William Fitch

William Fitch was the top turret gunner on Lane Miller's crew.  He wrote the following about the July 24, 1944 mission:

Target - Genoa Italy

The crew was pleased to hear we were going to bomb Submarine pens at Genoa. It would be easy after Ploesti and Munich. There was not much flak but had us zeroed in. Copilot Alan Barnette wounded in the head, unconscious. Pilot Lane Miller was wounded in the leg.  He was losing blood pretty fast. A tourniquet was applied. Our pilot fainted from the loss of too much blood. All the hydraulic lines and some of the electrical wiring were shot up. We left formation to go home alone. Our navigator Andri Lesorte and radio operator Roy Yates gave setting for home-flight, and engineer Joe Ripley flew plane home on automatic pilot, mostly. The crew decided to all stay with the plane instead of bailing out. The pilot came to before we reached base. He gave the engineer instructions on what to do if he fainted again, to try and land plane. With engineer doing most of physical procedures, the pilot made a perfect landing "no flaps". Pilot and copilot were going to be okay.