It was a long, long day for everyone. Jerry Stiel showed great leadership for a 23 year old...We must credit the competence and perseverance of John Joseph and the calm care of Don Collins...and the coordinated willingness and actions of the rest of the crew...

We were billeted in Charleroi, Belgium...#43-38118 Miss Fortune was to stay at Florennes for repairs. Most of the crew went back to Great Ashfield on a 94th Group B-17 on 2/9/45.

Chemnitz, Germany 2/14/45. Flying aboard a brand new B-17G #44-8762. Target is a marshaling yard near the Russian front... Flak at three points. One burst accurate. Tore small hole in Plexiglas and struck Bombardier but was stopped by his flak suit. Joe (Navigator) suffered bends, acute headache and airsickness...We had left Al (Ballgunner) and Rocky (Engineer) at Florennes to look after #118. Consequently flew with substitute Ball-Gunner and Engineer. Our newly assigned Copilot is Captain Reeder. Abe was not happy with the new Ball-Gunner. "Had a new jerk in the Ball Turret and Ralph and I had to pull him out after he passed out TWICE! (anoxia).

A few hours after take off, I had to heed natures call. I hadn't noticed that our new B-17 was lacking an essential part of its equipment...the relief tube! Well as they say, "when you gotta go..."So I peeled through the many layers of flight clothing and aimed at the open cartridge ejection chute down under the guns. Well...I failed miserably, and as a result had a pool form in recesses of the fuselage under the guns...What a terrible baptism for our new plane. As I was pondering how to take care of this insult, it froze before my eyes. I took one of the spent cartridge cases from test firing, chipped the frozen pee, and swept it with my glove out the ejection hatch. End of problem! Navigator's time log: Time of flight 8:15...Time over enemy territory 4:15...Time on oxygen 6:00. Weather terrible...

2/15/45. Rheine, Germany. Briefed for Bridge over the Rhine at Wesel. Flak meager at last resort target Rheine. Good weather for a change. Short mission: 5 hr. 10 min. No fighters. Easy mission. #44-8762 "Seven Six Two".

2/16/45. Wesel, Germany. Bridge over Rhine. Flak heavy and accurate. Again had to bomb last resort target because of bad weather on target area. Weather over England very bad...Diverted to a landing in France. While coming down Channel coast, saw the take off of a V-2 rocket from Holland. Landed at Chantilly, France. Remained in France until 2/18/45 because of bad weather. #44-8762 "Seven Six Two".

2/22/45. Neustadt, Germany. From Joe's (Navigator) Log: Extremely long, arduous mission. Flight plan called for several climb and descend phases. Bombing altitude was to be 12,000 feet. Near target, layers of cloud extend from 20,000 down to less than 11,000 feet. Formation went down into weather. We became separated and climbed out of soup back to 20,000 to find scattered planes and remnants of formations all over the sky. Bombed with one of these formations. These were very anxious moments as many other planes were in the area and visibility was extremely poor. We occasionally flew through "propwash", but could see absolutely nothing except "white blank". While in soup position was uncertain, but it was known that we were in the vicinity of small flak areas. Visibility also very poor on return. Time of flight 9 hrs 10 min. Arose @ 0330, landed @ 1640" Abe's (Radio Operator) Log: "Really sweated it out today. Weather over Germany was terrible...Many near collisions" Jerry's Log: "Neustadt PFF. No flak. Low altitude. Very adverse weather. Lost formation. Target: marshaling yard". #44-8762 "Seven Six Two".