Category Archives: pilots

Fantastic grouping to 1st Lt Ralph W Spatz B-17 pilot 535th Bomber Squadron service number A0820849 who flew 35 ops over Germany between July 1944 to Jan 1945. The 381st Bomb Group flew B-17 Flying Fortresses from Ridgewell, Essex between June 1943 and April 1945. The Group was awarded two Distinguished Unit Citations. 1st Lt Spatz flew 33 ops as co-pilot and 2 ops as Captain. His crew for his first 33 ops were. 2nd Lts Fred Davison, Ralph W. Spatz, LeRoy Drummond, Henry S. Tabor; S/Sgts Calistro P. Wanner, Sgts Thomas R. Spurling and Cpl Earl H. He logged a total of 954.15 hrs of which 560.10 were on B-17 Flying Fortress and 260 hrs on combat ops. This grouping includes the following. 1/ 2 Pilot log books detailing his training. 2/ 2 Battle Formation sheets showing the aircraft and crews and their position in the bomber stream. 3/ 2 lists of all his ops with dates and target. Examples are Schweinfurt, St Lo, Peenemunde, Cologne, Remagen etc. 4/ Full Military flight records detailing training and combat missions. 5/ 17 actual period photos showing crew in uniform a2 jackets etc Willey jeep station ambulance B17 aircraft and nice close ups of Spatz in uniform showing wings and 8th airforce shoulder patch. 6/ School and work records. 7/ Large collection of poems – obviously he was keen on poems. The 381st have an excellent website that includes the war diary for the 535th and all his ops are detailed on this site… There is a reference in the diary as follows.. On the 13th (Friday, at that) Lt Davison and his crew, S/Sgt Bankston and his ground crew, go to London as guests-for-the-evening at Stage Door Canteen , for which their bomber was named in a christening ceremony here last April. Mary Churchill must have brought the bomber luck with the Coke she smashed on the nose. For the plane has more than 70 consecutive non-abortive missions to its credit. Davison and his crew are the most recent to fly it. Post will be tracked. The item “WW2 PILOTS GROUPING B17 8TH AIR FORCE 35 OPS” is in sale since Tuesday, April 05, 2016. This item is in the category “Collectibles\Militaria\WW II (1939-45)\Original Period Items\United States\Photographs”. The seller is “airdp” and is located in AUCKLAND, default. This item can be shipped worldwide.