Could someone tell me if there is a record of clean up that was done after the war?  I imagine there were quite a few planes across the European countryside but I was hoping there would be some records for each country regarding a 'clean up'.
 
Thanks.

Grandson of:
T/SGT William Aguiar
384th 544th
B-17 42-30031 (the Bad Penny)

Clean up in WWII usually meant digging a hole, pushing the unwanted items into it, and then pushing dirt over it, from what I understand... They really didn't have site cleanup the way we understand it today...

Robbie

Thanks Robbie.  I figured as much in that regard, but I was hoping there may be a listing of what happened to them in a sentimental aspect.  The Europeans seem to be very interested in remembering and preserving the aspects of WWII.  Grafton-Underwood still remembers its airbase and I just wondered if towns that had B-17's land rather suddenly had any record of what they did with it after the war.

Grandson of:
T/SGT William Aguiar
384th 544th
B-17 42-30031 (the Bad Penny)

Brian -
Bits and Pieces : The Mighty Eighth Combat Chronology
Lists Fates of Heavy Bombers Post War - 1950.
Serial # , Name ,  Dates / Locations listed
Of the Bombers that did not return to U.S.
the 9th AF was responsible for their Disposition.
Any one in Particular ?
Mike
 
 

In accessible places where planes crashed, large pieces were hauled off to smelters during the war.  This went as far as taking crashed planes apart where the area was not readily accessible to heavy transport and hauling the smaller parts out by truck.  Somewhere I have several pics of B-17 fuselages, wings, etc... loaded on flat-cars and barges for transport to the local smelter. Germans were very efficient, and in Occupied Europe as well as Germany, the metal from so many crashed aircraft was considered a war asset. 
As Robbie stated, if there was not much left, the pieces were pushed in a hole and buried.
Being the great record-keepers they were, I'm sure that somewhere there is German paperwork detailing removal and disposition of crashed aircraft.   Probably at the bottom of the million tons of documents we captured and have never got around to translating ! 

SHAEF1944 American Veterans Museum

B-17 "Georgia Rebel" taken apart and put on barge for transport to smelting plant.  This plane belly-landed intact ( I think in occupied Netherlands ) and met this end.
 
 

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Attached Image(s)

SHAEF1944 American Veterans Museum

Mike - I was looking for my grandfather's in particular 42-30031 (no MACR and only listed as MIA on 26-6-43).  It crashed in Bezu la Foret (?) France.  But that was in '43 so it might have gotten used for scrap by the Germans.  It landed pretty intact, too actually.  I have spoken to museum curators in England (the B-17 Preservation Trust in Duxford-Cambridge, England) regarding this very thing and I felt foolish because planes were pretty much strewn across the country side during the war.  It's hard to feel sentimental when your country is occupied, etc.  But I thought maybe the group here might have found something over the years.
 
Richard - I think you are right.  Somewhere there is a record of what happened to 42-30031.  If you ever watched the X-Files there was always this giant hangar of a building with thousands of cardboard boxes that had various top secret folders in them.  I bet it's there.
 
 
 

Grandson of:
T/SGT William Aguiar
384th 544th
B-17 42-30031 (the Bad Penny)

Brian -
At that time of the War - no doubt it was dismantled by
Special Luftwaffe Salvage Battalions : Berge - Bataillone
Very important items such as Engines and Propellers were
sent to the Captured Item Depots : Beuteparks
These were for use on Captured Allied A/C.
The Rest would be shipped to Scrap Yards to be smeltered
into Aluminum Ingots - then shipped to Factories.
There was a Huge Scrap Yard at Paris - Nanterre. 
Your Grandfather's B - 17 probably ended up in a Luftwaffe
Fighter or Bomber !
The Salvage Units , Bergetrupps , were required to to fill out a 4
Part Salvage Report for Luftwaffe Commands.
So - Somewhere there is / was a Salvage report on his B - 17.
Mike 

Brian:

I found several notations on Joe Bauer's listings of aircraft as "salvaged". These were B-24s lost on missions in N Italy and Austria. Once the Allies entered those territories the slavage crews recovered the wrecks and salvaged them for parts, etc.

After the war German crews were hired by the US to break up thousands of aircraft and smelt them down for the scrap metal. I think there were fewer heavy bombers that were broken up by the Germans due to the fact that they were used to transport crews back to the US.

Photo "Air Command" by Jeffrey L. Ethell
Caption: The sad end of the once-proud 354th Fighter Group's Mustangs at Herzogenaurach, Germany. Germans were hired to chop the P-51s down, then burn them—a task they would have given anything for the chance to do just months before. It puzzled them even more than the Americans who were left to watch. Herbert R. Rutland, Jr.

Ken

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Attached Image(s)

Ken Alexander
Son of 1st Lt. Clair B. Alexander Jr.
Pilot, B-24s: 10/12/1944 - 04/24/1945
15th AF, 49th Wing, 461st BG, 764th BS
Torretta Airfield, Cerignola, Italy

Thank you Ken.
 
And thanks for the clues, Mike because that is what I was hoping for.  Like Richard said somewhere it is written down.  At least I have a good starting point now!
 
 

Grandson of:
T/SGT William Aguiar
384th 544th
B-17 42-30031 (the Bad Penny)

SHAEF1944


B-17 "Georgia Rebel" taken apart and put on barge for transport to smelting plant.  This plane belly-landed intact ( I think in occupied Netherlands ) and met this end.

My Great Uncle, George McIntosh crash landed that B-17 in Sweden on 7/24/43. They had bombed an aluminum plant near Oslo flying at 16,000ft. After bombing the target the Georgia Rebel was hit by AAA disabling an engine and fuel tank. They landed in a Swedish field and were held for 5 months until they were repatriated to Scotland.

He was shot down again in March 20, 1944 during a raid on Mannheim. They again took heavy AAA and possible aircraft fire, they were so far off course that they landed in the Atlantic off the Brest Peninsula. He was sent to Stalag Luft III where he endured the rest of the war as a guest of the Third Reich. He passed away in the summer of 2006 in Kerrville, TX. He was active in the POW community.

I'm interested to learn more about what happened to the actual Georgia Rebel. I had heard that it ended up at a Saab factory and have seen photos of a retrofitted B-17 with Swedish markings in Saab literature. Since it was the first B-17 to land in Sweden, I have often wondered if the B-17 in the brochure is the Georgia Rebel. Any thoughts?

Ref -
# 42 - 3217 MS T  " Georgia Rebel " 
Used for Spare Parts in rebuilding B - 17s for
use as Airliners at Saab Factory - Linkoping , Sweden.
Two Photos , Crew List , Narrative of Mission and what
happened after Landing, Crew interned Camp I Framby ( Falun ).
BOOK - Making For Sweden by Bo Widfeldt  Pages 9 - 11.
Mike

I have also been reasearching a B-17 my uncle was a crew chief mechanic on called Ready Teddy, 42-31783. It was forced to land in a potatoe field in France on a mission to Mannheim on 9 Sep 44 but was salvaged in Nov 44. After it was salvaged is a mystery.

Adam

shooshoobaby


Ref -
# 42 - 3217 MS T  " Georgia Rebel " 
Used for Spare Parts in rebuilding B - 17s for
use as Airliners at Saab Factory - Linkoping , Sweden.
Two Photos , Crew List , Narrative of Mission and what
happened after Landing, Crew interned Camp I Framby ( Falun ).
BOOK - Making For Sweden by Bo Widfeldt  Pages 9 - 11.
Mike

Thank you for your response. I appreciate it. The other B-17 that he was shot down in and forced to ditch 1km off the French coast was the "Jaynee B" 42-31381 lost on 3/20/44. The crew was rescued by French fishermen who launched a sardine row boat to reach them. The B-17 was shot up by AAA and/or fighters and only one of the inflatable life rafts located in the wing was operable. The other was full of holes. That meant only 8 of the crew had a spot in the life raft. My great uncle had to be lashed to the side of the raft in the frigid water until rescue.

In recent correspondence, one of the townspeople mentioned that some of the Jaynee B might have been salvaged too. Someone had made a hand tool, a shovel, out of a piece of the aircraft. I believe the shovel was something of a local conversation piece hanging in a local pub/bar. Few years ago my great uncle had a small plaque placed on a lifeboat house, thanking the men who had rescued him. Originally, the plaque was to include the names of the rescuers, but over the past 50 or so years between the ditching and the plaque, the number of people who claimed to have been in the row boat that day went from the original 7-8 to 15 or so! So the names were left out.