Another interesting but sad piece from a WWII B-17 pilot:
Sept. 30th “….We all felt mighty low tonight because something entirely unnecessary happened, and as a consequence two crews and a navigator on another are no longer with us.. Now I’m sure the grace of God is with me because Treece went down without a chance and had I flown in his place [the diarist was supposed to be on this flight]…. Here’s the story…Over the target Love (leading the high element) didn’t fan out far enough so that LaFlance (flying his left wing) was clear of Treece who was leading the low (#4)…As a result, LaFlance dropped all 10 of their 500# bombs right down poor Treece’s back. They never had a chance because they blew up right away. The explosion was so great that LaFlance went down in pieces.. a piece of Treece’s ship tore thru the nose of Love’s ship, hitting poor Hughes right in the groin (he died before they landed)..Shelinski’s ship was a wreck (he brought it home tho) and all in all, practically every ship in the whole squadron suffered battle damage (old 310 had a hit in the induction of #4 & the main wing spar)…Gosh, but things are getting rough over here. All our buddies are getting it! Treece had only one more mission to go too! Whatta break…”
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