WW II 8th Air Force B-24 gunner & WIA "MISS FORTUNE'S LAST MISSION" a
$ 8.53
Description
WW II 8th Air Force B-24 gunner & WIA "MISS FORTUNE'S LAST MISSION" a. This B-24 gunner was assigned to the 8th Air Force, 98th Bomb Group, 343rd Squadron. The gunner is in the hospital recovering. Two months later he was still in the hospital when his aircraft 'Miss Fortune" is shot down during 'Big Week'. I COMBINE SHIPPING. $1.50 for each additional book ordered.PACKAGING & SHIPPING RULES: 1. Individual books Under $18.00 are shipped in padded poly envelopes. 2. Individual books Over $18.00 are shipped in a poly envelope inside a box. 3. Buy Three or more books and the order is shipped in a box. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS LISTING: This B-24 gunner was assigned to the 8th Air Force, 98th Bomb Group, 343rd Squadron. On Dec. 19,1943 he is wounded in action while shooting down a ME-110. The gunner is in the hospital recovering. Two months later he was still in the hospital when his aircraft 'Miss Fortune" is shot down during 'Big Week' . There was only one survivor. Sent home to recover, he is in the hospital and a women visits him to ask about her boyfriend who was on the Miss Fortune. This chance encounter ended up getting the gunner a wife. The gunner never talked about the war. Decades after his death the son looks into his fathers war and contacts the only survivor who tells him the story. From a Book Review: Bill Boyce always wanted to know why his father, William D. Boyce, refused to discuss his tour of duty on a B-24 Liberator bomber during World War II. The experience had affected every aspect of his father’s life, but an unspoken agreement kept the topic classified: Bill failed to ask, and his father failed to tell. Twenty-five years after his father’s death, Bill found the one man who might tell him what his father would not. Ray Noury had flown with Boyce in late 1943 and saved his life. Would Noury be willing to talk? Able to remember? From Noury, Bill learned that on February 22, 1944, a B-24 nicknamed Miss Fortune had crashed into the Czech countryside after being attacked by Luftwaffe fighters over Germany. Of eleven crewmembers, only Noury came home. Had Boyce not received a devastating wound only weeks earlier, he would have been with them on their fatal mission. That conversation led Bill to stacks of old photographs, records and letters, across the United States, and to the Czech Republic. It also led him to John Torrison, who had spent a decade tracking down facts about the crew and his uncle’s role as the tail gunner. Together, they pieced together the full story of Miss Fortune and her last mission. A mid-life journey guided by an eighty-nine-year-old veteran taught them about war, love, loss, sacrifice, survival, honor and family. And, through the shared stories of the extended family that formed around Miss Fortune’s crew―spouses, children, relatives and grateful Czechs―Bill Boyce finally came to understand his own father.
