Mission 42

May 18, 1943

    We were briefed for a raid on Messina on the eastern coast of Sicily between Italy and Sicily.    Just as we started to climb we hit an overcast and the whole formation broke up. We broke out at 20,000 and planes were all over the sky.    Thomas and I were leading our squadron and we thought that we tacked on to our leader but after flying around over Sicily over a solid overcast and started to let down on our saw home we discovered strange ships in the formation and came to the conclusion that it was the 2nd Bomb Group. We haven't figured out yet where or when we lost our group.    We didn't get a mission but it was worth two.

May 19, 1943

    Another load of Italian prisoners came through and as usual they were stormed for souvenirs.

    They all want to go to N. Y. and be farmers.