First Mission

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“I was happy as I could be or dumb and happy shall we say until I saw the first flight coming up. Our mission was to hit the V-1 bombs. They looked like ski jumps, so we called them ski jumps. They were on the coast of France... So our first mission was to hit these ski jumps and put them out of commission. Flying alone, I saw the flak coming up and you could see the shells bursting, black shells, and I was so scared that I almost got sick. I really was that scared, frightened, but I had to fly the airplane. I mean, you know, if I didn’t fly the airplane and do what I was supposed to do, I’d have been kicked out and disgraced the rest of my life so to speak. So I did. I got over it and I flew it, we did the mission, came up, but I was scared. I really was scared. I can’t describe it anymore thoroughly.”