Joe Frechette's account of the loss of "Miss Cue"

I would like to set "the record straight" and give an eyewitness account of the mission from the bomb run until the abandonment of the aircraft "Miss Cue."

We were flying in the rear of the high box and were making our first bomb run when we were hit by heavy flak, which knocked out our number 3 and 4 engines. We fortunately were able to feather them. (The plane off our right wing, which turned out to be "Hamtrammak Mama," flown by Lt. John White, was also hit and appeared to burst into flames and dove out of formation.) We continued on our bomb run losing a little air speed and altitude but were able to stay near enough in formation to make the second bomb run and dropped our bombs when the rest of the group dropped theirs.

We immediately turned toward the west to return to allied lines. We jettisoned all the weight we could, including the ball turret, and continued on slowly losing altitude and some airspeed as our #2 engine was losing oil.

Our #2 engine finally "froze up" and we bailed out in the clouds between 1200 and 1500 feet, indicated. (Our plane crashed within view of my lauding area.) The crash location was 10km south of Koblenz, Germany, I km SE of Kasdorf, Germany.

Our engineer, Granville F. Billingsley was the first airman out of the aircraft and escaped capture for 8 days. Sgt. Ward C. Price was killed when his parachute failed to open. All other crew members, (7), were quickly captured by German civilians and soldiers and were P.O.Ws for the remainder of the war, along with Billingsley.

Joe Frechette