenly, the flak stops.
Bandits!
Bf-109s and Fw-190s swarm on the easy prey.
The crew of the Jersey Bounce Jr. are forced to sit and watch
as their fellow bombers are torn to shreds,
and one by one, they fall from the sky.
The crew are all very aware that they are next.
It starts.
Two Bf-109s charge from behind.
Tail gunner George Busch opens fire with his twin machine guns and scores hits on the lead German.
But it's not enough.
They open fire with their 20mm cannons and a shell hits square on Busc's guns.
He cries, "I'm hit!" and falls silent.
Another 20mm punches through the fuselage, just past the waist gunners and detonates inside,
sending a cloud of shrapnel up the aircraft that strikes Vosler in the legs,
throwing him off his gun before he gets a chance to fire a single shot.
Outside, more and more aircraft join in the fray.
Nine single-engine fighters, a mixture of 109s and 190s, swarm all over,
relentlessly firing volley after volley of bullets, while the American gunners desperately fend them off.
By sheer luck, many seem to have run out of cannon shells,
but they still dump hundreds of low-caliber bullets all over the B-17.
Inside the aircraft, Vosler gathers himself up.
The adrenaline silences his pain, but he can still feel his lifeblood draining from him.
Full of determination,
Vosler stands back up to the machine gun.
He joins the fight, opening fire
on an FW-190 coming in for a run,
together with a top turret they pepper it with lead and
force it to turn away, spewing oil.
They resist the attackers with all their might, and one by one, the enemy fighters turn away, damaged or out of ammunition.
“Have they gone? Did we get out of this?”
“Nothing on our six.”
“Haha, they're gone! We're clear!”
With the enemy presence dwindling, waist gunner Ralph F. Burkhardt abandons his machine gun
and rushes to the back to check on the tail gunner.
He finds him unconscious.
“Simpkins, come to the back! Bussker's hit! Bad!”
Bill Simpkins is on the top turret.
He doesn't need to be told twice.
He abandons his post and rushes to the rescue.
The two men drag the injured
tail gunner to the waist gun area.
He's badly injured. Simpkins does the best he can.
“Get me the morphine!”
A new opponent comes into view.
It's a Bf 110, that pulls up alongside.
The crew of the Jersey Bounce Jr. manage to empty a barrage of 50 caliber rounds straight into its flank.
Its engine bursts into flames
and the enemy falls earthbound.
Soon after, a Bf109 attempts a pass
from above, firing with its small guns.
Again, it's met straight on with a volley and it tears to shreds and goes down.
Simultaneously, back in the waist gunner area,
Burkhardt is back on his gun and opens fire at
an Me 210 coming in from behind.
He holds down the trigger, sending a stream of bullets towards the enemy.
Multiple hits strike the German's right wing before it flies behind the bomber's tail.
“There's an enemy on our six!”
“God damn it, I can't see him!”
The German machine comes into view, missing its right wing, on fire
and tumbling out of control as it disintegrates.
“You got him, it's going down!”
Simpkins has stabilized the injured tail gunner as best he
can and realises nobody's guarding the bomber's rear.
Out of his own initiative, he makes his way to the destroyed rear guns in Stan's watch.
Minutes later, he spots a Bf110 coming in from above.
“On our six! 110 on our six!”
Vosler turns the guns around, just as
the 110 pulls right up to the B-17's tail.
The enemy pilot is so close,
he opens fire with his machine gun, striking the German all over his wings.
Vosler can see the pilot's terrified expression as the 50 calibre aims straight for his head.
The German pushes his aircraft straight down and narrowly escapes Vosler's volley.
“Lucky mother Hubbard!”
Just at that moment, a 109 comes down from above and fires
a 20mm shell straight into Vosler's gun.
The shell explodes right in his face, showering him with
shrapnel and throwing him onto the floor.
Vosler lies on the bomber floor,
badly hurt, believing he's about to die.
Slowly, his fear makes way for calm acceptance and he
thinks to himself, "It's been a great 20 years."
Meanwhile, the rest of the crew comes to the realisation
that all the attacks have ceased.
They've survived.
Ruppel struggles his way out of his ball turret and is
immediately greeted by the sight of
Vosler thrown in shock from blood loss.
He rushes to help, lifting him up
on onto his radio operator's chair.
He's in a terrible state, but he's alive.
In the cockpit, the pilot,
Henderson, assesses the situation.
They've been losing altitude this whole time.
The wings are so shot up, they can hardly fly.
Half his gauges don't work.
Two of his engines are down and they're still over Germany.
They're not going to make it.
They'll be lucky if they even get past the beach.
In a last-ditch effort to keep the
bird aloft, Henderson gets an idea.
“All right, boys, we need to shed some weight.
Throw absolutely everything overboard.”
The men get to work.
Extra ammunition, spent casings,
emergency oxygen tanks, even the guns.
Everything is stripped and discarded for weight.
Vosler gets the attention of the men.
Weekly he says, "Why don't you throw me overboard?"
The men look at each other but don't answer.
But the bloodied Vosler asks again,
"I'm just so much extra pounds."
"Throw me out too.
Save yourselves."
"Shut up, we're all getting out of this."
"Can you still send an SOS?"
It's then when Vosler finally realizes that maybe he isn't going to die.
At least not yet.
Yes.
Almost completely blind, he guides the
crew into setting up the radio for him
and then proceeds to operate it by feel and memory.
Despite his shocking state, he calmly contacts base for a rescue.
He exchanges the needed information
and performs the necessary follow-ups
for base to gauge their position and heading.
45 minutes of constant contact later and
with the B-17 almost skimming the waves
of the North Sea, four flying boats arrive
to rendezvous with the crippled aircraft.
Henderson performs a perfect water
landing where, thanks to Vosler's efforts,
multiple planes and boats are waiting for their arrival.
The wounded would be admitted to hospital.
Miraculously, everyone survived.
Even Busk.
Vosler lost one of his eyes but
regained some sight on the other.
He didn't serve again and was recalled
back to the States for continued treatment.
He would later recall that one of his first thoughts after being hit in the legs was
"I'm definitely getting a Purple Heart now."
But he got a lot more than that.
Forest Lee Vosler was awarded the Medal of Honor for his incredible action in the face of equally incredible wounds.
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