Crew, as above, joined the 100th Group, 418th Sqdn. on Feb. 26, 1944.

Letter from William Behr 13/3/84 to Jim Brown -- " . . .Ferbrache finished his tour early and went home on furlough & then returned to the group as a Major.  He, I believe, was assigned to the 349th.  I was wounded over Liege, Belgium late in May & by the time I rejoined the crew,  was five missions behind.  When the crew finished 35 in Sept. I was removed from flight status as some more surgery was due on my arm and I also had ulcers.. The enlisted members of the crew came back to N.Y. together on the Queen Mary late in Sept.1944."..Bill adds that the Officers of his crew were forced to suffer a Liberty ship for their return to the States.

Letter from William T. "Bill" Behr to Paul West --Dec 20th, 1993;  Bill Behr is one of the 100th's best known veterans --- has rendered valuable service to more than one 100th Bomb Group Association President , often in difficult roles. He presently (1993) resides in Hackettstown, New Jersey. (See Behr file for complete text of letter)

There is another item I have had in my mind and it has to do with me on D-Day, June 6, 1944. On our 21st mission I was wounded over Liege, Belgium. The next day our crew was to go on Flak Leave (R&R) and instead I was in the hospital while my buddies went to their Red Cross rest home. After I was released from the hospital I was sent on my leave to a rest home in Bournemouth. It was a very nice estate and things were fine until the morning of June 6th. It was quite evident that the invasion was on and the folks running the home were finally able to find out that all leaves had been canceled. For some reason or other we had not been notified, maybe they were afraid we would tell the wrong parties. It took some doing but they eventually got us to the railroad. As you can imagine the amount of traffic in those towns along the channel was much more than the streets were designed for. All was fine now, I thought, as I was on my way back to London for a change of trains. In London I was picked up by the MPs because no service personnel were supposed to be anywhere except on their base. Even the MP Officer of the day had trouble getting thru to Thorpe Abbotts as telephone usage that day was restricted due to the invasion. Eventually he was able to confirm our problem and we were escorted to the train and headed home. For the life of me I can not recall who the others were that were involved, all I can remember is something like six sorry sacks sitting there and talking about what we were missing.

Another story involves an incident that occurred on the hardstand just prior to our getting into the plane. On the morning of a mission we were taken to our hardstand and have a normal procedure to prepare for take-off. Our guns were stored in a tent at our parking spot and the first order of business was to clean them of excess oil and install them in our position and check the ammunition that had been put aboard by the armorers. This could all be done in a few minutes which meant we had some time before our pilot would tell us to load up. We normally spent this time in the tent just to get inside. On the morning I am referring to we were in there when we heard a plane approaching. It had gotten to the point that we could guess that it was a twin engine noise and someone remarked that it sounded like a B-25. This tent had some windows, Mica I believe, and that moment we heard two bombs go off and I saw two flashes in the runway area. I jumped for the door and hit the light switch as I landed in the puddle at the door and was crawling out. I hadn't gone far when our tail gunner stepped right on my back and flattened me in the mud. Even to this day he has spoken about this and not in an apologetic way either.

From what I have been able to gather you are looking for-anything at all relating to the l00th for your history. I am not sure if you have seen the layouts of the base at Thorpe Abbotts and I have reproduced a copy for you as it might be the sort of item that should be included. Of course I have assumed you have a scanner that can insert this onto your hard disc That is included with this letter and also a copy of the booklet that is available about the restoration of the tower. This sort of item could be a good one for the final chapter, if there is ever going to be a final one as the Brits have what amounts to a perpetual lease on the property. The story of the taxi accident to our plane is in this booklet

As I said I do not want to wait until this would be considered a volume. For the time being I am going to call it quits and send this first issue off, maybe after a week or so I will get the urge to try and put some more items on paper. Drop me a short line if you will and possibly list some specifics that you are looking for.

From our house to yours the Best Wishes for a Very Merry Christmas and a Healthy Happy New Year!"

MISSION LOG  COURTESY OF WILLIAM T. BEHR AND MAY NOT BE CORRECT FOR ELMER E. FERBRACHE: