Crew joined the 100th on 1 Dec 43. Aircraft 42-97482, "TERRY AND THE PIRATES", shot down during the great air battle near Haseluenne around noon 6 Mar 44. Aircraft crashed near Quakenbruck. Seven were KIA and three became POWs.

MARCH 6, 1944-BERLIN:
Lt. William A. Terry's 297482 Terry and the Pirates was hit hard by 20mm cannon shells and the main control cables to the tail were severed. The B-17 nosed over and went into a spin. Navigator Lt. Robert Schremser was hit in the face and arm by fragments of one of the exploding 20mm shell. The centrifugal force of the spin had pinned him on top of his chute. He finally managed to clip it on as a hole broke in the Plexiglas nose. The bombardier, Lt. Ralph Cotter, sat there motionless but evidently not hit. He had not put his chute on. S/Sgt. James Bain in the ball turret never realized anything was wrong until the aircraft started to dive and spiral out of control. Fortunately, his turret still had power and he was able to rotate it down so that he could get back into the aircraft. There were two large holes in the fuselage. The main control cables to the tail were snapped and hung loose from the overhead structure. Bain managed to snap on his chest pack parachute and left through the gaping hole in the side of the ship. After thousands of feet, Terry and the Pirates' wings separated from the fuselage and the three major sections of the B-17 twirled the rest of the way down. The centrifugal force let up just enough for navigator Lt. Robert Schremser to head for the hole in the nose and dive out. S/Sgt. Bain floated peacefully to the ground and was picked up immediately by some Luftwaffe guards and loaded in an open bed truck.

Lt. Schremser was already in the back of the truck as was the severely wounded top turret gunner / engineer, Sgt. Aitken. Except for small shrapnel wounds to his arm, Bain was okay. Lt. Schremser was not as lucky, he was bleeding quite badly from his face and arm wound but was conscious and able to walk. Sgt. Aitken had lost his right leg, below the calf, to a 20mm shell. He seemed to have been thrown out by the pilots and the bombardier just before the plane crashed. The other seven crewmembers did not manage to get out. Schremser, Aitken and Bain ended up at Stalag Luft I Prisoner Of War camp until the end of the war. The front section crashed and exploded at Brokstreek, near Quakenbrück. The tail section of Terry and the Pirates came to rest still containing tail gunner S/Sgt. Carl Hampton. This was the crews’ 17th mission

[1] Century Bombers by Richard LeStrange and Jim Brown