B17, Rotherhithe's Revenge

[Tony]

Hello,

While I was back home in London a few weeks ago I managed to have a look at some of the local archives in the Southwark History Library and stumbled across a nice photo of a B17 at its naming ceremony.

The name it was given was Rotherhithe's Revenge and although I've found some info on the net which is below, does anyone actually know what happened to this aeroplane?

Ridgewell, Essex and the 381st Bomb Group

Ridgewell was built as a satellite for Stradishall and on December 30th 1942 the newly formed 90 Squadron (RAF) flew in Stirling bombers from Bottesford. The RAF used the Stirlings for minelaying and bombing of targets such as Hamburg, Essen and Duisburg but in May 1943, 90 Squadron moved to West Wickham.

The 381st Bomb Group arrived at Ridgewell in June 1943 in its B17 Flying Fortresses.

The 381st was part of the First Air Division and received two Distinguished Unit Citations. It had two planes which successfully completed over 100 missions, "Rotherhithe's Revenge" and "Stage Door Canteen". The tail fins of 381st planes carried an L within a triangle, the triangle denoting the 1st Air Division which was mainly located in Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire.

The 381st had its worst losses (11 aircraft) on the raid on Schweinfurt on 17th August 1943. The Group was awarded two Distinguished Unit Citations, the first for Bremen on 8th October 1943, and its second for the 1st Air Division operations on 11th January 1944. The 381st ran several parties for children from nearby Haverhill and other villages around.

297 missions were flown up to 25th April 1945 and 131 B17's were lost in action. The 381st returned to the USA in June 1945, leaving Ridgewell to RAF Maintenance Command. Number 94 MU was here from September 1946 to March 1957, and now it is largely farmland.

Thanks

Tony

[emblemhunter]

Hello Tony, if you haven't already tried contacting the 381st BG site I would suggest you do this as I'm sure they would be able to help you in getting more info about the B-17 and it's crew and waht happened to it .

Try 381st bg.org or along that line.

[Tony]

Thanks very much for that, there appears to be quite a bit about the 381st online.

Tony

[Tony]

After a quick check on the website I've found that Rotherhithe's Revenge retired to the US but another aeroplane named Bermondsey Battler was unfortunately lost. Both Bermondsey and Rotherhithe are in Southwark and border the river just along from Tower Bridge.

A photo from http://www.381st.org/PhotoGallery/tabid/196/AlbumID/7/SelectedModuleID/726/currentpage/2/Default.aspx showing what these brave airmen probably went through several times each week.

Tony

[Tony]

And Rotherhithe's Revenge.

This is the same photo I saw in the Southwark archives.