10/18/2025 Today I have cleaned up my workroom in preparation to build this very nice eduard 1/48 B-17F from 1943. I plan on building Robert Rosenthal's plane "Rosies Riveters".
Here is a little background on him:
On January 2, 1942, Rosenthal enlisted in the United States Army as an aviation cadet. In September 1942, he graduated from the Air Corps Advanced Flying School at Moody Field, near Valdosta, Georgia, earning his wings and a commission as a second lieutenant. In September 1943, he completed Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress combat crew training at Dyersburg Army Air Base near Halls, Tennessee. He and his crew were immediately shipped overseas and joined the 418th Bombardment Squadron, 100th Bombardment Group, stationed at RAF Thorpe Abbotts in England.
On the October 10, 1943, mission over Münster, Germany, only the third mission for Rosenthal's crew with the 100th Bombardment Group, the B-17F s/n 42-6087, nicknamed Royal Flush, that the crew were flying was the only plane out of 13 from the group that reached Münster to return to base. Royal Flush landed back in England with two engines dead, the intercom and the oxygen system non-functional, and with a large ragged hole in the right wing. Later the ground crews found an unexploded cannon shell in one of Royal Flush's wing tanks. Rosenthal would receive his first Silver Star for this mission.
On March 8, 1944, Rosenthal's crew, nicknamed Rosie's Riveters, completed their 25-mission combat tour, although the B-17F (s/n 42-30758) that they usually flew bearing the same name was shot down while being flown by a different crew during the February 4, 1944, mission to Frankfurt, Germany. The crew returned to the United States, but Rosenthal extended his tour, eventually flying a total of 52 missions. In May 1944, he took command of the 350th Bombardment Squadron.
On September 10, 1944, Rosenthal's B-17G Terrible Termite (s/n 42-97770), flying on a mission to bomb Nuremberg, was hit by flak and crash-landed around Reims in German-occupied France. Along with all the officers on his plane he was seriously injured. Suffering from a broken arm and nose, he was pulled from the cockpit unconscious by Free French, flown back to England, and woke up at a hospital in Oxford. Rosenthal would receive his second Silver Star after this mission. He returned to duty as soon as he had healed. Rosenthal was assigned to a desk job at wing headquarters, but he managed to return to the 100th Bomb Group and take command of his old squadron, the 418th.
On his last combat mission on February 3, 1945, Rosenthal, commanding the 418th, was part of a 2,500-plane raid against Berlin. His B-17G (s/n 44-8379), the lead bomber, suffered a direct flak hit which killed two of his crew. Although his plane was in flames, he continued to the target to drop his payload, then stayed with the plane until after the rest of the crew had bailed out, just before it exploded at an altitude of only about 1,000 feet (300 m). He broke his arm upon landing and was confronted at gunpoint by Red Army soldiers. Rosenthal identified himself as an American by yelling "Americanski!" which worked, as the Soviets understood he was an ally and helped him again return to duty. Rosenthal would earn the Distinguished Service Cross for this mission. Among the buildings hit in the raid was the "People's Court", killing the court's president, notorious "hanging judge" Roland Freisler. Freisler was an attendee of the Wannsee Conference, which formalized plans for the "Final Solution to the Jewish question".
After the war, Rosenthal served as an assistant to the U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, where he interrogated the former head of the German Air Force, Hermann Göring and Wilhelm Keitel, former head of the German Armed Forces High Command Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW). He was honorably discharged from the Army on November 30, 1945.
Robert Rosenthal married Phillis Heller (1918–2011), whom he met on the ocean voyage to Germany. She served as a WAVE, and was also another lawyer on the prosecutorial staff for the Nuremberg trials. They had three children, Peggy, Steve and Dan. Robert Rosenthal died on April 20, 2007, at age 89, in White Plains, New York. He was interred in the Sharon Gardens Cemetery plot Community Synagogue of Rye Lot 197 Grave 3.
Now on to the build….
