Tulsa 15 September 1942, arrived in Bangor, Northern Ireland 11 October 1942; Assigned to the 323 Bomb Squadron/ 91st Bomb Group [coded OR-T] at Bassingbourn on 15 October 1942. On 1 May 1943, Delta Rebel No. 2 became the first B-17 Flying Fortress of the 8th Air Force to complete 25 missions.
Missing in Action over Gelsenkirchen on 12 August 1943 with Bob Thompson (Thomson per POW records), Co-pilot: Serge Klinkow (Klimkow per POW records), Navigator: George Lausted, Bombardier: Mike Couzzi, Flight engineer/top turret gunner: Carroll Goodwin, Radio Operator: Bob Brooks (6 Prisoner of War); Ball turret gunner: Wayne Kienberger, Waist gunner: Bob Ziernicki, Tail gunner: Chas Blonstein, Waist gunner: Micky Lengyel (4 Killed in Action); enemy aircraft set ship ablaze, crashed Brunninghausen, Ger. Missing Air Crew Report 261. DELTA REBEL No. 2.
Baugher: damaged by Hptm Naumann of JG 26/6, then shot down by Obfw Adolf Glunz in Fw 190A-5 of JG 26/4 at Brunninghausen, Germany
The Delta Crew had a discouraging setback in September 1942 when our new warplane, “The Delta Rebel”, was severely damaged in a taxi accident at Mitchell Field in New York. We were flying a long range cruise control mission from Dow Field over the water to Tampa and back. On the return leg we were diverted to Mitchell because of weather. Transient maintenance, in the process of taxiing the Rebel for dispersal, collided with two other planes, inflicting major damage to all three. We had been assured the spot we had been parked on after we landed okay. Then, after we had secured the plane and departed, the NCO-In-Charge decided to move our plane to another dispersal point. Being unqualified to taxi a B-17F, he failed to turn on the main hydraulic switch with actuated the brake pressure and therefore had no brakes when he tried to taxi the aircraft, thus the bang-up.
We were really “down in the dumps” on our ride in a transport plane back to Bangor. We had taken such pride in our very first Fortess. Soon after we turned, we were assigned a replacement B-17F, tail number 25077, which we promptly named “The Delta Rebel No. 2”, with the portrait of an old Confederate Colonel painted on both sides of the nose. We made two test hops, one up to 29,000 feet, to check out the guns and the different aircraft systems and felt we were ready. We departed for the United Kingdom by way of Gander Lake, Newfoundland, and Prestwick, Scotland and arrive in mid October at our new base at Bassinbourn.
