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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Mr. James Brandfass

Rammed by a "wildly careening German fighter that inflicted a cut like a giant "can-opener", an Eighth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortress on which 2nd Lieut. Robert T. Brandfass, of Wheeling, was co-pilot, got back to friendly territory safely by playing a grim game' of hide-and-seek in the clouds with stalking enemy planes. The bomber was part of a formation out to get a Nazi airfield when five Messerschmitt 109s attacked. One of the Germans darted into the formation with his wing guns winking flame and appeared to be headed for a plane under Lt,- Brandfass’ fortress when the top turret, ball turret, waist arid tall gunners opened up on him.
"The pilot could see the 109 from his side and started to pull us up higher," .said the flyer. "Then we hit".
In a fraction of a second this happened: The Messerschmitt knocked the left waist gun back into the plane into the lap of the gunner who was thrown to the floor; a six-foot long, foot-wide gash was torn in the fuselage down to the ball turret; the turret was smashed and crumpled and the arm of the gunner inside was broken in three places, his only injury; three feet of the left wing was torn off where it joined to the body of the plane.
The broken Messerschmitt hurtled under the bomber and came up under the engines on the right wing. It struck the Turbo-supercharger under the inboard engine and then ran into the propeller of the outboard engine, one blade of the propeller snapped off, but the Messerschmitt kept going to a point ahead and to the right of the bomber, hung there poised for an instant and then disintegrated, falling apart in a cloud of debris.
"With all those fighters around we wanted to keep in the formation," said Lt. Brandfass. "That dead engine, though, made it impossible to keep up.” To lighten the plane the bombardier jettisoned our bombs and then we started for a field in France where we knew there was a hospital where the bail turret gunner could be treated."
As the crippled B-17 turned back, four Messerschmitt’s took up the trail. The Fortress sought concealment in the cirrus, two of the Germans broke off the chase but the others hung on, dropping back when the bomber hid in order not to lose the plane when it emerged from the clouds.
"They kept trying to attack us in the clear spaces," the flier said, "but we'd always-found another cloudbank. Finally they gave up."
After landing at the emergency field in France, the crew stayed at the base overnight, returning to England the following day. In the leading' edge of their right wing a large hole was discovered and in it was the oxygen bottle of the German pilot who had rammed them. On the side of their bomber, red and blue paint | marked the point of impact.
Lt. Brandfass is the son, of Mr. and Mrs. Carl F. Brandfass' of Glenwood road, and before entering the service in October, 1942, he was a student at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa. A veteran of more than 20 bombing attacks with the 490th Bomb group he holds the Air Medal with Two Oak Leaf Clusters for “meritorious achievement" displayed in the air over Nazi Europe.- His brother, Carl, is a cadet at the U. S. Coast Guard Academy.