My father-in-law Bill was a ball turret gunner on B-17s flying out of England. On his second mission his plane was hit so bad by flak it had to be put aside. On his third mission (Merseburg) they were hit by flak again and had an engine on fire at about 21,000 feet. Pilot took the plane in a dive to try to put out the fire. Came out about 5,000 feet with the fire out.
They limped along on three engines for a while at low altitude. Lost another engine but were able to keep going on the two outboard engines to Holland. They were so low that Germans were hitting them with rifle fire towards the end. Lost a third engine at the coast and the pilot made a crash landing in a farm field on a coastal island. The whole crew were able to walk away from the crash. Caught by the Germans immediately. POW at Stalag Luft I. 158 pounds when they crashed. 98 pounds at the end of the war, after escaping from the camp near the end and going forward with Russian troops for a few days before crossing to Canadian troops at Lubeck.
About 60 years later Bill got a letter from the son of a married couple who were teenagers on the island in December 1944 and saw the plane crash, asking if he was one of the crew, if he could say what had happened to the crew after capture by the Germans, and thanking him for his service in the war and the liberation of Holland and Europe. After writing back and forth, there was an invitation from the Dutch family to visit Holland. Bill, his wife, his brother and his wife, went to Holland in 2006 and were treated like royalty by the Dutch family and their friends and townspeople. They even arranged for a small plane flight to retrace the route over that part of Holland to the coast and the island.
Bill is 83 now iirc, has some health problems, but doing okay.
Those guys had guts and were/are some tough bastards.
