350TH SQDN. . CREW, AS ABOVE, JOINED THE 100TH ON 12 APR 1944. .

2ND LT HENRY ROSINE TAPS: 15 JUN 1976
2ND LT DAVID S. RIBNICK TAPS: 1987
2ND LT EDWARD F. KENNA TAPS: 19 APR 1979
SGT RAMON C. RODRIGUEZ TAPS: 1981
SGT BENOIT G. MAILLOUX TAPS: 1986
SGT CARL M. COLEMAN TAPS: 18 SEP 1980

Crew flew most of its missions on "Boss Lady" 42-102611 LN-E. This aircraft was named by the Rosine Crew. The Rosine Crew flew Boss Lady for the first time on May 23, 1944, Troyes, and then again on May 24, 1944 Target: BERLIN one FW 190 credited to BTG Sgt Rodriguez. This mission started a string of 14 missions for the Rosine Crew in Boss Lady. On May 28, 1944 over Magdeburg the Bombardier was credited with a FW 190. The plane suffered hits from 20mm shells and the aircraft had to be nursed home by Lt Rosine. More Battle Damage was incurred on June 18, 1944 over Brunsbuttelkoog. They would fly two more missions in this aircraft June 19, 1944 to Corme Ecluse and June 20, 1944 to Fallersleben. Lt Rosine Crew also flew these other aircraft, "Cahepit", 42-31074 LN-Q for two mission on April 27, 1944 to Flottmanville and LeCulot, "Fletcher's Castoria II" 42-31220 LN-P, "Got to Do It" 42-102934 LN-W, for a mission July 11, 1944 to Munich-Damaged by flak over Munich, Lt Rosine returned with one engine out and force landed into a field near Little Bently after running out of gas. Crew was ok, plane was salvaged. "Party Tonight" 42-97924 LN-H July 21, 1944, Target Regensburg/Ludwigsburg. "Powerhouse" 42-31534 LN-N May 8, 1944 to BERLIN and May 9, 1944 to Couvron Air Field in France.

MISSIONS OF LT HENRY ROSINE:

Rest of Crew completed their missions on July 28, 1944 Merseburg

Subj: Re: Lt Rosine
Date: 2/1/2002 4:33:53 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: jwb3@watchmail. com Jim Button

May God richly bless you - always!

I cannot put into words how grateful I am - you see, my uncle died in Miami and my aunt later developed cancer and moved home to her family in Georgia and passed on there. We never knew her family and they now have all of my uncle’s medals and records.

Would you be interested in a scanned copy of his crew photo or copy of the article describing one mission? Here is an excerpt from the article - perhaps all too common to you (I know many had worst missions), but my eyes tear when I think of my uncle as young man in this article (you see he was only 17 or 18 when he flew with the Century Bombers - he lied about his age joining at 16. . . )

Article from "The Palladium":

BATTERED FORT IS SAVED BY HENRY ROSINE

Three Motors Damaged, He Flies It Home From Berlin

AN EIGHTH AAF BOMBER STATION, England, May 15 (Special) – With three engines damaged and three men wounded, a 20-year-old pilot, 1^st Lt. Henry Rosine, of St. Joseph, Mich., brought his battered bomber all the way back from Berlin to a safe landing at his Eighth AAF bomber base in Britain.

The bombs had already fallen on the key transportation points in the heart of the Nazi capital, and the big B-17 was on the way back when angry bursts of flak filled the sky around the formation.

"That flak punched about 30 holes in our ship," said Pilot Rosine. "It smashed number four engine, so I had to feather the prop. Another piece knocked a hole in the number three engine while more of the same stuff hit the number two engine right alongside my cockpit, cutting an oil line. That engine smoked all the way home, and I had to treat it very gently."

Flak punctured the nose of the Fortress and injured the bombardier in his right arm and the navigator in both arms. The navigator’s wounds were painful, although not serious, and the bombardier gave him a shot of morphine.

Although his wounds pained him a lot, the navigator, a 24-year-old youth from Aberdeen, S. D., remained cheerful. "He didn’t complain once," said the co-pilot, F/O Richard P. Leaman, 21, of Lancaster, Pa., who helped give first aid to the two men in the smashed nose.

The radio operator was wounded by another burst which sent flying fragments slashing through the radio compartment. He was able to take care of himself. "Just fixed his own wounds," said co-pilot Leaman.

To add to the troubles, another burst of flak hit the hydraulic system near the pilot’s compartment and started a smoking, choking fire.

"And that’s where the engineer saved the day," related pilot Rosine, who added that the 30-year-old engineer and top turret gunner, T/Sgt. William F. Dear, of Enterprise, Minn., put out the fire, repairing shorted electrical circuits, and cleaned up the mess of hydraulic fluid sloshing around under the pilots’ feet.

"About that time, too, Dear had to transfer fuel from the auxiliary tanks to the main ones," said the pilot. "He had to knock off several times and climb back into the turret to look for enemy fighters. We would have been an easy mark for them in our crippled condition and with three men wounded, Dear was right on the ball every minute. He did a swell job."

Already out of formation, pilot Rosine dropped his battered bomber down to about 7,000 feet and cloud-hopped back across Germany to escape Nazi fighters.

"We had no brakes," the pilot added, "and we used up a little more than three-fourths of the runway coming in, but we made it. I still don’t know how those damaged engines stood up. But the did, and that’s what counts."

Two of the wounded men were rushed off to the base hospital and medical officers said their wounds were not serious. The third man returned to his barracks after first aid dressings were applied to his wounds.

The other uninjured members of the crew included: S/Sgt. Ramon C. Rodriguez, 19, of 930 South 8^th Ave., Tucson, Ariz., ball turret gunner; S/Sgt. Benoit G. Mailloux, 21, of Dracut, Mass., right waist gunner; S/Sgt. Carl M. Coleman, 28, of Sausalito, Calif., the tail gunner, and S/Sgt Corbin Bland, 25, of Ada, Okla., the left waist whose oxygen system was shot out by the flak and who hovered on the brink of unconsciousness for a while, keeping himself from blacking-out almost by sheer will power, until he could get a new supply of oxygen.

Lt. Rosine gained his first flying experience at home, walking daily from his home in Scottdale, Mich., to the Benton Harbor, Mich., airport – a distance of about 10 miles – to take instruction.