On 31/12/44, S/Sgt Roland L. Douglas, from the crew of Gerald Brown, was flying in place of Gordon Sinclair and was
made a POW.

Note: Gordon Sinclair was removed from Navigator's school one day short of graduation for some unknown infraction, proably the Training Command acted a bit over zealous in view of the need for trained Navigators. The 351st Sqdn. Commander (Harry Cruver, a man known to have had some disagreement with training command personnel during his cadet days) corrected this bit of over zealousness by immediately promoting Sinclair to M/Sgt and making him the Navigator for the Sidney Johnson crew, where he completed a tour. This from Charles M. Beck, of the Sidney Johnson crew..pw

A/C #43-38124
MACR #11363 - Fiche #4182

EYEWITNESS: "A/C #38124 was broken in two by collision with A/C #42-31066 which fell on it after A/C 42-31066 was hit by flak. Both A/C went down in flames. One chute was seen."

A/C 42-31066 was flown by the crew of 2nd Lt. Floyd E. Henderson

The following is Lt Lawrence Ward's recollection of what occurred (written probably in late 1945):
"While we were on the bomb run the tail gunner called out an enemy jet high at six o'clock. In answer I checked the crew for oxygen and gave orders to all the gunners to be especially alert for enemy fighters. All action began just as the squadron dropped their bombs. I only had time to say "Bombs Away" when two terrific explosions took place; one under the nose in the chin turret, the other some where around the center of the ship. The one under the nose was flak, and pieces of metal seemed to fill the air as they tore thru the Plexiglas and aluminum. It was at this moment that I received a hit over the left eye that stunned me. From then on, nothing is clear in my mind as to what happened.

We immediately went into a spin and I remember trying to climb to the escape hatch but I didn't have strength to overcome the other forces. The plane straightened into a dive and as I disentangled myself from all the debris I pulled the red cord on my flak suit, and started again for the hatch. In that one quick moment I glimpsed the navigator lying on the catwalk on his elbows looking in my direction. This covered a fraction of a second and then the nose seemed to disintegrate and I passed out.

When I came to I was in the open air and just automatically pulled the ripcord of my parachute. But nothing happened except the red handle came out - I threw it away and opened the chute by pulling the flaps open. I never remember the jolt of the chute opening - the next thing I knew was that I was dangling by one strap It was a habit of mine to hook one side of the harness to the chute on the bomb run and it never occurred to me to fasten the other side before opening it. By this time, the bleeding of my wound had stopped - evidently because the blood over my face had frozen. However, hanging by one strap prevented me from having any control over myself and I whirled around and around like a top, making me very sick at my stomach.

I made hasty plans as to evading, but when I landed it was within a fenced-in estate on the edge of Hamburg. I was immediately surrounded by soldiers and civilians They took me to the Luftwaffe base where three others from our squadron were being searched and held. One was my waist gunner and he is the one who told me the story of our plane. The other explosion I heard was another plane colliding with us, slicing our plane in half at the ball turret.

When I was a prisoner, the wound over my eye thawed out and began to bleed again I tried to get it  bandaged but to no avail, so I bandaged it with a handkerchief, and it was over a month before it finally healed."

MISSIONS FLOWN BY LT LAWRENCE W. WARD. (mpf…2003)