Restless Wings

I hope you all had pleasant holidays! Facing the new year, I wanted to bring you all up to speed as to all the 'breaking news' with respect to the Bottoms Up.

I received some incredible e-mails the other day from Frannie Davis. As you may recall, her Uncle Frank was on the final flight of the Bottoms Up. She has uncovered a treasure trove of handwritten letters from her Uncle Frank that painstakingly detailed his experiences in training, his stateside observations of the war, and other interesting details. More importantly, the letters document the formation of the crew on it's flight over as well as the month in which the crew departed for Manduria! We now have conclusive evidence from two independent sources that the crew left on January 31, 1945.

The crew appears to have formed up at the 110th AAFBU, Mitchell Field, New York in January, 1945. The crew that we know of and can confirm as being together is Davis, Dumont, Reinke, Quinn. I am working on confirming the other members.

On January 25th, the crew departed for Dow Field, located in Bangor, Maine its port of aerial embarkation. While in Maine, the crew spent time with the Dumont family. In a July 2, 1945 letter written to Mrs. Davis from Mr. and Mrs. Dumont, she recalls the following: "They arrived in Bangor Maine on January 26th, 1945 and departed on the 31st for Bermuda." Recalling the final time she saw them, she writes "“When the boys went over, they flew over our house and circle around a couple of times over the house and let out their motors as loud as they could to get our attention and they surely did. We saw them and in fact the whole town did for it was 15 minutes of awe. The people were on their way to work and the children were going to school. They were all late watching the plane. It was beautiful. They were in Bangor Main for five days. “

The crew, upon its departure from Bangor flew to Bermuda prior to arriving at Manduria. February 12, 1945, the crew arrived at the 450th Bomb Group, located in Manduria Italy.

One of the most incredible things Frannie has told me is that she has a letter than was censored before it was mailed home to his folks. Guess who censored the mail? The Capt. Robert Harris and the Bombardier Fred Reinke of the final Bottoms Up crew, his crewmates! Other research team members along with Andy Benedict have confirmed they this was a routine practice in the AAF.

On another note....

The Gray family has been pouring through Harris Wood's diary in an attempt to uncover details about the Bottoms Up and its history. To date, they have uncovered detailed information about the engine rebuilds as well as certain maintenance issues that the old gal had. Melinda's father did an incredible job at keeping a detailed diary. I thank them for their continued hard work at reviewing his entries.

Overseas,

I heard from Paul...he is still working on obtaining the coordinates of the B-24 that we know lies in the gulf of Trieste. I think the cold weather may have put a damper on the project a bit but rest assured, Paul and his wife still have the Bottoms Up on the radar screen. Thanks!

I am trying to read, analyze and organize all this incoming data. In addition, I have obtained satellite photos of our projected search area where the plane was lost and I am also securing detailed underwater maps of the region. Jim Ciborski is still working the research angle concerning the Rescue Squadrons and is making some great progress.

If we're rolling this strong in January, perhaps we will uncover the plane itself on March 16, 2006. Wouldn't that be amazing.

Blue skies,

C.C. Corwin