B-17 flying under golden gate bridge

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My grandfather and his mates returned from WWII for a war bonds tour in the early 1940s, and flew a B-17 bomber under the golden gate bridge. Anyone know of an archive that would have a photo / story about this? Supposedly the story was pulled from most papers to prevent other pilots from attempting a similar flight under other bridges...

-- bill hayden (bill_hayden@hotmail.com), July 01, 2002

Answers

my father was a pilot that flew that plane under the bridge i have old photos of him and the crew he passed away a year and a half ago i took it real hard im ok now i found in his papers the gov files on that inicident pls e mail me bob thx

-- bob minerich (rminerich60@yahoo.com), April 21, 2003.

In early 1944 I was a 19 year old radio operator gunner on a B-24 training flight out of Tonopah, Nevada. Our objective was to bomb my home town of San Francisco. Of course it was just theoretical, thank God. Well, I tried to talk the pilot into going under the Golden Gate Bridge. He refused, which I am now happy to report.

I will be honest with you, this is really a plug for B-24s. The Consolidated B-24 could fly higher, further and faster than its rival B-17. The Boeing B-17 had a better publicity agent than did the B-24 organization. Of course this has been a friendly rivalry that exists to this day. This is an argument that will go on till the last B-24 man and B-17 man is still alive.

-- Frank Grant (grantstombtwo@aol.com), April 21, 2003.


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