42-30758
Crashes > of the USAAF
After a bombing raid on Frankfurt, the bomber fleet was on its way back to its base in Thorpe Abbot in England.
Around 12:30 other crews observed that the B-17 "Satcha Lass" was steadily losing altitude. However, there were no signs of engine damage or damage from anti-aircraft fire.
After the aircraft has flown over a river, the pilot looks for a way to bring it down gently and attempt a belly landing. Thinking he was already over the safety of Holland, he accelerated his descent and brought the B-17 down in an open field near Oberembt on the outskirts of Rödingen.
Everything went well, the plane did not catch fire and everyone survived the landing relatively well and unharmed. And they were in the firm belief that they were in Dutch territory. A fatal mistake, as the river they had flown over was the Rhine and not the Meuse.
The crew quickly leaves the wreckage and tries to light a fire under the right wing with life jackets, parachutes and other material to set the plane on fire and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.
The farmer and land guard Wilhelm Fließgarten from Rödingen is the first at the landing site and prevents the crew from lighting a fire under the plane with his courageous intervention. In the meantime, the mayor of Elsdorf, Iven, has also arrived at the crash site. He had seen the American bomber land from his home in Oberembt and immediately made his way to the supposed crash site in his car.
Both of them managed to force the crew back from the wreckage at gunpoint. A short time later, they were all handed over to a German major from a nearby anti-aircraft unit. This was the end of the war for them and they spent the rest of the war as German prisoners of war.
As a result of his courageous intervention, the farmer Wilhelm Fließgarten not only received a written commendation from the highest authority, but was also awarded the War Merit Cross II Class with Swords.
Additional source:
Thanks to the Titz municipal archive and Mayor Christoph Hoischen/City of Elsdorf for information and photos.
Above:
The crash site of the B-17 “Satcha Lass” near Rödingen
Below:
The wreckage of the B-17
Bottom left:
The certificate awarding Wilhelm Fliesgarten the War Merit Cross