42-31830 - Luftkriegsarchiv Köln

On that day, the airfields at Cologne-Ostheim and Cologne-Butzweilerhof were the targets of over two hundred B-17 bombers, accompanied by more than 180 P-51 fighter aircraft.

During the bombing run, B-17 42-31830, piloted by 1st Lt. Raymond Anderson Boulter, was hit by anti-aircraft fire. The third engine and the right landing gear were blown off, as were the side panels of the bomb bays.

Immediately after being hit, the aircraft veered to the right out of formation and began a steep nosedive. Nevertheless, seven crew members managed to bail out of the crashing aircraft.

Pilot Boulter, who was flying only his third combat mission that day, and his bomb aimer, T/Sgt Lewis Paul Ficken, had no chance to escape the aircraft as it spiraled steeply downward. Both were recovered dead from the wreckage of the aircraft, which crashed in an open field near Uckerath and burned out.

Both were buried in a communal grave at the cemetery in neighboring Eudenbach.

The rest of the crew was taken prisoner by the Germans and returned to the United States after the war ended.

The pilot of the B-17G "Marie",

1st Lt. Raymond Anderson Boulter

The lettering "Marie" on the nose of the B-17 G 42-31830