42-32087 Heavenly Body

In the morning hours of the 6th August 1944 air station 142 " Deopham Green" was bristling with life.
The crews of the 452nd BG were attending a briefing. They found out that the mission for today was
Berlin. Among the planes that participated in this mission was 42-32087 from the 728th BS. Let us see
what the flight engineer/top turret gunner remembers from this mission:

" Got up at 04:00, still dark, get a shower and a shave. Then walk 1 mile to the dining room for
breakfast. Usually ham and eggs hot rolls, and lots of coffee. Walk back to the room to collect some
clothing and then to mission breifing where we learn of the target to bomb and then get briefed about
weather types and bombs. Navigator gets his route we have to fly, then go to get our flight suits and
life vests and leave all photos and personal effects in our locker. Get on a truck and are taken to our
aircraft.
We all start checking over the aircraft and set up our positions, loading the machine guns, check over
the intercom and oxygen system. We then wait for the green flare which tells us we are to go, if a red
flare we stay.
Start engines and taxi out to the runway, usually a long line depending on your position in flight. Take
off and climb to assembly altitude and form up in formation and head out for Germany.
Out over the water we test fire our machine guns. Then settle down for a long trip and always on the
look out for enemy fighters. Finally we reach our target area and then we start getting nervous as we
get into our bomb run. We were unlucky or lucky depending on your situation. We lost an engine and
fell out of formation and then we lost another and checking our fuel situation we knew we would not
make it back to England, so we heard the navigator give a heading for Sweden. We were approached
by Swedish fighters and I fired off a double flare and lowered our landing gear to show that we were
in trouble.
The fighters then left and we started looking for a place to land and spotted a good area and landed
and then found out we were in Sweden.
We were taken to Morbylanga and by boat to Kalmar. From there we went to Jonkoping and to
internment camp at Mullsjo".

The local newspaper had this story of the landing:

" Oland got on Sunday for the first time a visit from one of the wars giant birds. A " Flying Fortress"
did forceland at around 13:00 because of fuel shotage near Resmo. Homeguard and personel did
arrive very quickly and took care of the 9 man crew.
The plane came from south over Kalmar Strait and was looking for a place to land. It had only two
engines working and did not have much speed or altitude.
The pilot of the crew said that the plane had started from England for a bomb raid on Germany where
the bombs had been dropped.
All of the crew were taken to Morbylanga where they were given something to eat. The plane was very
interesting to observe closer. It had on the left side of the nose four blackpainted swaztikas, which
means that four German planes had been shot down. Below this was there 39 white painted
bombsigns. This indicates that the plane had been 39 times over enemy territory".

Pilot	2ndLt	Louis W Graber
Co-Pilot	F/O	Morris Freed
Navigator	2nd Lt	Francis A Moloney
Bombadier	2nd Lt	Nicholas R Milcic
Radioman	S/Sgt	George W Lucas Jr
Engineer	S/Sgt	Hubert B Meggs (also top turret gunner)
Ball Turret Gunner	S/Sgt	Raymond G Wojewnik
Right Waist Gunner	S/Sgt	George J Gouvas
Tail Gunner	Sgt	Jesse A Olds Jr
		The crew was interned at Mullsjo from the 8th august to 1st December 1944.