NAVIGATOR TO PILOT:
“With two inboards out we’ll never make the Alps. We’re losing altitude and number four is leaking oil. We’d better head for Switzerland.”

PILOT TO NAVIGATOR: “We didn’t come here to go skiing, Dan. We came to fight a war. We’re going over. Get rid of everything in sight. If that’s not enough, throw Al out too.”

I’m Al—Alvin Kotler. I was the Radio Gunner on Bill Flynn’s B-17 that day.
It was one of the numerous life or death decisions Bill had to make during the course of our bombing missions out of Foggia Italy in ’44 and ’45.

We had flown through multiple walls of flak that morning over Austria. After dropping our payload, we got shot way off course and were limping back to Italy on our own. Once Bill made his decision, there was no more discussion. We jettisoned everything that wasn’t welded down out the bomb-bay—the 50 caliber machine guns, most of the radio equipment, flak suits, helmets, ammo—everything we could grab. The two outboards were still functioning so we had a chance—a slim one, but a chance.

The Italian Alps loomed before us like giant white sheets of death. If we were going to clear them it wouldn’t be by much. Looking down the open bomb-bay, I swore if I reached down I could have scooped up a handful of the purest snow on earth. Compared to the factory tainted snow in Malden, Massachusetts, it looked like heaven—or if we didn’t make it, hell . . .