Guest Post by Steve Snyder as part of my Stories of the Greatest Generation series.
On February 8, 1944, my father, 306th Bomb Group pilot Howard Snyder and his B-17 “Susan Ruth” crew flew a bombing mission to Frankfurt, Germany. After successfully dropping their bombs, the bomb bay doors were hit by flak, and they could not get them back up. This caused a drag on the plane, it lost speed, and the bomber fell behind the formation heading back to England.
Seeing that the B-17 was straggling, two German Focke-Wulf 190 fighters came in for the kill and shot down the “Susan Ruth” over occupied Belgium. The radio operator and ball turret gunner were killed during the attack, but the other eight members of the crew, all injured to various degrees, were able to bail out. The left waist gunner, flight engineer, and bombardier were picked up by the Germans and became prisoners of war. The co-pilot, navigator, and right waist gunner evaded for two months until a Belgian collaborator told the Germans where the Americans airmen were hiding along with five other downed U.S. All eight airmen were captured, interrogated, and shot. The tail gunner and my father, although not together, evaded and were missing in action for 7 months until the area was liberated by the U.S Armies which had come up through France after D-Day.
After my father bailed out, he came down in some trees and his parachute got tangled up in the branches. Dangling twenty feet from the ground and unable to get down, two young Belgian men, Henri Fraikin and Raymond Durvin, came to his rescue before the Germans found him. Howard was taken to the Durvin home, but he only stayed there one night because it was too dangerous for him to stay any longer with German patrols combing the area. So the next night, a Belgian Customs Officer, Paul Tilquin, came to take Howard to a safer location.
After that, Howard was taken from place to place. How long he stayed at any location depended on how brave the people were who lived there, and how dangerous the Belgian Underground thought it was for him to stay there. He might spend one night or six weeks. The people who hid my father were unbelievably brave because they risked not only their lives, but the lives of their family and friends. If caught, they would be arrested, tortured and either shot or sent to a concentration camp.
My father was almost discovered several times and finally got tired of hiding so he decided to join the French Resistance and fight against the Nazis. For two months he fought with the Maquis attacking German convoys. On September 2, word came that there were U.S. troops nearby in Trelon, France so he walked into the village square and identified himself.
Howard got a ride on a convoy taking German prisoners to Paris, and from there, flew on a transport back to England where he sent a Western Union Telegram to his wife Ruth letting her know that he was safe. Howard found out that his second child, who was born while he was missing in action, was a girl.
Guest Author Information
Steve Snyder
President of the 306th Bomb Group Historical Association
Board Member of the 8th Air Force Historical Society
Author of SHOT DOWN: The true story of pilot Howard Snyder and the crew of the B-17 Susan Ruth
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Joy Neal Kidney says
This is a compelling story, wonderfully told, which will never be forgotten.