What is a "runaway supercharger"?
The B-17 had General Electric exhaust-gas-driven turbochargers (or more correctly, turbo-superchargers) that had pilot selectable boost levels. A selector dial in the cockpit controlled the operation of the wastegate that controls whether exhaust goes through the turbine and provide engine boost, or is bypassed directly outside.  The pilot's indication of the state of boost being provided to the engines would come from the engine manifold pressure gauges.
&quot;Runaway superchargers&quot; would suggest that the wastegate control systems on those engines were malfunctioning, such as the waste gate failing closed and directing all the exhaust flow through the turbo, causing the turbos to over boost the engines (the &quot;running away&quot; part), which would cause sky-high manifold pressures, detonation, and send the cylinder head temperatures through the roof.  This would necessitate a precautionary shutdown to keep them from blowing cylinders.
During the shutdown, even though they had oil pressure indication for the engines, the propellers, which operate hydraulically using engine oil, wouldn't feather. There is a feathering pump for each engine, normally electrically operated, that draws oil from somewhere in the system and can drive the prop into feather even without any engine oil pressure, as long as the pump itself has a source of oil to its suction inlet.
The turbosupercharger waste gate uses engine oil pressure for servo power for regulating the waste gate, that is also used to lubricate the turbo's bearings.
So... thinking it through, the turbo waste gate needs engine oil, and the feathering pump needs engine oil.  My guess is that there were oil system problems that impacted the waste gate control systems on those two engines, causing the boost runaway, and the same problem was also starving the engine's feathering pumps so that they were unable to complete the feathering of the propellers.  Maybe flak damage, or just a technical issue with the system (it would be odd for flak shrapnel to cause identical problems in two engines on opposite sides of the aircraft).
A B-17 at low altitude, well lightened, having burned off most of its fuel, dumped its bombs, and expended ammunition, would probably have been able to make it back to the UK on two engines, IF the two dead ones had feathered properly.  Having two unfeathered propellers windmilling away however, is massively draggy, and would have turned it into a two-engine glider, leaving the option of a forced landing or bailing out; and it looks like they chose the latter.