{"id":1445621,"date":"2026-06-02T16:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T14:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=1445621"},"modified":"2026-06-25T14:11:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:11:01","slug":"headless-b-17-flying-fortress-88mm-shell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/fr\/headless-b-17-flying-fortress-88mm-shell\/","title":{"rendered":"Headless B-17: The Fortress That Refused to Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<p>Six miles above Budapest the air was forty degrees below zero, and the sky around the Flying Fortress named <em>Mizpah<\/em> had turned into a wall of black smoke and orange fire. It was 14 July 1944, and the flak over the Hungarian capital was the kind of fire that gunners on the ground walked across a formation methodically, box by box, daring the bombers to hold their line.<\/p>\n<p>First Lieutenant Ewald Swanson had just felt his B-17 lift as the bombs fell away when an 88mm shell found the nose of his airplane and detonated. In a single white flash the bombardier, the navigator, the Plexiglas, the instrument panel and most of the forward fuselage simply ceased to exist. Where the cockpit had been there was now open air, screaming past at 200 miles an hour.<\/p>\n<p>By every law of aerodynamics, <em>Mizpah<\/em> should have rolled over and fallen four miles into the burning city. Instead she kept flying &mdash; long enough for the men still alive behind the bomb bay to clip on their parachutes and jump. This is the story of the headless Flying Fortress, and of the airmen who refused to ride her down.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f0f0f0;border-radius:8px;padding:18px 22px;margin:24px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:700;font-size:15px\">Quick Facts<\/p><ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:18px;font-size:15px;line-height:1.7\"><li><strong>Aircraft:<\/strong> B-17G-35-BO <em>Mizpah<\/em>, serial 42-32109, 840th Bomb Squadron, 483rd Bomb Group<\/li><li><strong>Date &amp; target:<\/strong> 14 July 1944, marshalling yards at Budapest, Hungary (Fifteenth Air Force, flying from Italy)<\/li><li><strong>The hit:<\/strong> a direct 88mm flak burst in the nose, instantly killing the navigator and bombardier and tearing away the entire forward section<\/li><li><strong>Pilot:<\/strong> 1st Lt. Ewald A. Swanson, who held the wreck steady for roughly ten minutes<\/li><li><strong>Outcome:<\/strong> eight men survived as prisoners of war; two were killed; all survivors were liberated on 30 April 1945<\/li><li><strong>Documented by:<\/strong> Missing Air Crew Report 6901, with sworn eyewitness statements from other crews in the formation<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A milk run that turned into a massacre<\/h2>\n<p>The 483rd Bomb Group had been in combat barely three months, flying out of Tortorella in southern Italy. On the morning of 14 July 1944 some sixty Fortresses lifted off to strike the rail yards feeding the German war machine through Budapest. The target mattered &mdash; troops, oil and equipment all funnelled through those tracks.<\/p>\n<p>Hungary, however, was ringed with anti-aircraft batteries, and the flak that day was murderous. Long before they reached the aiming point, holes were punching through <em>Mizpah<\/em>&rsquo;s tail and wings. The combat box held formation anyway, because a B-17 on the bomb run could not jink or weave; it had to fly straight and level and trust the man beside it.<\/p>\n<p>Then, in the final seconds of the run, bombardier 2nd Lt. Kenneth Dudley toggled the load. That is the instant the shell arrived.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;margin:0 0 10px\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Q0Ux3zDFZVg\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/div><p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin:0 0 24px;font-style:italic\">The story of the headless B-17 \u201cMizpah,\u201d reconstructed with period photographs (FlakAlley).<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The shell that erased the cockpit<\/h2>\n<p>The 88mm round struck squarely in the nose and exploded. Dudley and navigator 2nd Lt. Joseph Henderson were killed instantly. The blast peeled the entire nose section up and back over the windshield, leaving the two pilots staring into open sky with the wind tearing at their oxygen masks.<\/p>\n<p>The men flying alongside watched it happen, and their later sworn statements in Missing Air Crew Report 6901 are some of the most vivid records of the war. One of them, flying directly opposite <em>Mizpah<\/em>, described the moment the Fortress was decapitated.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;The nose of 109 peeled up as though something had cut it off. It fell back over the cockpit. The ship nosed up into the air then settled back as though the pilot had control.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>2Lt. Dwayne L. Goodwin<\/strong> &mdash; B-17 co-pilot, 483rd BG, eyewitness statement in MACR 6901 (1944)<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Goodwin counted the parachutes as they came: &ldquo;five good chutes and one tattered chute.&rdquo; A second airman, ball-turret gunner S\/Sgt. Charles L. Stoll Jr., remembered the same horror from a different angle.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;The nose blew over the cockpit of the ship and I saw five chutes leaving the ship. The plane was covered with blood and the Navigator most likely jumped, but his chute was torn pretty bad.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>S\/Sgt. Charles L. Stoll, Jr.<\/strong> &mdash; B-17 gunner, 483rd BG, eyewitness statement in MACR 6901 (1944)<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=858218868  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/b17-formation-through-flak-wwii.jpg\" alt=\"B-17 Flying Fortresses flying through heavy flak on a bombing run over Europe\" style=\"display:block;width:100%!important;max-width:100%!important;height:auto!important;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">B-17s push through a barrage of flak on the way to a target &mdash; the same lethal curtain that tore the nose off <em>Mizpah<\/em>. (U.S. Air Force photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Flying a Fortress by hand<\/h2>\n<p>Here the legend of the B-17 earns its name. With the instrument panel gone and the control column shattered, Swanson should have had nothing left to fly with. But the Fortress was famous for one quality above all others: stability. Heavy, broad-winged and forgiving, she wanted to keep flying even when her crew could barely hold her.<\/p>\n<p>According to the histories of the 483rd Bomb Group, the pilot, co-pilot 2nd Lt. Paul Berndt and flight engineer Frank Gramenzi kept the airplane under control for some ten minutes &mdash; long enough to drag clear of the worst of the flak and put open countryside beneath them. Some accounts describe the surviving crew hauling on the exposed cables by hand to answer what Swanson needed up front.<\/p>\n<p>A second shell knocked out an engine. <em>Mizpah<\/em> sagged behind the formation, losing speed and height. Swanson held her level just long enough.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;margin:0 0 10px\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fy878Rm5RHY\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/div><p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin:0 0 24px;font-style:italic\">A second telling of the same incident, drawing on the 483rd Bomb Group records (The Military Channel).<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">&ldquo;Bail out&rdquo;<\/h2>\n<p>Once friendly ground &mdash; or at least open ground &mdash; was below them, Swanson gave the order. One after another the survivors went out: the radio operator George Simonelli, gunners Kelley, Hish, Tucker and Bell, the engineer Gramenzi. Eight men in all cleared the dying aircraft.<\/p>\n<p>Swanson stayed at the controls until the last possible second. When he finally jumped, his parachute snagged on the torn metal of the shattered nose and ripped. He fell most of four miles, regaining consciousness only moments before he crashed through the treetops near what turned out to be a prisoner-of-war camp. He broke a leg; German medics saved his life.<\/p>\n<p>All eight survivors became prisoners. They were held until U.S. forces liberated their camp on 30 April 1945. Swanson would later rise to lieutenant colonel and live until 2009.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=2049639971  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/b17g-shoo-shoo-baby-usaf-museum.jpg\" alt=\"Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby preserved at the National Museum of the United States Air Force\" style=\"display:block;width:100%!important;max-width:100%!important;height:auto!important;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A surviving B-17G, <em>Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby<\/em>, at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force &mdash; the same rugged airframe that carried Swanson&rsquo;s crew through the impossible. (U.S. Air Force photo \/ Ken LaRock)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Not the only headless Fortress<\/h2>\n<p>The story of a nose-less B-17 is so astonishing that several incidents have blurred together over the decades, and it is worth keeping them straight. The most famous photograph &mdash; the one that ran in American newspapers in October 1944 &mdash; is not <em>Mizpah<\/em> at all.<\/p>\n<p>That image shows B-17G 43-38172 of the 398th Bomb Group, flown by 1st Lt. Lawrence DeLancey, after an 88mm shell tore the nose off over Cologne on 15 October 1944. DeLancey did not order his men out; instead he and navigator Ray LeDoux flew the wreck all the way back to England and landed it. The togglier, S\/Sgt. George Abbott, was the only man killed.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;A flak burst hit directly in the nose and blew practically the entire nose section to threads. Part of the nose peeled back and obstructed my vision&hellip; What little there was left in front of me looked like a scrap heap.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>1st Lt. Lawrence M. DeLancey<\/strong> &mdash; B-17 pilot, 398th BG, in his 1944 account to Stars and Stripes<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Both stories are true, and both turn on the same astonishing fact: a four-engined bomber, gutted at the front, that simply would not stop flying. Where Swanson&rsquo;s headless <em>Mizpah<\/em> bought her crew the seconds they needed to jump, DeLancey&rsquo;s carried his crew home. A separate and even older legend, the B-17 <em>All American<\/em>, involved a mid-air collision that nearly severed the tail &mdash; a different aircraft, a different kind of miracle entirely.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Why the Fortress could do the impossible<\/h2>\n<p>What ties these episodes together is engineering. Boeing built the B-17 with a generous wing, a massive tail for high-altitude stability, and a structure that distributed loads so well that the airplane could lose huge sections and still hold the air. Pilots trusted her precisely because she flew straight when everything else had gone wrong.<\/p>\n<p>For the men of the Mighty Eighth and the Fifteenth Air Forces, that trust was not abstract. It was the difference between a death plunge and ten more minutes &mdash; ten minutes in which a doomed bomber could become a platform stable enough to step off of, and live.<\/p>\n<p><em>A note on sourcing: the photograph of a headless Fortress most often shared online as &ldquo;the&rdquo; headless B-17 is in fact DeLancey&rsquo;s 398th BG aircraft. Period captions of an unidentified 463rd Bomb Group Fortress that held formation while survivors bailed out describe a similar event, but that particular aircraft and crew have not been positively identified in the records consulted here. The named, fully documented case of a headless B-17 whose crew bailed out is Swanson&rsquo;s Mizpah, recorded in Missing Air Crew Report 6901.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;font-style:italic\">Sources: Missing Air Crew Report 6901 (eyewitness statements, via b17flyingfortress.de); American Air Museum in Britain (aircraft 42-32109 and 43-38172); 398th Bomb Group Memorial Association (Allen Ostrom, &ldquo;It Was a Fortress Coming Home&rdquo;); National Museum of the United States Air Force; World War Wings.<\/p>\n\n<!-- mf-faq -->\n\n<div class=\"mf-faq-block\"><style>.mf-faq-block{margin:34px 0}.mf-faq-item:not([open]) .mf-faq-answer{display:none !important}.mf-faq-block h2.mf-faq-h{padding-top:22px;margin-bottom:14px}.mf-faq-item{border:1px solid #e2e8f5;border-radius:8px;margin:0 0 10px;background:#fff}.mf-faq-item summary{list-style:none;cursor:pointer;padding:15px 50px 15px 18px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a1a;position:relative;line-height:1.45;user-select:none}.mf-faq-item summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mf-faq-item summary::after{content:\"+\";position:absolute;right:18px;top:50%;transform:translateY(-50%);font-size:1.5em;font-weight:400;color:#5C91FF;line-height:1}.mf-faq-item[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mf-faq-item[open] summary{border-bottom:1px solid #eef1f8}.mf-faq-item summary:hover{background:#f5f8ff}.mf-faq-answer{padding:14px 18px;color:#333;line-height:1.6}.mf-faq-answer p{margin:0}<\/style><h2 class=\"mf-faq-h\">Related Questions<\/h2><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>What was the 'headless B-17' Mizpah?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Mizpah was a B-17G Flying Fortress (serial 42-32109) of the 483rd Bomb Group that, on 14 July 1944, had its entire nose section torn away by a direct 88mm flak burst over Budapest. The blast killed the navigator and bombardier instantly, but the bomber kept flying long enough for survivors to bail out.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>What happened to the B-17 Mizpah over Budapest?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>During a bombing run on Budapest's marshalling yards on 14 July 1944, an 88mm flak shell struck Mizpah's nose and exploded, peeling the forward section back over the windshield. Pilot 1st Lt. Ewald Swanson held the crippled aircraft steady for roughly ten minutes so the surviving crew could parachute out.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Who was the pilot of the headless B-17 Mizpah?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The pilot was 1st Lt. Ewald A. Swanson, who held the wrecked, nose-less bomber steady for about ten minutes, giving the men behind the bomb bay time to clip on parachutes and jump to safety.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>How many crew survived the Mizpah incident?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Eight men survived and became prisoners of war, while two crew members, navigator 2nd Lt. Joseph Henderson and bombardier 2nd Lt. Kenneth Dudley, were killed by the flak burst. The survivors were liberated on 30 April 1945.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>How is the headless B-17 Mizpah story documented?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The incident is recorded in Missing Air Crew Report 6901, which includes sworn eyewitness statements from other crews flying in the formation that day, giving the extraordinary story strong documentary credibility.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Why couldn't B-17 bombers evade flak on a bombing run?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>On the final bomb run a B-17 had to fly straight and level so the bombardier could aim accurately; it could not jink or weave. This made the tightly packed combat box highly vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire, as happened to Mizpah over Budapest.<\/p><\/div><\/details><\/div>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was the 'headless B-17' Mizpah?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Mizpah was a B-17G Flying Fortress (serial 42-32109) of the 483rd Bomb Group that, on 14 July 1944, had its entire nose section torn away by a direct 88mm flak burst over Budapest. 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This made the tightly packed combat box highly vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire, as happened to Mizpah over Budapest.\"}}]}<\/script><!-- \/mf-faq -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Six miles above Budapest the air was forty degrees below zero, and the sky around the Flying Fortress named Mizpah had turned into a wall of black smoke and orange fire. It was 14 July 1944, and the flak over the Hungarian capital was the kind of fire that gunners on the ground walked across [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":1445400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1445621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Headless B-17: Fortress That Refused to Fall<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An 88mm flak shell tore the nose off B-17 Mizpah over Budapest in 1944 \u2014 yet she flew on long enough for her crew to bail out.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/headless-b-17-flying-fortress-88mm-shell\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Headless B-17: Fortress That Refused to Fall\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An 88mm flak shell tore the nose off B-17 Mizpah over Budapest in 1944 \u2014 yet she flew on long enough for her crew to bail out.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/headless-b-17-flying-fortress-88mm-shell\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"MiGFlug.com Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MiGFlug\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-02T14:05:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-06-25T12:11:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/b17-delancey-nose-flak-damage.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1199\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Connor Kerr\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@migflug\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@migflug\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"\u00c9crit par\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Connor Kerr\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Dur\u00e9e de lecture estim\u00e9e\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/headless-b-17-flying-fortress-88mm-shell\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/headless-b-17-flying-fortress-88mm-shell\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Connor Kerr\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/bc7f2d09b1d7111c45fdb1335b8f2cf9\"},\"headline\":\"Headless B-17: The Fortress That Refused to Fall\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-02T14:05:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-06-25T12:11:01+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/headless-b-17-flying-fortress-88mm-shell\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1864,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/headless-b-17-flying-fortress-88mm-shell\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\/\\/migflug.com\\/jetflights\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/sites\\/4\\/2026\\/06\\/b17-delancey-nose-flak-damage.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"History &amp; 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