Posted By Brian Robling on October 19, 2006 at 21:52:16:
In Reply to: Duration Plus, Crash site? Went down 9/13/44 posted by Jim Gregory on October 19, 2006 at 12:20:06:
Hi Jim,
In talking with Clayton Nattier he told me that he flew all his missions with his assigned crew in 43-38296 which the crew had named "Heavenly Body". and on Sept 13 as they were taxiing out in 43-38296 he lost his wheel brakes and hit the B-17 in front of them. Having to return to the ramp they were put into "Duration Plus" 42-31726 (a 367th Aircraft-only one that was left) and was shotdown on this mission as you well know. Clayton did fly 2 other training missions that his crew were not on. His mission on July 28,1944 and Aug 5,1944 were his training missions and his third mission (first with his crew was on Aug 6, 1944. All of his missions are listed in the 369th BS Combat Diary. The german records (KU2908) state that they crashed at Ammendorf near Halle, Germany. Clayton told me that he had lost an engine at the IP (Initial Point) and then over the target (The Synthetic oil refinery at Merseburg) was hit by flak and loss another engine. If you need to know which engines were lost I've got it some where in my notes but couldn't find it when I wrote this. In the MACR #8829 it list the last sighted coordinates as 5120N 1139E. Russ Strong verified the information on the change in planes from 43-38296 to 42-31726.