Lt. Arnold Tillmans' crew

My father" Donald R MacLeod" was the ball turret gunner on Tillmans crew {MI-55} and flew 18 combat missions over germany with him, including the ill-fated mission over the Cottbus martialing yards. The crew was, LT. Arnold A Tillman-pilot, LT. Stanley Neese-copilot, LT. Cornelius{Neil} Daly-navigator, Hugh Murtagh-flight engineer & dorsal turret gunner, Dennis Guimaraes-toggleer & nose gunner, Dave Colgan-radio operator & gunner, James Rich waist gunner{left & right}  and, Arnold Echola -tail guuner. While on their bomb run they encountered very heavy flak. One engine was shot out and feathered and, two were heavily damaged. Upon leaving the target another engine quit and was feathered.  They were'nt going to make it back to Snetterton Heath nor were they going to make it to switzerland , bailing out over the target was unanamously out of the question so they decided to try to crash land in poland and hope they didn't land in the midst of nazis.
  As they crossed the Polish border they lost a third engine and managed to barely keep flying and, climb {somthing the boeing manual says isn't possible}. They found a very narrow and, muddy farmers field and was able to execute a gear down landing. From there they billeted at a farmers house along with some Russian ground troops, the enlisted men having to stay in the barn and officers at the house. A humorous side note is that when Tillmans boys were all taking a bath in a rather large cedar tub, the russian enlisted men stole their nice & soft cotton undies and replaced them with scratchy wool underwear that was issued Russian troops.
From there they went to Poltava Russian air base then caught flights to Tehran Iran, Cairo Egypt, Italy, France  and ultimately back to station 138 at Snetterton where they were givin a new B-17 and the rest of their combat tour. They were gone for some time and all their families received M.I.A. letters. Records show for the mission Feb. 15,1945 over Cottbus   9 M.I.A.s {Tillmans crew} I believe the tail No. for that air craft was either 68725, or 48725 {not sure}.
Their missions in order were-1/15/45-Augsburg, 1/28/45-Hohenbundberg, 2/3/45-Berlin, 2/14/45-Chemnitz, 2/15/45-Cottbus, 3/24/45-Handorf, 3/26/45-Plauen, 3/28/45-Hanover, 3/30/45-Hamburg, 3/31/45-Zeitz, 4/3/45-Keil, 4/4/45-Nuremburg, 4/6/45-Gera, 4/8/45-Grafenmohr, 4/9/45-Munich, 4/14/45-Royan, 4/17/45-Dresden, 4/19/45-Karlsbad.
I am great pals with all the crew though we've lost Tillman, Neese, Colgan, Daly, Echola, and My father-MacLeod! The one target you can't hit...............time.
   Another interesting side note is that FIVE-GRAND was one of the planes they were assigned. Tillman also flew in Korea and, was an original member of Jungle Jim special ops. in Viet-nam, and continued to fly special ops. many years afterwards. I enjoyed my conversations with him even though he was a bit crusty. He retired a LT. Col.. He died at age 73 in 1994, his wife Irene sent me a copy of his obituary.
Daly also flew missions in Korea, and retired a LT. Col.. Colgan flew Korea and, Nam retired as LT. Col.. Arnold Ecola Became a jet-fighter pilot and terrorized MIG-alley in Korea . My father went to seminary and became an ordained minister{not surprisingly} He never discussed the war very much though he never lost his love for B-17's and aviation.
I hope this helps you a little. I have a lot of other info regarding this if your interested.
                  Regards: MacLeod
P.S. A repair crew was sent in to the Polish crash landing site and, the plane was flown out of there and back to England.                                                                                              

Dear William,
 
I am writing a book on rescue of POW and also airmen downed in Poland and Russia in WWII. My father is Captain Robert M. Trimble, and he was involved with the rescue/recovery of your dad's crew in the Mielic area. My dad wad stationed at Poltava, though arriving only the first part of Feb, 1945, with the assignment of rescuing downed airmen and POW. He signed a dollar bill 'short snorter' found much later, that included Tillman, Daly and Neese signatures.
My father also went in with a repair crew to repair and fly out a B-17 from a farmer's field (Dad flew B-24 and B-17 on 35 missions out of England last half of '44); I am wondering if it was your Dad's plane. He mentioned a farmer had put them up while repairing the plane, and that the props and landing gear were all bent went it originally landed. He mentioned the field was real short and they removed tons of weight before the short, successful take-off to Lvov and then Poltava.
I would deeply appreciate any additional information you might be able to send me about your dad's story, so I can hopefully make a greater connection of dad's story with your dad's story. My  email address is: let164@msn.com.
 
Thanks so much,
Lee E. Trimble