WWII Aircraft Discovery has AF Reserve 440th AW Connection

POPE AIR FORCE BASE, NC, UNITED STATES

03.21.2016

Story by 1st Lt. Justin Clark 

440th Airlift Wing, Pope Army Airfield, North Carolina

The B-17 Flying Fortress bomber was co-piloted by Gorse's uncle, then-19-year-old 2nd Lt. Norville Gorse, who flew in the U.S. Army Air Forces in the European Theater of World War II. Divers located the aircraft last fall on the floor of the North Sea, off the coast of Norfolk, U.K.

The discovery came as a big surprise to Lt. Col. Gorse when he happened to check his spam e-mail folder and in it found an email from Lucy May Maxwell at the American Air Museum in Duxford, England. Gorse had signed up on their web site years earlier while researching his uncle's military history. Maxwell had been contacted by Alex Hurrell of the Eastern Daily Press, who had in turn been reached by Paul Hennessey of the North Norfolk Divers Club when they had found an undersea wreck and believed it to be a B-17. A match of the tail numbers confirmed that it was the aircraft of Gorse's uncle, Norville.

"This comes as a big surprise," said Lt. Col. Gorse upon being reached for comment on the discovery. "To find the aircraft so many years later and then to be able to have it lead back to me is unbelievable."

Upon news of the discovery, the nephew Gorse, a C-130 pilot in the Air Force Reserve and commander of the 440th Operations Group at Pope Army Airfield, North Carolina, came forward with his uncle's account of the crash that had been written in 1989.

Family separation meant that the younger Gorse was unaware of his uncle Norville until he began researching his family history as a young man. The younger John first met his war-hero uncle at his pilot training graduation in Texas, having invited him to the ceremony.

The World War II aircraft, a B-17 of the USAAF 96th Bomb Group, tail number 42-29752, had to be ditched in the North Sea on May 13, 1943. The plane was on its way to bomb a target in St. Omer, France, after having taken off from RAF Grafton Underwood.

Disaster struck the bomber when a machine gun went off without warning, hitting two of the nine crewmembers and shooting off the plane's right stabilizer.

Nevertheless, 2nd Lt. Gorse and pilot Capt. Derrol Rogers heroically managed to keep their crippled aircraft flying for two hours. They jettisoned their bombs into the Wash, an estuary on the east coast of Britain, and allowed their seven crewmates to bail out safely.

Once all the other crewmembers had jumped out, Gorse and Rogers continued to the North Sea, by which time the aircraft's engines were starting to fail and the battered bomber was fast losing altitude.

In his account, Gorse wrote about his experience of bailing out of the B-17:

"Rogers told me to jump... The engines began misfiring as I left my seat, so I sped back to the bomb bay and dropped out," wrote Gorse.

He estimated that the plane was, at that time, just 400 feet above the water's surface.

"I dropped into the water from about 20 feet above the choppy sea... After entering the water, the shoreline undertow took hold. I didn't stop sinking until I could pull off my boots (about 20 feet below the surface) and swim with full strength toward the surface. I was just able to hold my breath long enough to reach it."

Gorse was in the sea for more than an hour before the crew of a rescue boat pulled him out using a pole with a large hook on the end. The 19-year-old aviator was quickly returned to duty, while Capt. Rogers sadly died of exposure shortly thereafter.

However, the war for the young Gorse was nowhere near from being over, because only months later a similar aircraft incident ended much differently.




Part one of a three-part series.

• Date Taken: 03.21.2016
• Date Posted: 09.19.2016 18:48
• Story ID: 210024
• Location: POPE AIR FORCE BASE, NC, US
• Hometown: POPE AIR FORCE BASE, NC, US