It’s December the 31st 1944, New Year's Eve. But many brave young men are not celebrating today as they crew a group of 37 planes conducting a mission targeting oil refineries over Hamburg. Having completed their mission, the surviving planes have been flying through flak for over an hour, it's so dark that you can’t see the sky.
Lieutenant Glenn Rojohn is in command of a B17-G “The Little Skipper”. He and his crew are desperately trying to find a way through the flak. Manoeuvring as best they can to avoid the plumes of smoke and fire bursting all around them and their comrades.
Finally the planes reach the North Sea and to everyone’s relief the flak subsides. Now flying straight and level the planes take position in formation with all crews watching carefully for enemy fighters. There is a very strong headwind that means the B17s are traveling much slower than usual.
Suddenly they’re spotted. At 22,000 feet the B-17s are jumped and a battle takes place. There are countless enemies and wave after wave of German Me-109 fighters buzz and strafe the American planes.
Staying in tight formation is the best defense but the fighters are relentless and many B-17’s are lost. The Me-109s are coming in so close on their attack runs that the faces of their pilots can be seen by Rojohn and his crew. B-17’s are known for their resilience but they can only take so much damage.
With so many planes going down, the Lucky Lassie becomes the alternate leader and the planes take action to form a tight defensive formation around it. There’s a flash and Rojohn sees the terrible sight of the plane in front of him being badly hit, slide out of formation and drop down towards the sea below. The fighters are swarming all over and Lt Rojohn needs to fill the gap in the new formation.
Determinedly, gunning his plane forward, he increases the speed to fill the gap and restores the defensive integrity of the formation trying to make it home. The Me-109’s though are merciless and just underneath Rojohn’s plane another B-17, The Nine Lives has been hit. The plane is still flying but the pilot and co-pilot have been taken out.
Unbeknownst to Lt Rojohn, with no one at the stick, the Nine Lives starts to drift up. Inside the Little Skipper there’s a sickening crunch as an impact runs through the plane. Rojohn, confused and shocked, looks at his co-pilot, Lt William G Leek.
The plane starts to feel heavy and lurches down. They both pull back on the stick and manage to keep her flying but something is seriously wrong. It’s at this point they realize that they have collided and they are locked together in flight with another B-17.
The Nine Lives, had crashed the top of its fuselage into the bottom of The Little Skipper. The top gun turret of bottom plane was locked in the bottom of the top plane. The two bombers are flying almost perfectly aligned — the tail of the lower plane being slightly to the left of Rojohn’s tailpiece.
They were stuck together, as Bill Leek later recalled, “like dragonflies. ” In the lower plane, three of the engines are still running as are all four of the top plane’s. However a fire has broken out in the stopped engine which in the crash has damaged the hydraulics and the electrics of the Little Skipper and the planes were quickly losing altitude.
Rojohn tries in vain to separate the aircraft through various manoeuvres but it’s impossible. Knowing it would be extremely dangerous to try and make it back to England he reluctantly decides to head back to Germany. Bailing out over the water was extremely risky so the best bet is to try and limp to shore to give the crew the best chance possible.
With fire spreading Rojohn takes the decision to cut the Little Skipper’s engines. In an amazing show of airmanship the pilot and copilot manage to coax the locked planes around and head back to Germany. Approaching the coast they’re spotted by German aircraft batteries, the German captain of one recorded in his logbook, “Two fortresses collided in a formation in the North East.
The planes flew hooked together and flew 20 miles south. The two planes were unable to fight anymore. The crash could be awaited so I stopped firing at these two planes.
” In order to give his crew the best chance of bailing out safely, Rojohn battled to keep the plane under control. In all six men parachuted out of the The Little Skipper. Rojohn ordered Leek to bail out.
But Leek knew it took two men with colossal effort to keep the plane level. If he had bailed out, Rojohn was certain to perish as the plane spiraled out of control. Lt Leek refused the order.
The two men were going to see this flight through to its final conclusion. Having earlier bailed out, drifting down from his parachute, Navigator, Lt Robert Washington watched the strange site of the two bombers stuck together disappear towards the ground in the distance. The two planes, in Piggy back, one on top of the other were approaching the ground at a terrifying speed.
Seeing the ground rushing up before them both men said their prayers and pulled back on the stick in a herculean effort at the last moment to give the plane as much lift as possible. They had to pull so hard on the steering yoke that they had to put their feet on the console to brace themselves. Approaching Tettens field in Northern Germany, the planes slammed into the earth.
The Nine Lives disintegrated on impact, with the Little Skipper shooting forward sliding along the ground. A wing crashed into a wooden building and the plane broke apart. Wreckage flew in all directions and almost the entire plane was destroyed.
As the nose of the plane came to rest and silence descended, the two men, still in their seats, amazingly had survived. Rojohn and Leek exited the wreck just as a German soldier rushed up to take them prisoner. Unfortunately, not all the airmen escaped on that day.
In total six crew survived from the Little Skipper and four bailed and survived from the Nine Lives. But the fact that any made it through was an incredible achievement. All who survived were captured by the Germans.
Lt Glenn Rojohn was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions on that day but he always credited Leek for saving his life. The two men lost touch with each other after the war, but in 1986 Glenn Rojohn managed to track Bill Leek down and get in touch. In 1987 the two men and the surviving crew were finally brought back together at a reunion of the 100th Bomb Group in Long Beach, California.
We’d like to express our sincere thanks to Captain Rojohn’s daughter, Cyndi Rojohn, for helping with the facts on this script. Any errors are entirely our own. There are many more details to this incredible story that you can find in her excellent book, “The Piggyback Flight Pilot’s Journey” published by Fulton Books, which you can find on Amazon.
