Including the time change between New Hampshire and North Ireland, we had been awake about 30 hours, which included the physical work of cleaning off the plane. We were exhausted. A truck took us from the control tower to the mess hall and billets. I cannot remember a more un-comfortable night due to fatigue, cold, and a terrible bed.

Late the following afternoon we were driven by truck to Belfast. As usual the enlisted men went one way; the officers another. This separation of officers and enlist was not only traditional, but was required by regulations.

The ferry docked in Central England. Our crew boarded a train to Stoke-on-Trent, a small city in the English midlands famous for it’s pottery works. The camp in Stole was used primarily as a collection pint for American Air Force personnel arriving from the states. We were given an orientation on England and the British and had our first introduction to wartime English food. We quickly found that there were many foods that the English no longer had due to rationing. Another less was that there were no shortage of Brussels sprouts. Fresh eggs and milk were now just a distant memory.

After a short stay in Stoke we boarded a train for Bovingdon, a suburb of London about 20 miles northwest of the city. Bovingdon was a very attractive American base, and distribution point for Air Corps personnel. We received a limited amount of routine training and classes along with considerable gossip and tall tales about the 8^th Air Force. This was the first week in March, 1944 and 100^th Bomb Group seemed to be the outfit to avoid. (as if any crew had a choice) There were many stories about the terrible losses suffered by the 100^th over the past few weeks. Apparently the 100^th was now known as the "Bloody Hundredth."

This period in early March was the beginning of the end of the air bombing of London by conventional German planes. Some nights many of us stood outside our BOQ and watched the "fireworks" caused by the bombing of London. The search lights scanned the skies, and we could hear the distant rumble of exploding bombs and anti-aircraft fire. We were far enough away from the center of London to be relatively safe yet near enough to observe.

After a few days in Bovingdon, word came orders were ready. The 100^th Bomb Group!! I now wish that some had been there with a camera to catch our reaction and expressions. They surely portrayed our feeling; "Oh my God." I have no remembrance of what I may have said to the enlisted members of the crew when I advised them that we were assigned to the 100^th.

Our arrival at the Diss station was the first of many arrival for us. A truck was waiting to take us to the base at Thorpe Abbotts, the home of the 100^th. We were assigned to the 418^th Squadron. We were quartered in a concrete "Nissan Hut," the British version of the American Quonsets Hut. There were both Nissan and Quonset huts on each of the Squadron sites. Assignment had no significance.

When we walked into our assigned Nissan, we were amazed that only a few bunks seemed occupied. On the ceiling was a listing of mission flown by a preceding crew. The listing ended the prior week. The empty beds were those of a crew recently shot down, probably on the tragic Berlin mission of March 6 on which the 100^th lost fifteen crews and 150 men. There other crews had been lost of March 3 and 4. We quickly agreed to stop the ceiling marking as they would not be good for morale.

It should be pointed out that although the 100^th’s losses were great, they were by no means the highest in the 8^th Air Force. The 100^th’s losses were usually spectacular, many planes in a specific mission. This created the "Legend of the 100^th." Other groups seemed to have consistent losses that added up but were not looked upon as disasters.

The following morning our officers were picked up and taken to the 418^th Squadron Headquarters where we met our new commanding officer, Major Everett Blakely. Major Blakely was the first pilot assigned to the new 418^th in Wendover Field, Utah, and had been given the jog of training crews. Time Magazine (April 1944) ran a major article about Major Blakely who had become one of the most decorated pilots in the 8^th Air Force. He had been through the roughest of air combat and was highly respected and admired.

Major Blakely gave us a warm welcome and then turned us over to the 418^th training officer. We were each assigned flying gear and a bicycle. We received a through briefing of what lay ahead for us, and what was expected of us. B-17 .No. 986 was assigned to our crew. The bicycles provided the necessary mobility to reach the various airfield facilities scattered around the base. Fortunately, our field facilities, the administrative facilities, officer’s and enlisted messes and our 986 were all on the south side of the runway – a major convenience. At the time of our arrival Colonel Chick Harding was the commanding officer of the 100^th. Unfortunately he was in poor health and went to the hospital soon after we arrived. Apparently he should have been hospitalized long before but he was afraid they would take him off flying status.

Lt. Colonel John M. Bennett was then designated as the acting CO. only two days after the tragic mission of March 6, Col. Bennett had led the 100^th to Berlin on March 8^th. For the group commanding officer to lead this mission was great moral booster for the group and a good indication of Col. Bennett’s leadership qualities. He was a Texan and perfectionist and was becoming a legend with the 100^th. Little did we know that he would later fly with us as Command Pilot on our July 19^th mission to Schweinfurt.

Airfields in England were much different from American bases primarily due to the requirement for dispersal. Farms and wooded land had been taken by the British government for airfields that were built with a great sense of urgency. There were approximately 75 airfields in East Anglia, traffic patterns in many cases actually overlapped. Harry Crosby’s fine book, A Wing and a Pray has an excellent location map of the many bases in East Anglia. One Last Look, by Kaplan and Smith, illustrates a typical 8^th Air Force Field. Our Thorpe Abbotts layout is shown in the back of Century Bombers.

The next few day involved ground school, flying procedures, armaments, communications, formation flying, weather, etc. When we weren’t in ground school we were flying. Everything was well organized and we were a "gun ho" crew. Knowing that we would be in combat in just a few days provided the incentive to listen and learn.

Heading the S-2 (intelligence) was Major Marvin (Red) Bowman, whom we would come to respect highly for fine briefings and warm personality. It developed that we had a close connection with S-2 though the Assistant S-2, Captain Charley Terry, Charley was related to Manly’s wife, Inez, and was also a good friend of my brother, Sidney. They had gone through intelligence school together. Because of these relationships, Charley kept close track of our crew over the ensuing months and I know he "sweated us out" more than once.

During the next few days in March we continued to fly practice missions, including formation flying and simulated bomb runs in preparation for our first combat mission. These were supplemented by additional ground school and general orientation. One thing we observed while flying over England was that the countryside made navigating quite difficult. There are few straight roads, nothing is rectangular, most villages look alike, etc. Fortunately our navigation, Lloyd Coartney, soon overcame this difficulty and was early always able to answer my question: "Where are we?"

B-17’s and B-24’s of the 8^th Air Force were named and decorated with "nose art." When we were assigned No. 986, I asked the crew to suggest a name for our adopted plane. None came forth so, in desperation, I suggest the name "Sack Artist." ( a soldier who loves to sleep was known as a "sack artist," and most of our crew seemed to fall into that category.) Petty and Varga were the popular pin-up artists of the 30’s and 40’s, and became the rage. We proposed a beautiful girl lying on a couch with the name "Sack Artist" as the title. A talented sergeant who painted the nose art for many of our planes agreed to paint 986 to our specifications.

Unfortunately, as it turned out our crew flew several different planes during our tour and 986 was never painted. Despite this, we called our crew "Sack Artist." With many of the original crews finishing their tours early in 1944, and with a continual supply of replacement planes, those with names became fewer and fewer.

On March 13, the big event at the 100^th was the arrival of Generals Spaatz, Doolittle, Lemay, and Kissner. The brass had arrived to cheer up the "Bloody Hundredth." That night in the officer’s club there was a very impressive medals presentation and appropriate speeches. Lloyd, Manly, John and I attended. The top award were the presentation of the Distinguished Service Cross to Captain Sumner Reeder and the Silver Star to Colonel Bennett. Quoting from Century Bomber page 95: "after the presentation the generals "held court" in the officers’ club, answering any and all questions, chatting with all comers, and proving themselves good Joes in every way." For us the evening was extremely interesting and a real education. Never had we seen so much brass nor would we ever see as much again.

The 100^th few combat missions on March 15,17, and 18: we were anxious for reports and rode our bikes each day to the airfield to see the planes return. Three planes were lost on the mission of the 18^th. We knew our first combat mission was just around the corner.

On the morning of Sunday, March, 19 we were informed that we were scheduled for that day’s mission in the afternoon. We decided to go to the morning service at the chapel. None of our officers were dedicated churchgoers, so our attendance that morning was evidence of our concerns for what was ahead. The service helped us relax a bit. After an early lunch we proceeded to the operations building for our briefing.

Our target was to be a so-called No-Ball site on the French coast. We subsequently learned that No-Ball sites were the launching sites for the German V-1 buzz bombs. It was top secret that intelligence had detected the construction of these sites. Little did we know that later in the summer we would be in London to see the first of these pilotless bombs hit

The day we had focused on for many months had arrived.