Mission 55

My father enlisted with the United States Army Air Forces in 1942, at the age of 21. He was assigned as an Aerial Gunner to the 5th Air Force, 43rd Bombardment Group, known as Kens Men, in the 403rd Bomb Squadron nicknamed the Mareeba Butchers. He participated as a Tail Gunner in a B-24, in more than 50 missions in the skies over the Southwest Pacific during WWII. The morning of March 7th, 1945, during a bombing run at Balete Pass, on the Phlippine island of Luzon, his plane encountered heavy clouds and crashed near the top of a mountain, his plane splitting in two. Of a crew of eleven, only five men survived..the pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier and the tail gunner. This book contains my fathers memories of his survival. He wrote it down forty four years later. Ive read his story many times after he passed away, and I decided to transcribe his words into this book. One can only wonder about the thousands of individual war stories that remain untold.