kindss gentlemen,
I kindly beg you to want to help me in to look for information in worth to a
landing of fortune I suppose of a " B-17 or of a B25" happened in date 08
aprile1945s in the place: Ariano Polesine (province of Rovigo) to around 60
south kilometers in Venice on the delta el Po. After so many years I hope to
succeed in finding again at least some pilot supertite or if kindly some reader
of this beautiful site can help me in this search in how much I don't have a
lot of eperienza to use internet. As it regards that airplane, the witnesses
tell me that after the landing of emergency, all the crew members saved him,
but you/they were done imprisoned from the occupying and present Germans in that zone therefore I desire to know who am and what their fate was, while the abandoned airplane was subsequently dismantled and reduced asunder by the country places. I have to also remember that in the evening among on April 8 and the day 9 of that year 1945, that German with some electric torches were extracting the gasoline from the reservoirs of the airplane and that light it was a good signal for that scout that flew above and that therefore it bombed the country violently causing about ten corpses and a lot of destroyed houses. I desire to have these information if you can help me to complete my book of history that stò writing on that period. I thank you for the polite attention and I apologize me not to write well in English in how much message is written using a software for the automatic translation. Kindest regards to all of you from:
 Francesco Càmpaci.
e-mail: iz3deb@alice.it
WEB-PAGES: http:\\www.digilander.libero.it\iz3deb
Operator of the Italian HAM RADIO-STATION: IZ3DEB
TNX AND BYE!

Francesco,
I'm afraid you will have to look elsewhere since the 463rd Bomb Group did not lose any bombers on the date you mention.  Perhaps another 15th AF or 12th AF Bomb Group would be able to offer some information to assist you in your research.
 
Sincerely,

Joel Swindlehurst
463rd Bomb Group Historian
www.463rd.org
Proud son of 1/Lt Leroy J. Swindlehurst (1921-1950)
Navigator, 772nd Sq., 463rd BG

VERY TNX, MS. jOEL,
I CONTINUE MY SEARCH AS HER MI IT RECOMMENDS, SINCE I AM CONVINCED THAT SURELY IN SOME AMERICAN DATABASE THERE AND' WRITTEN OF THIS HISTORY, SURE AS I AM WHETHER TO LOSE A B-17 NON AND' MEANINGLESS AS TO LOSE A HANDKERCHIEF EVEN IF AND' SPENT A LOT OF TIME! THANKS Á. VOI ALL FOR THE HOSPITALITY' ON THIS MAGNIFICENT SITE IT IS CORDIALLY I GREET YOU:
Francesco Càmpaci
E-MAIL: iz3deb@alice.it
 

Franceso-
At top left - This Page
Click on MACR db
Then - On Date - Type in 04/08/1945 Search
It will show all Losses on this Date.
You can get MACRs on Line at  www.footnote.com
Mike

Very tnx Mr. MIKE , MY BEST REGARDS.

I checked my database and only found one B-17 from the 15th AF losft on 8 April 1945, plane 44-6733 from the 483rd BG, 815 BS.  According to Drain's 5th wing book, the plane crashed near Compodazzo.  I looked on Footnote for the MACR (No. 13634) but did not find it.
 
All other B-17s I saw lost on this date were from the 8th AF and were supposed to have gone down over Germany.
 
Marty

Therefore dear friend Marty,
I apologize me to be insistent with this history and I would not like to annoy you but I would like to understand how much I have found since of information, in fact reading the following relationship of the aircraft n°
44-6733, it seems me to understand that they was commanded in mission of bombardment in the zone of Campodazzo ( near Bolzano - to see  wich programm "Google Heart"  please ) and when they were back they were stricken from the flak losing 2 motors, then more before they had all the
firm motors and therefore they did a perfect landing of emergency, worth of the pilot: Dexter Vernon and they were finally brought to Padova to be
questionning. For this seems me to be able to say that it is not possible that
that landing has happened to Campodazzo in how much this place is very distant from Padova while it is being more feasible than that B-17s is landed to Ariano Polesine that alone is around 60 kilometers from Padova. However me today same I have written a letter to Mr. Vernon L. Dexter begging it if kindly he can specify me where it made that landing of emergency and I hope so to close this search of mine that interests me.
I thank a lot you for your courtesy and I greet you: 
 Francesco Càmpaci
P.S.: THIS REPORT IS VERY IMPORTANT:

       "     Posts: 69
            Joined: 11/18/2005
            Status: offline  Here is info on this crew and mission…  from Heroes
            of the 483rd….
             
            Hohler and Adams joined eight members of the Dexter crew for a
            mission to Campodezzo, Italy, on 8 April 1945. Flying in B-17
            44-6733, they were hit by flak on the bomb run. They lost two
            engines and fell below and behind the formation. Before they were
            able to reach friendly territory, all engines failed and Dexter made
            a superb “dead stick” crash landing. They were immediately captured
            by German and Italian soldiers. Holler had just joined the group
            with his own crew, and was flying an indoctrination flight as a
            co-pilot. It appears Adams had no regular crew but it is known he
            had more than 25 sorties when shot down. Gutoski recalls the
            following: “With all engines silent and the wind whistling through
            the gaping holes, Lt. Dexter set her down. With the wheels up, she
            slid on her belly and the wing caught the ground, we went into a ‘U’
            turn and came to a stop. We in the radio room were covered with
            rocks and soil. We walked out the side of the plane, which was
            ripped wide open. “We were captured immediately because we
            landed right in the German front lines. We were taken to a farm  
            house and lined up against a wall to be shot, but just as they were  
            getting ready to start shooting, the phone rang and the hot-shot
            Nazi was called inside. He came out storming mad. The caller had told
            him to send us north to be interrogated. He sure was a mean
           German officer. â€œWhile walking to the Padau prison, I talked to a  
           German guard who had observed the whole event and he said that 
           we were very lucky because if that phone call hadn’t come through 
           we  would all have  been dead in a few seconds. I speak some   
           German and Russian and speak Polish very well, and the guard could 
           speak Polish. “From Padau we went to Verona city jail and then up
           the Brenner Pass through Austria and then to Moosburg, Germany, at 
          Stalag 7A. The American 3rd Armored and Infantry broke through and 
          rescued us in the camp. There were 90,000 prisoners in 7A, including
          18,000 Americans. From 7A we were sent home via Camp Lucky Strike
          and LeHarve, France.” Gerry Smith, who recalls going to Verona first, 
           then to Padau, to Bologna, and on to the interrogation center at
            Florence, remembers the events in a letter of 25 August 1994: “From
            Florence, Don Patrick, Clarence Adams and I were assigned three
            guards to take us to Moosburg, Stalag 7A. One of the guards was a
            crippled former Luftwaffe pilot, the second was an ‘old’ 56-year-old
            groundpounder, and the third a 19-year-old English-speaking soldier.
            From Florence to Moosburg we saw  many, many highway and
            railroad bridges that had been destroyed by our strategic bombing. 
            “As we reached one destroyed bridge after another, we had to  
           disembark from the vehicle on which we were riding, crossing the river
           or ravine by ferry boat or hand bridges. After such crossing rides we
            hitchhiked from one destroyed bridge to another. All travel was at
            night because of the Germans’ fear of our Air Force. We traveled on 
            German military trucks, tanks and a few times on trains, where we
             were usually locked in boxcars. Once we even traveled on a very
            slow-moving wood-burning steam engine farm truck. “Another time
            we caught a ride on the back of a truck that had been used to
            trans-port flour. It started raining and I hadn’t shaved in a few
            days — well, you can imagine what happens when you mix water  
            and flour! I promised myself I would never grow a beard after that
            experience. My greatest fear was when we were in a boxcar in
            Munich during a British bombing raid on the marshaling yards.”
             
            Crew
             
            Vernon L. Dexter, P
            Theodore T. McKnelly, CP
            Richard K. Hood, N
            Louis J. Frater, B
            Douglas H. Palmer, E
            Clarence J. Gutoski, R
            Clarence E. Hughes, A/TG
            Gerald W. Smith, BT
            Donald F. Patrick, RW
            Sanford A. Gold (not 483rd)
            Thomas A. Ford, A
            William G. Faix, TG
            Charles W. Hohler, CP
            Clarence R. Adams, LW
            (in reply to micky)
                     Post #: 2

                   RE: 817th BS crews rescued by British SAS - 6/5/2006 11:37:19
                  AM   

            micky
            Wing Member "
 
                                                        T N X !