THE LAST FORTRESS:

How One B-17 Returned Alone from Münster and Became a Legend of the “Bloody Hundredth”**

On the cold morning of October 10, 1943, pilot Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal walked into the briefing room at Thorpe Abbotts airfield and joined sixty other men of the 100th Bomb Group. Coffee steamed in metal cups. Cigarettes glowed. A quiet tension hung in the air—the tension of men who understood the odds and had learned not to look too far ahead.

Rosenthal took his seat beside his copilot, Winifred “Pappy” Lewis, and navigator Ronald Bailey. Moments later, the briefing officer lifted the blackout screen to reveal the day’s target.

“Münster.
And gentlemen… the aim point is the cathedral in the old city.”

A ripple of shock spread across the room. Up to now, their missions had focused on factories and rail yards. But Münster’s cathedral sat in the middle of a civilian center. Sunday mass would be underway at the very hour of their approach.

Pappy Lewis whispered, “I don’t know how I feel about this.”

Rosenthal kept his eyes forward. “It’s the assignment. We fly it.”

Near the front, group commander Major John Egan exhaled sharply and muttered a single word: “Finally.”
Egan had lost close friends over the past months—too many. Some men in the room felt the mission was harsh but justified. Others swallowed their unease in silence.

The briefing officer continued:

“Expect over 500 enemy fighters. Extremely heavy flak.
You’ll be part of a 274-bomber formation.
Escort: 216 P-47 Thunderbolts. They’ll meet you over Holland.”

It sounded reassuring. It wasn’t.

Into the Enemy’s Airspace

The engines of the B-17s thundered across the cold airfield as one by one they lifted into formation. Rosenthal’s aircraft, Royal Flush, took its assigned position at the back of the group—an exposed spot every man aboard recognized as the most dangerous place to be.

Over Holland, the sky began to clear. The bombers crossed into Germany.
But something was wrong.

“Where are our fighters?” Rosenthal asked.

Gunners scanned every quadrant.

“Negative contact. No Thunderbolts.”

And then Bailey said quietly, “They’re not coming.”

Bad weather at the escort bases had grounded the entire fighter screen.
The 100th Bomb Group was alone.

And Münster was still nearly an hour ahead.

The First Attacks

As the formation pressed deeper into Germany, scattered radio calls confirmed that other bomb groups were taking hits. Lone fighters. Harassing passes. Aircraft dropping out of formation.

Then a wall of silhouettes materialized ahead.

“Bandits—twelve o’clock!”

A cloud of Me 109s and Fw 190s dived into the formation, firing 20mm cannon shells as tracers streaked past the Fortresses. Turrets roared to life. Gunners shouted bearings and distances. Metal shrieked as rounds tore through wings and fuselages.

Moments later, a second wave arrived from the rear: Bf 110s armed with rockets.

The sky became chaos.

And then the first disaster struck.

The Fall of Mademoiselle Zig-Zag

Major Egan’s lead aircraft, Mademoiselle Zig-Zag, took a direct rocket hit.
Two engines failed instantly. Fire burst along the fuselage.

“We’re losing power!” Egan yelled.

Unable to maintain speed, Zig-Zag began to fall behind the formation.

This was the moment the 100th Bomb Group unraveled.

Because the bombers directly behind Egan—unaware of his damage—began slowing to keep position.
Then the bombers behind them slowed.
Then the next flight slowed.

By the time anyone understood, eleven B-17s—Rosenthal’s included—had been cut off from the rest of the 274-bomber armada.

And the German fighters saw it instantly.

They pounced.

The Isolated Eleven

In minutes, the isolated group was torn apart.

A Fortress exploded after cannon fire touched off its fuel.
Another burst into flame and spiraled down.
A third pulled out of formation in panic and was instantly swarmed by fighters until it fell in pieces.

Rosenthal watched helplessly.

“We’re dropping like flies!” a waist gunner shouted.

“Three minutes to the target,” Bailey reminded him.

Three minutes felt like three years.

Then fighters converged on Egan’s doomed Zig-Zag.
Systems failed one after another.
Egan gave the order every pilot dreads.

“Bail out! Get out now!”

One by one, his crew leapt into the sky.
Egan and his copilot, John Brady, held the aircraft steady until the last man was gone.
Then they jumped.

Zig-Zag fell away and vanished.

The eleven were now three.

Royal Flush Takes the Hit

A German fighter lined up behind Rosenthal’s B-17 and fired a salvo of rockets.

One slammed into the right wing, tearing open a crater the size of a doorway and knocking out two engines in an instant.

“Feathering!” Lewis shouted as he killed the dead engines.

“Bailey—how far?!”

“Almost there!”

Smoke poured from the wing. The Fortress shook violently but held altitude.

Rosenthal refused to turn back. Not yet.

They had come this far.
They would finish the mission.

Into Münster’s Flak

The moment the fighters broke away, the flak began.

With only three bombers remaining, every gun in Münster concentrated on them.

Black bursts shredded the sky. Fragments punched through aluminum skin. The second-to-last Fortress ignited midair, dropped its bombs in panic, then broke apart and fell burning into the city outskirts.

Royal Flush was now the only bomber left on the entire approach path.

Rosenthal switched on autopilot.

“Bombardier—you have the aircraft.”

Bailey steadied his view through the Norden sight. The cathedral came into frame.

“Almost… almost—”

A burst erupted so close the shockwave rattled every rib of the fuselage.

“Bombs away! Pilot, your plane!”

Rosenthal seized control and hauled the wobbling B-17 out of the flak zone.

“Let’s get out of here.”

They left the smoking city behind—alone, battered, and far too visible.

The Last Gauntlet

“Bandits, six o’clock!”

Six fighters. Then eight. Then ten.

Royal Flush dove, climbed, banked, and twisted—maneuvers no bomber was meant to perform. The waist gunners clung to their guns as centrifugal force pulled them sideways.

Rear gunner Sergeant Bill DeBlasio fought like a man possessed.

He shot the wing off one Fw 190, causing it to collide with its wingman.
He struck another in the engine and sent it spiraling into the clouds.
He held back wave after wave as rockets streaked past the tail.

For ten agonizing minutes, the B-17 flew a dance of survival.

Finally, low on fuel, the German fighters broke away.

Silence filled the aircraft.

“Are we clear?”

“For now.”

The Return of Royal Flush

But Royal Flush was dying.

Two engines gone. The fuselage torn open. The waist gunners wounded. The bomber losing altitude.

Rosenthal ordered the crew to jettison everything not bolted down—guns, ammo, oxygen tanks. The waist gunners were treated as best as possible.

“Is it enough to get us home?” Pappy asked.

Rosenthal stared ahead at the gray horizon.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Thorpe Abbotts waited.

Families waited.

Brothers-in-arms waited.

And then—long after the scheduled time, long after hope had faded—a lone shape appeared low over the treetops.

“Aircraft sighted… it’s a Fortress!”

Smoke trailed from its wing. The landing gear lowered unevenly. The men on the ground held their breath.

Royal Flush touched down, bounced, slid, and finally rolled to a stop.

Silence.

Then medics rushed forward.

Rosenthal stepped out onto the grass—exhausted, grim, shaken. There was no celebration—only the understanding that out of the thirteen Fortresses they had sent toward Münster, Royal Flush was the only one that returned.

Aftermath: The Bloody Hundredth

In the hours that followed, the scale of the disaster unfolded.

Of the 130 men aboard the downed aircraft, 37 were killed.
93 became prisoners of war.

The cost was so catastrophic that from that day forward, the 100th Bomb Group carried a new name:

“The Bloody Hundredth.”

But in that darkness, one fact remained:

On October 10, 1943, in one of the worst days the Eighth Air Force ever faced,
Royal Flush and her crew kept flying when every other Fortress fell.

They finished the mission.
They survived the swarms.
They returned alone.

And in doing so, they became legends.