B-24 Crash in Italy April 3, 1944

Entry by Navigator LT Tunis Vanden Berg, in a log recording his 8th mission flying on the B-24 "Raunchy But Right". Home base, Stornara, Italy. Outline is used for all his 35 missions.

• Target: Budapest, Hungary
• Bombs: 10 500-lb demolition
• Enemy opposition: no fighters but heavy, intense, accurate flak
• Damage to enemy: no planes shot down
• Damage to plane: almost completely destroyed
• Remarks: The roughest mission ever. Our controls were shot out and we crashed near our home base. Everyone got out with a few minor injuries, how I don't know. We really laced up the target, but good. The Lord was with us.

According to Capt. Roy Lassiter, pilot, they lost power to three of their four engines. "I felt helpless," he told a reporter years later. "I had six to eight seconds to put the plane down. We hit a stone fence. the plane broke in two under my seat, and I fell out on the road." The co-pilot was thrown clear into another field and several Italian boys helped out out the fire.

Crew no. 12,  745th sqd 456th bomb grp B24 raunchy but right - Kneeling: SGT Holliday nose turret gunner; LT Lassiter, pilot; LT Richards, ex co-pilot; SGT Natoli Upper turret gunner; SGT Hill Engineer; Standing: SGT Keefer belly turret gunner; LT Eckert bombardier; LT Vandenberg, navigator; SGT King, tail turret gunner; SGT McNeil, radio operator. The men never again flew as a crew but they remained lifelong friends