Aircraft flown by Capt. Naar 43-28313" Lil Butch" and Yehudi 42-107230 XR-B which was scrapped after the "prop wash" incident that sent the plane into a tail spin. After Sgt Herlihy finished his missions, S/Sgt. James D. Barger (sn# 33920989) from Lt Sanford Crew filled in for 3 missions (March 23, 24, 28, 1945). Capt Denzil "Denny" Naar became the 349th Ops Officer in August 1945. On September 26, 1945 he became 349th BS C. O. when Maj. Robinson flew back to the States.

Some Missions of Capt. Naar Crew:

"I flew my first mission as a copilot. It was common practice to "bloody" a new pilot by flying a combat mission with an experienced crew. Well, I saw this big black cloud off in the distance and I asked the pilot, what is that, and he said flak! I said, aren't they a bit off target with their guns. Just then we hit the IP and all of a sudden we are turning right towards that big black cloud! I said how are we going to get around the flak and he said we are not going around it, we are going to fly right through it! Well, when we got back from the mission, the rest of the crew surrounded me and asked how it was, I told them it was a piece of cake, a milk run, why worry them, they would learn soon enough it was hell up there. "

"Our Crew was on 13-14th mission (Dec 2, 1944 mission to Koblenz…Ray Bowden) and we took off in pitch black darkness, fully loaded with gas and bombs. Just above after breaking through on top, we hit prop wash from the planes ahead and went into a tail spin. We went down doing over 350 mph and redlining the engines. We did 5 tail spins and dropped 8, 000 feet before I (and copilot Wilson) could get her back under control at about 3, 000 feet. I climbed back up to rejoin the group. After going through all of that, I didn't want to lose credit for a mission. We were all trying to get our 35 finished and go home. Our ailerons were shot but I was able to control the plane with the rudder so we went on the mission. Utilizing the rudder to control the plane, I was extremely tired when we got back to England. As we were coming in for the landing, the plane stalled about 30 feet off the deck and we hit the the runway hard. I had no idea what caused this until we inspected the plane. What I did not know was that the tail spins had damaged the outer skin and twisted the fuselage so much that the air flow was affected. The damage included broken struts, the right aileron broken, tail assembly was loosened from the stress and part of the wing supports buckled. At interrogation Col. Sutterlin told me "I don't know whether to court martial you or give you the DFC. " Well, lucky for me it was less paperwork for the DFC, which I received for the mission! The event was written up in "Stars and Stripes" and that’s how I got my nickname. After the article appeared in "Stars and Stirpes", I was in London on pass and I ran into one of my friends on the street who had read the story and he yells over to me, hey "Tail Spin" and from that point on, the nickname stuck!"

"The hardest target was Merseburg!!!!!!! When they pulled back the curtain and the string went all the way to that target, I am getting chills just thinking about it now, the black puffs, the sky filled with flak bursts, planes exploding everywhere and going down, parachutes, debris, and death and you had to keep on course. There was no where to hide, no room to move. "…. Capt. Denzil Naar