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Robert Stanley Christofferson

Hibbing High School

Squadron 751 of the 457th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force

Purple Heart, Air Medal, and Caterpillar Club

Robert S. Christofferson in the late 1990's (in his early 70's)

Narrative

My Jump Story by Robert S. Christofferson

We took off from the air field near Peterborough, England, in our B-17, early on the morning of September 28, 1944, on the start of my tenth mission. We were headed of the marshalling yards at Magdeburg, Germany. We formed our group over England along with many other groups of bombers and headed over the English Channel for our target.

I climbed into the ball turret as we got over the channel and everything was gong along fine - only a little flack up to the time we neared our target area. We were then attacked by German M.E. 109 fighter planes. After some combat with the attacking fighter, our plane was hit several times with 20 mm cannons from the attacking fighters. I could feel our plane in somewhat of a dive and upon looking forward from my ball turret, I could see the plane was also on fire. I heard no communications from our pilot or crew so I decided it was time to get out. Upon exit from the ball turret into the waist part of the plane, I grabbed my parachute and clipped it onto the chute harness I was wearing. I could see by this time the plane was in bad condition and the waist gunner had already salvoed the waist door and exited the aircraft. When I was climbing out of the ball turret, I felt something hit my feet, and thereupon I crawled to the waist opening. All I can remember is that I took hold of the chute handle and crawled out of the door opening. At that point, I assume that I became unconscious. The next thing I can remember after regaining consciousness, I would estimate that I was about 1500 or 2000 feet above the ground. At that time, I reached up and took the ice off my eyelids so I could see what was going on. I then heard an airplane and when it came into view, I could see that it was a P-38 who circled me until I was very close to the ground. He then wiggled his wings and left. Upon looking down to see where I was going to land, I saw that one foot was severed, which apparently was the result of the blow I felt when vacated the turret. As I approached the farmer's field, I lifted my legs to land on my buttocks. I remember bouncing some distance and having trouble catching my breath, but had no further injury. I could see three persons coming toward me from a farmhouse which was about 300 yards away. As they came nearer, I could see two men and a woman. One of the men was carrying a rifle. As they arrived where I was laying, they talked back and forth between themselves. Then they took my watch and dog tags and spit in my face. The woman rolled up my chute and placed it under my head as they left. A couple of hours later, I was picked up by the military and taken to a small town (unknown), where several other American servicemen were. Some time later, I was put on an army ambulance type of vehicle and taken, after several stops, to a hospital and arrived there about 12 midnight. So ends the day of an emergency jump story.

A short summary after that day is that I was treated at the hospital by an Austrian doctor and then sent off to several prison camps. I was reported as missing in action for at least 6 months. Then I was fortunate to return to the United State in a Prisoner exchange on the Swedish ship the Gripsholm, treated in U.S. hospitals, and discharged on July 6, 1945, from Percy Jones Hospital, Fort Custer, Michigan and returned home to Hibbing, Minnesota.