Mission City, British Columbia
59 Sqn (Ab Una Disce Omnes) RAF Chivenor, B-17E Flying Fortress IIA aircraft FK 209 "J" lost to enemy action, shot down while on anti-submarine patrol over the Bay of Biscay. Flying Officer RJ Weatherhead (RCAF) was missing, presumed killed. Flying Officer Weatherhead has no known grave and is commemorated on the Runnymede War Memorial. Please see Spino, F for complete casualty list and flight detail. Flying Officer Weatherhead and three of his crew members, Warrant Officer Class 2 Copping , Flying Officer Zapfe and Warrant Officer Class 2 Spino were all members of the same crew who had been interned in Portuguese Guinea on October 2, 1942 when a 200 Squadron Hudson aircraft went down in bad weather. They all returned to the United Kingdom on October 24, 1942.
Weatherhead, Richard John (Flying Officer)
Killed in Action 1943-03-23
Birth Date: 1913
Born:
Son of John Christopher Weatherhead, and of Florence Edith Solloway (remarried widow), of Mission City, British Columbia, Canada.
Home: Mission City, British Columbia
Enlistment:
Enlistment Date: Unknown
Service
RCAF
Unit
59 Sqn- Squadron
Base
Rank
Flying Officer
Position
Flying Officer
Service Numbers
J/6992
Canadian Virtual War MemorialFlying Fortress FK209
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Boeing Flying Fortress B-17
The Boeing Flying Fortress B-17
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Competing against Douglas and Martin for a contract to build 200 bombers, the Boeing entry (prototype Model 299/XB-17) outperformed both competitors and exceeded the Air Corps' performance specifications. Although Boeing lost the contract (to the Douglas B-18 Bolo) because the prototype crashed, the Air Corps ordered 13 more B-17s for further evaluation. From its introduction in 1938, the B-17 Flying Fortress evolved through numerous design advances, becoming the third-most produced bomber of all time, behind the four-engined Consolidated B-24 Liberator and the multirole, twin-engined Junkers Ju 88.
The B-17 was primarily employed by the USAAF in the daylight strategic bombing campaign of World War II against German industrial, military and civilian targets. The United States Eighth Air Force, based at many airfields in central, eastern and southern England, and the Fifteenth Air Force, based in Italy, complemented the RAF Bomber Command's night-time area bombing in the Combined Bomber Offensive to help secure air superiority over the cities, factories and battlefields of Western Europe in preparation for the invasion of France in 1944. The B-17 also participated to a lesser extent in the Pacific War, early in World War II, where it conducted raids against Japanese shipping and airfields.
From its prewar inception, the USAAC (by June 1941, the USAAF) promoted the aircraft as a strategic weapon; it was a relatively fast, high-flying, long-range bomber with heavy defensive armament at the expense of bombload. It developed a reputation for toughness based upon stories and photos of badly damaged B-17s safely returning to base. The B-17 dropped more bombs than any other U.S. aircraft in World War II. Of approximately 1.5 million tons of bombs dropped on Nazi Germany and its occupied territories by U.S. aircraft, over 640,000 tons were dropped from B-17s. In addition to its role as a bomber, the B-17 was also employed as a transport, antisubmarine aircraft, drone controller, and search-and-rescue aircraft.
The RCAF acquired six used B-17E and F aircraft from the United States in 1943. Stripped of all armament and armour, the aircraft were employed by the RCAF's No. 168 Squadron on a trans-Atlantic mail service vital to the morale of overseas forces. The aircraft were progressively modified and improved for service in this transport role, and some aircraft were subsequently stripped of paint and appeared in a polished, bare metal finish. No. 168 Squadron delivered more than two million pounds of mail between December 1943 and March 1946.
As of October 2019, nine aircraft remain airworthy, though none of them were ever flown in combat. Dozens more are in storage or on static display. The oldest of these is a D-series flown in combat in the Pacific on the first day of World War II.Wikipedia and RCAF
B.17 Flying Fortress
Wikipedia B 17 Bomber
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