In their own words...

[bobbysocks]

The Saga of "Sweet Pea"

The 2nd Bomb Group
B-17 # 38078 on Mission 279
to Debrecen, Hungary
Marshalling Yards on
Sept. 21 1944

The Flight Crew Story

This raid produced one of the great flying fortress survival stories of the war. 2nd Lt Guy M Miller and crew of "Sweet Pea" were approaching the target when an 88mm anti-aircraft shell slammed into the plane's mid-section exploded, and nearly tore the Fortress in two. Huge sections of the waist on both sides instantly disappeared, control cables were cut, electrical and communications systems went powerless and silent. Half of the bombs fell out of the bomb bay, the lower turret was jammed with the gunner inside, and the explosion blew deadly debris in all directions. The left waist gunner, Elmer H Buss was killed instantly. The right waist gunner, James F. Maguire had multiple wounds but was saved by his back pack parachute serving as a flak suit, saving his life. The tail gunner, S/Sgt James E Totty was mortally wounded and died on the airplane. The radio operator, S/Sgt Anthony Ferrara was peppered like buckshot with shrapnel fragments in the chest.

The stunned crew started its battle for survival. Lt Miller and his copilot, Lt Thomas M. Rybovich struggled for control of the airplane and begin assessing what they had left to do it with. Most of the control cables were cut and his major control was through use of the engines which miraculously, were undamaged.

Lt. Miller thought about ordering bail out but decided against that when he learned he had one dead, three wounded, and one stuck in the ball turret. The wounded were gathered in the radio room for first aid. The bombardier/gunner, S/Sgt Robert R Mullen came back from the nose section and helped Sgt Gerald McGuire, upper turret gunner, bring the mortally wounded S/Sgt Totty from the tail to the radio room. McGuire did finally succeed in freeing Cpl William F Steuck from the ball turret. Later it was learned that turret was resting on only three safety fingers which were all that kept the turret from falling out of the airplane with Steuck inside. There were still six bombs hung up in the racks and Mullen climbed into the bomb bay and released them one by one with a screw driver.

Against seemingly impossible odds, Lts Miller and Rybovich now faced the reality of trying to nurse their mangled airplane and its battered crew across several hundred miles of enemy territory and almost 600 miles back to base. Navigator, 2nd Lt. Theodore Davich plotted a course and the pilots very gingerly set what was left of "Sweet Pea" on the long trek homeward. (This account is set out in the book "Defenders of Liberty" but I thought it such an outstanding achievement for this crew I would repeat it here.)


A First Hand Account of the Landing from Someone on the Ground

The story as told by Jack Botts, Ex-Radio Operator, 414th Sqdn, 97th BG, Amendola, Italy.

I was with the 97th BG, and we also had bombed the Debreczen target that day. I was standing on top of our plane, swabbing out the top turret barrels, when somebody pointed off to the south. There was this plane, making wide swings about 5 miles away, obviously trying to line up with our runways. We couldn't see damage from that distance, but were curious because of the odd maneuvering and the distress flares being fired.

The plane passed us about 100 yards away as it landed, and we all yelled in surprise at the big hole through its waist. Four of us jumped into a jeep and drove over to where it stopped. The tail wheel had collapsed about half way down the dirt runway (between a steel mat and an asphalt strip), causing the plane to ride to a stop on the ball turret.

We arrived at the plane with several other jeeps just as the crew was getting out. Somebody yelled that the ball gunner was still in the ball, so a couple other guys and I opened the turret and pulled out the gu;nner, who was in bad shape emotionally. He had not been able to move the ball nor communicate with the rest of the crew. One photo shows the turret hatch laying on the ground where it fell when we opened it.

Another account that I read reported that the ball gunner had been freed from the ball on the way back from the target. It's a small matter, but it still stands out in my mind after nearly 65 years. My wife and I revisited Amendola in 1990 and the Italian air base that is there now was laid out much as it was way back then.

That was one of the finest flying feats I had ever witnessed, since there were no tail controls in that plane. We in the 97th always had a good relationship with those in the 2nd BG, and I wish all its surviving members well. Best wishes to you.

The Ground Crew Story

The story as told by S/Sgt James Reiman in an email received July 7, 2003


"A tough old bird flew again! I was inducted into the service in Saginaw, Michigan March 1943. After basic training it was off to sheet metal school 555 and then shipped overseas to Casablanca, North Africa for more training. Several months later several of us from the 339th Air Service Squadron were sent to Amendola Air Field near Foggia, Italy. We were immediately attached to the 2nd Bomb Group. I was in sheet metal work repairing many B-17s. On this day, September 21, 1944 the mission left our field early morning and after the mission was complete the main body of crews returned to our base on schedule as usual. We could tell that certain planes did not make it back. It had to have been about 2 hours later when we heard this lone B-17 with what sounded like engine trouble coming into our base. We were working in our repair area near the third runway, a dirt runway which was built for emergency landings. As I looked up at the B-17, the fuselage physically appeared to be swinging from side to side. I couldn't help but think that the pilot and co-pilot were doing one heck of a job bringing her in. They held her tail up off the ground as long as they could and the tail had not snapped off yet. It came to a stop just a short distance from our work area. Little did I know of the condition of the crew until later. I walked over to look at the damage which was a lot of sheet metal work and said to myself, "God, you could drive a army jeep through the hole of the waist of that B-17". It was resting on the ball turret under the B-17 as it collapsed from lack of stability in the center area. I examined the damage and realized that the only thing holding the plane together was the four metal struts on top and bottom of the fuselage. They had to have been very weak from the trip and the explosion of the shell.

It was standard procedure that we work in pairs to complete our work as it would speed up completion time. After we salvaged the parts, my partner, Emmett Shearer, of then Oakland, California, and myself repaired the plane. Sweet Pea went back into service shortly after but only as a transport plane. She had seen the last of combat by now. I cannot remember how many days and hours we put into the repair, but the area of repair was a vital part of the aircraft and everything had to be done just right. I do remember that Boeing considered it the most damaged B-17 that ever came back after being hit while on a mission. Emmett said he saw a picture of it in Washington DC at the museum and also in the Boeing Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.

To this day, I vividly remember the sight of Sweet Pea coming into the runway and what pride Emmett and I shared in completing what was told to us as an impossible task. Today E. A. lives in Washington State and I still live in Michigan. We can still recall those days and our comradeship throughout the war."

[bobbysocks]

What was it like to fly a combat mission as part of a B-24 crew in WW II
by Chet Humeniuk 14 May 1992

"Every afternoon we checked the Squadron bulletin Board to see if our crew was scheduled to fly. If our crew was listed we usually spent a quiet evening. Maybe wrote a letter home. Basically it was a time to do some soul searching and to think of home and family.

The whistle blower came around mighty early in the longer days of summer. 0130 AM being the earliest. We had the choice of getting up then and going to breakfast or staying In the sack a while longer. Most of us opted not to eat breakfast. It gave us a few minutes of "twilight zone". The war sometimes seemed unreal and far away. It didn't seem logical that in about 6 to 8 hours the Germans were going to be doing their best to blow us out of the sky.

I don't know how all the Bomb Group's operated, but in ours the entire crew went to briefing. A curtain hung over our flight path map until briefing started. The big if - what target. When a "biggie" like Viener Neustadt, Austria or Ploesti, Romania came up you could sense the mood change. Less wise cracks, less talking. I remember looking around at the crews and wondering whether they or we would be absent from next briefing.

Next came a stop at the parachute bldg. Early on we kept on gear in our tents until someone discovered that chutes could collect moisture and wouldn't function at high/cold altitudes. Our chutes were our life lines. We treated them like babies. Always made sure the release pins were not bent, etc.

On to the flight line, engine run up, a check of what ever position you had that day. While I was at one time or another in every gun position/turret on the plane I generally flew the left waist position. Sometimes we had an extra camera crew member along. His job was to ready and operate the camera during target strike. We generally did not relish this. It further crowded an already crowded area.

A flare was fired signaling time to start the engines and taxi out. As our turn came up those of us in the rear of plane usually got up against a bulkhead. I felt we all "died a little" on take off. A full fuel and bomb load. Getting off the ground I felt was almost half the danger of the mission. It took awhile to get a few hundred feet of altitude.

After we gained some respectable altitude we began a circular pattern usually near our base and our B-24s began to cue up into formation. Once that was completed we normally headed out over the Adriatic Sea. Over water we gunners loaded and tested fired a few bursts to check out turrets and guns.

Then started the "long haul". It took several hours to climb up to altitude. Most targets we hit around 25 thou mark. Anything less like 22 or 23 thou we felt exposed. Maybe it was psychological, but we wanted all the altitude we could have. Actually the B-24 was only capable of getting up around 26 or 26.5 thou with loads we carried.

Eventually the formations got stretched out in one long line. At times one could see the sun glistening off of planes as far ahead and behind as one could see.

The 1st pilot was on the radio net with other planes in the formation. The rest of us were on intercom. We spent a lot of time just talking. Occasionally we would even sing a few songs to break the monotony. When I look back I am amazed at the length of time we were in the air. While the average time for our over all missions averaged 7 hrs some missions were more like 8 hrs.

On a few missions the Germans had hauled in some anti aircraft guns on rail cars and caught us with some pretty accurate fire about half way to target. Those incidents were quite a shock coming out of the blue so to speak. Our nose gunner got a chunk of shrapnel in his knee on one such incident. He was back with us in a week or so.

We had fighter action from time to time, but toward the end of our tour of duty these attacks became less frequent.

By the time we reached the target area our adrenaline was up. A small cloud of blackish smoke would be visible ahead. This smoke accumulated from rounds fired earlier on previous formations. Final heading for target was made at I. P., Initial Point, I think it stood for. We were then about 5 minutes or so from target. Anti aircraft fire we faced was field artillery turned skyward. The ususal fire was 88 MM rounds fused to explode at our altitude or on contact. Some big targets also had 105 MM guns, the "wham" from those I felt I could feel to the core of my body. The target area was where we took the largest percentage of our losses. A few planes took direct hits - usually there were not any survivors in those cases. Finally came the upward lurch as the bomb load left the bomb bay. Next the formation would make a big left or right turn to get out of target area and we started the long haul back.

Once far enough away from the target to not be receiving anymore rounds there would be a certain amount of chatter on how it went. A few other times when we lost a plane right along side ours over target there was more like a stunned silence.

The trip back was filled with various concerns. How our fuel was doing? Any engines that took damage? Would they keep on running? Occasionally an engine had to be shut off and prop "feathered". When we had a target to the East or Northeast our first goal was to at least make it back to the Yugoslav Mtns. If the situation was such that the plane couldn't be brought all the way back to base these area had friendly underground that would help bring crews out. Fortunately we never faced this fate. Our crew never had to bail out or ditch.

Once back over the Adriatic the let down was fairly swift. It was good to see Italy and home base. Flares were used by planes to indicate they had wounded aboard. Our 1st pilot was the only other crew member we had wounded. He took a piece of shrapnel in his lower leg. A good deal of the time we got back with a number of holes in our planes. In fact one of our "D" model 24's was named "Patches".

Some of the other names I remember also mainly from older "D" models, were Professor D and Flame McGoon. It was always encouraging to come off a target and see the older planes still coming thru. A good deal of the "Ds" had desert camouflage coloring from North Africa campaign. Actually they had a higher cruising speed than the new G and H models. Mainly they had less turrets.

After unloading from plane we were taken to debriefing. When we first arrived we had an oz of whiskey credited to us after each mission. After we had accumulated enough for a bottle each we threw a big party. Later we got the ounce right after debriefing. One time one of the other crew members didn't want his and I had a double. Going back to our tent I had the feeling I was walking about 2 feet off the ground. It was probably too big a belt after being on oxygen for hours, little to eat, etc.

Our tent, one of 3, sat in a small vineyard. It was very much like "the swamp" in Mash. It was home to six of us enlisted men from our crew. The Officers had barrack like qtrs. Many a bull session was had over the months. We eventually got closer to the other crew members than even our own families.

Finally came the day when I had my missions in and I got to stand down while our crew made one last mission to finish their req'd missions. A day of mixed emotions for me.

My last mission with crew had been on 15 July 1944. Our target that day was Ploesti, Roumania. It was one of the 5 missions our crew flew over Ploesti.

My mission record is dated 29 July, 1944. We were flown to Naples later to wait out a troop ship convoy back to the States. Our crew began to split up at the "Repel Depot" as it was called. Only one of our crew members was assigned to the same tent as I was. We heard daily rumors about the convoy due in "that day". It did finally arrive. About 12 days later we saw the Statue of Liberty as we pulled in to New York Harbor.

In looking back I felt we had a better than average combat crew. We had the only Eskimo flight crew member we knew of. He was our Flight Engineer. I drew 2nd Flight Engineer/Gunner. Our ground crews were some of the best in the world. The crew chiefs and other personnel worked their hearts out to make our planes combat ready.

We didn't win the war because we were that much better than the Germans. Mainly it was a war of attrition. USA and Allies just wore down the opposition.

We weren't all that brave either. Coming off of one of our missions to Ploesti one of our 24's slid back along side and below us after taking a mortal hit. A few minutes later our navigator said, "If I could have surrendered to the Germans back there they would have had another POW".

Did being in combat make me a better person? I don't know. Maybe a little more humble.

For better or worse we toughed it out and lucked out. The Good Lord was with us."

C.T. Humeniuk/Flight Eng./Gunner 515 Sqdn, 376th Bombardment Group H AAF

[bobbysocks]

The Frascati Mission on May 23, 1944
By T.Sgt. Raymond Roemer, Flight Engineer, 515th Squadron

"We slept later that day because the target was not a long one. Briefing promised that it would be an easy one. That should have been a warning to us . We were loaded with 1000 pounders and the Target was the Supreme Headquarters, German Forces. North of the Anzio Beach Head.

San Pancrazio was a neat place to fly from. The weather was warm that spring and on one occasion we went swimming in sight of Roman watchtowers on a sandy beach. The next day we would be at 20,000 feet and 30 degrees below zero, thinking about the warm weather.

We were flying on the left side of the lead ship in our element and we approached the target area from the water (the Bay of Naples). We started the run and then at the last second aborted. When the bomb load is released the lightened ship lifts up and away. This time for whatever reason we turned, did not drop and started a climb.

The weight of the full load made us slow and in the turn the ship on the right side of our element took a hit. It tore out a section of the fuselage from the trailing edge of the wings back on the waist windows. Someone remarked on inter-com "You could drive a Jeep through that hole".

The B24 is constructed with a main spar that begins at the rear of the flight deck then forms the catwalk continuing on to the waist section dividing at the Ball-turret and main hatch and ending at the tail turret. When I looked at that hole, the only thing holding the tail empennage to the rest of the ship was the main spar sections. Their radio was out and several of the crew was in wounded in the waist. The control cables run through the main spar in a channel then straddle the main hatch and Ball then continuing on to the tail section. The hole had severed these cables. They were in rough shape. No time to salvo and be sure not to hit friendly troops. So the entire element broke off from the rest of the formations and headed out to the water. Mitch and the other lead ship pilot opted to fly wing and contact Naples for an emergency landing.

The Pilot of the severely damaged ship with dead and wounded aboard salvoes over the water then started a controlled descent turning slowly, now leading the element. Mt Vesuvius was on our right with a plume of smoke rising above us. Suddenly the spar could not hold any longer and the ship dived in to the green slope of the huge mountain. By the time we made a 180 only a black mark on the ground marked the spot.

There were 11 men on board that fateful ship. The usual 10 man crew and 1 photographer. Mitch writes in his notes for the mission.They dove straight down and burst into flames. No survivors. Gallagher and Fuller, two swell fellows. The worst was watching them clean out them tent that night and try to not remember. Other accounts of this crew who all received the Silver Star are in Walker's book. I will always remember them and the brave men that showed the fondness and fellowship for their crew. It is something that only a crewmember understands."

[bobbysocks]

Strawberry Bitch

By Daniel P. Rice- Pilot- 512th Squadron, 376th Bomb Group

The airplane which became named the Strawberry Bitch and later was placed on exhibit at the United States Air Force Museum was assigned to our crew at Herington Air Force Base, Kansas, in late August, 1943. I signed an issue ticket for it there. At that point it was merely one of many B-24Ds off the assembly line at San Diego, distinguished from all the rest of its model only by its serial number — at least until it had received its coat of camouflage pink paint. At that point it became one of a much smaller 'group.

We took the airplane up to check it out and found everything to our satisfaction except for one thing. As we put it through its various trial maneuvers, I noticed that the air speed indicator registered consistently about seven or eight miles per hour slower than it should. (Climbing speed, cruising speed, stalling speed, landing speed, etc.) I recall commenting to the crew after landing that "It looks like we have a real dog".

But I was not willing to let it rest that way. I sought out the maintenance officer on the flight line, explained my observations to him and asked him to check the airspeed meter for accuracy. Clearly, he didn't want to do it. I'm sure he felt that it would be an exercise in futility. But I persisted, and with all good grace, in spite of his reluctance, he agreed to make the test. When I checked back with him later, he told me with some wonderment that his men had replaced the instrument. Their test procedure had shown that it registered seven miles per hour too slow.

As the various necessary procedures preliminary to our departure were being completed,
Someone on the crew was thinking that the airplane should have a name. I had not given that any thought, so when our engineer, Sergeant Haberman, came to me asking if they could name it, I agreed. When he told me the name they had in mind, I was a little taken aback. It would not be completely accurate to say that I "approved" their suggested name but I did accept it, and overnight through the talent of someone, there on the flight line, one pink B-24D number 42-72843 became the Strawberry Bitch. That is, the name was painted on there.

The picture of the red haired Vargas girl was not added until after we had been in the 512th Squadron for a while. I don't remember for sure just where that was done. It could have been at Enfidaville, Tunisia, but I believe it more likely that the picture was added after we moved up to San Pancrazio, Italy. We left Herington on the morning of August 28, 1943, bound for Dow Field at Bangor, Maine. On that flight, after much close observation, I concluded that our artificial horizon was just slightly out of level, and wrote it up on the proper form. Again, the flight line maintenance people promptly installed a replacement instrument.

The next morning we were off again, bound for Gander, Newfoundland. We carried a large brown sealed envelope with instructions to not open it until after we were airborne. After we had gotten lined out on course, I opened it and found Operations Orders Number 398 directing crew number 34-4, whose pilot I was, to proceed by air in B-24D number 42-72843 to Cairo, Egypt, and report to the Ninth Air Force for further assignment and duty. Two other crews from the Bridges Provisional Group were included in the same order, those of Lieutenant John M. Repp and Lieutenant William Metzger, Jr. I paid close attention to the new artificial horizon on that flight and found it satisfactory.


At about 08:45 PM local time on August 30, we left Gander for the flight across the North Atlantic to Prestwick, Scotland.

Most of that ten hours and twenty minutes was about as dull and boring as it can get. For the most part we were between cloud layers, so we could not have seen the ocean even if there had been something down there to look at or any light to see it.

Our navigator couldn't see the stars to check our position by celestial observations, so we just sat there and kept the compass on his dead reckoning headings. It was almost like spending ten hours straight in a Link Trainer. I did have one small diversion though. After a little while I had the feeling that we were flying in a shallow bank to the left. Our instruments said we were OK, but I couldn't help remembering that just two days ago I had an artificial horizon, which was not quite accurate. Could I trust this one? Should I?

That question was answered in favor of training over "feeling" and it turned out that instruments were indeed a more reliable indicator of attitude than the "seat of the pants". We made landfall just where we were supposed to, or at least within reasonable distance, and all was well.

I suppose that we would have been moved on out on the next leg of our trip the next day except for the weather. As the day began, a solid overcast hung low over the field, and nothing was moving. I think it would be accurate to say that the field was closed except for emergencies. We kept an ear tuned and an eye peeled for another pink B-24D, serial number 42-72844, with Bill Metzger and his crew who were traveling with us but who had been held over at Gander. We watched in vain as his expected ETA came and went. The only airplane that came in was a C-54, which rolled to a dead stop on the runway and stayed there. It was rumored that he didn't have enough fuel left to taxi in, and also that two very high-ranking Air Force generals were aboard. I can neither confirm nor deny the rumor.

It turned out later that Metzger and his crew had been up there somewhere in that soup but were not allowed to land. He was diverted to a small grass field somewhere in the general area, where the airplane was lightened so he could get it back in the air to come on to Prestwick when the weather would permit landing there. Of course the things removed from the airplane had to be brought on to Prestwick by some other means so it could all be reassembled for the continuation of their journey.

The next morning, September 2, we were off to St Mawgen, in Cornwall, which would be the jumping off place for the second long over-water leg on our way to Africa. Here there was another hitch. It was discovered that gasoline been dribbling down over the exhaust pipe of our number one engine, so it was determined that we should be sent to a B-24 repair depot at Watton, northeast of London to get it fixed. There they found a fuel leak in the auxiliary wing tip tank system, and corrected it. Then on September 6, we went back to St Mawgen. Another bug had to be worked out.

That same day we took off for Africa a little while before midnight, and landed at Marrakech about ten hours later. For some reason we were allowed only a very short rest and then were told to move on, even though we had been in the air about 12.5 hours out of the last 24. We chose a fairly short hop (4:40) to Algiers, and rested there a couple of days.

We made one more stop, at Tripoli, before arriving at Cairo on September 11. There we received new orders, to report to Devesoir, which was located on the west bank of the Great Bitter Lake, for the airplane to be made ready for combat and then on (or back) to Berka Two at Benghazi, Libya. There we would join the 376th Bomb Group. We checked in there on September 16, and were further assigned to the 512th Squadron. The Strawberry Bitch was now poised to begin to fulfill its purpose, that of combat operations against the enemy.

My crew did not have the Bitch on any of the airplane’s first three missions. It was assigned to different squadron "old- timers" who had the privilege of breaking in new airplanes, and I was sent out as co-pilot with others who had the dubious honor of breaking in new pilots. Others of the crew were also given temporary "one-mission assignments during this break-in period. We finally were put back together for my fourth mission but with a different airplane.

It was the Bitch's fourth mission — my fifth — before we were all back together again in "our" airplane. We took off from Benina Plain at Benghazi to bomb Tatoi Airdrome near Athens which was being used by the Germans in their fight with the British over some islands in the eastern Mediterranean. We landed back at Berka Two.

I think we caught them by surprise, for there was no fighter opposition at all and no effective antiaircraft fire. I don't remember any at all. The next day we were back in the Athens area again for the same purpose, this time at Eleusis Airdrome. The German fighters were ready for us. The "tail end Charlie" element at the extreme right rear corner of the formation took quite a beating as the fighters came at us from the rear. We were in the left wing position of that element and saw both the right wing and the lead ships catch fire and go down. We took a lot of hits ourselves, including 20mm cannon shell bursts in our main wing fuel tanks, but did not catch fire. Our top gunner (engineer) was injured about the left side of his face and head by fragments from the shell burst and holed Plexiglas, but fortunately the wounds were not deep nor life threatening. After a short healing period he was back in the harness and pulling his share of the load again. I don't suppose I ever did know the full extent of the damage absorbed by the airplane that day. Most of those details have long since dissolved in the mists of time anyway. But I do remember the three or four — possibly more — holes in the top of our wing and fuel tanks through which I could look in and see the gasoline gently sloshing back and forth as the airplane was slightly rocked by our movement on it. If I had a coffee cup, I could have reached in through the holes and dipped out the fuel. In retrospect, it seems to me that as I was watching both of my element mates go down in flames, that was the quintessential time and place for the expression: "There but for the grace of God go I." I certainly am at a loss for any other explanation of why they went down and we did not.

I remember too the good sized jagged hole in the left vertical stabilizer at or just above its attachment point to the horizontal tail surface where other explosive shells had found us. And at least one non-explosive one found us too. Curiously, it had entered the trailing edge of our left wing exactly in the center of the seam created by the riveting of two sheets of aluminum skin together. It had traveled forward through the wing and out through the de-icing boot on the leading edge. Then, there was a pronounced dimple in the center of one of our propeller blades, which it had hit after exiting the wing.

As we had approached the base, we could not establish contact with the tower, and once on the ground it was easy to understand why. All of our antennas had been shot away. That in itself was no big deal, but I think it serves to indicate the amount of bullets and shell fragments which had been, flying about the airplane.

So the Strawberry Bitch's fifth mission was sort of a rough one for it. That was more damage than our squadron ground crews were prepared to handle, so the airplane was transferred to a maintenance squadron for repair. It did not return to duty until November when my crew had it on the 10th and 11th for its 6th and 7th missions. We had it again for its 11th mission on November 29th, and Its 14th on December 15th.

The December 15th mission was my last flight in the Strawberry Bitch. Our target was the Avisio viaduct just south of Bolzano in northern Italy, but the airplane couldn't quite make it. Just about the time we crossed the northern coast of the Adriatic Sea, our number four engine started trailing a streamer of dense black smoke, so we feathered the propeller, dropped out of formation, and brought our bomb load back home. My recollection is that we had blown a cylinder.

Thus did my own personal association with the Strawberry Bitch come to an end after about 150 hours as its pilot. About 40 of these were combat hours, about 40 were in non-combat flights in the Mediterranean area, about 63 were in transit from Herrington to Benghazi, and about seven were in check-out flights at Herington.

The association ended, that is, until I found it again at the Air Force Museum in the spring of 1975. With the gracious permission of museum personnel I have enjoyed the privilege of revisiting its cockpit on four different occasions with different members of my family. I am deeply appreciative.

I am afraid that this brief "overview" has long since lost the quality of brevity. Perhaps I can ration-alize this by claiming to have added some bit of information about the airplane that is not contained in the Museum's files on it.