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EP347: Making Peace with My Sister’s Killer and John O’Neil On The First B-17 To Bomb Berlin

Our American Stories / Lee Habeeb
The Cross Radio
June 13, 2022 3:00 am

EP347: Making Peace with My Sister’s Killer and John O’Neil On The First B-17 To Bomb Berlin

Our American Stories / Lee Habeeb

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June 13, 2022 3:00 am

On this episode of Our American Stories, Jeanne Bishop tells us the story of the brutal murders of her beloved family members and how a change of heart changed her life and so many others. John O'Neil, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, tells the story of his father, the tail and waist gunner on the B-17.

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Time Codes:

00:00 - Making Peace with My Sister’s Killer

37:00 - John O’Neil On The First B-17 To Bomb Berlin

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Lee Habeeb

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Let's ride this is Lisa Beebe and this is our American stories we tell stories about everything from the show we watched the sports and from business to history and everything in between including your story. Send them to our American stories.com there are some of our favorites We bring you a story from Jean Bishop's the story of a loving family shattered by gruesome violence years Jean Bishop. I got the city with mom and dad and two sisters in the middle child of three and older sister Jennifer and her younger sister, Nancy spiders younger than me and we had this kind of idyllic tile types nice neighbor had great friends, great school and so when we all grew up and ended up moving back to Chicago where I was born when my sisters and I were born, we all can stay together as a close family.

DT got married to the love of her life. Richard, at the age of 23 and they started right away trying to have kids they wanted to be a big happy family.

Even though Nancy was the youngest of three sisters. She was the first of us to get pregnant. She was the first to his mom in which he announced a new set this to me and my elder sister, my mom and dad. We were all just with joy and happiness. We went out to dinner to celebrate the great news we went to this Italian restaurant on Park St. in Chicago and I brought a little baby guests little baby sweater to try to spend on and we passed and we were laughing and my parents were so thrilled.

This was the first grandchild split up in my first little decent nephew was a Saturday night. The night before Palm Sunday. We all had to find the parking lot that night by mom and dad went back to the big house in the suburbs. I went back to my apartment in Chicago and Nancy and Richard went back to the townhouse they were living in Winnetka, Illinois, and when that is the place I live now it's one of the safest, most affluent communities in the country when they walked through the door there townhouse killer was waiting for them. He had used a glass cutter to break-in the glass sliding door in the dark because he did that breaking the glass would have alerted the neighbors and they would've called the police. He had a 357 Magnum revolver. He pointed at them.

He handcuffed my brother-in-law Richard and Richard with his gentle giant. He was the 6 foot three, 230 pound enough former athlete.

He was completely disabled when he was handcuffed.

He forced them down into the basement. They beg for their lives.

Nancy and Richard both told him that she was pregnant asked him not to hurt her. First, he put the gun to Richard had he killed him execution style with one gunshot and II can't describe how awful that must've been some real stupid to see this man she loved and wanted to have a family with girls with just just assassinated in that moment. So then the gun was turned on her. She covered up her own head with her hands just because of what she just seen and kind of huddled in a corner. The killer fired twice instead into her pregnant site and abdomen and then he left her there to die.

And when we got the coroner's report later he saw that she lived for about 10 minutes after that in the blood marks in the basement in the marks on her body showed what she did. She she tried to call for help by banging on this metal shelf with a tool that was in the basement. She was too weak to stand and so she is trying to make a noise that someone would hear me just imagine that at some point she must've known that no help was coming and that she was dying and that the darkness was kind of closing in around her and her baby was dying inside her, so she dragged herself by her elbows over to where Richard's body was before she died. She did this incredible thing that the police told us about later.

She had drawn in her own blood on the floor next to Richard the shape of a heart at the U love you is how she is to sign her cards and letters to what I learned that I was with my mom and my mom burst into tears and she said it's true isn't that love is stronger than death and when I heard it I thought this incredible presence of God could explain the kind of serenity and love luminous grace that could explain her being able to do those in her last moments.

This young woman who knew she was dying to have this be her last word on her life and that changed everything for me. I was working at big law firm at the time doing corporate law and doing a terrible job of it because I wasn't putting my heart into it didn't love it. It wasn't deeply meaningful to me and that I was cheating my employer as a result I wasn't giving it my best and I realized when Nancy died at age 25, four years younger than me that life is short and it can be taken from us at any moment and we have to spend our lives doing things that are deeply meaningful that do require our whole heart and that do some good for the world and so I left the corporate firm to be a public defender within months and it's a job that I've been doing ever since the job that I still do so after Nancy was killed for six months. The crying went unsolved. No one could explain who would kill this happy young couple with no enemies with everything in the world to live for and I was just stunned at the theories that were being floated that maybe it was the drug runners that you know were trying to disguise drugs in the coffee warehouse where Richard worked and maybe he saw something he shouldn't seen killed. Maybe some jealous ex-boyfriend of Nancy's, all these crazy things that didn't make any sense and that led to nowhere to Jean Bishop on water storage is going when we come back more Jean Bishop stored on owner of the great American stories we tell him love America. What is to become a part of the all American stories from breathing Americans agreed to make a donation monthly gift of $70.76 is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters stories.com mail go to donate and help a great American stories, tell stories to millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year and United healthcare can help you feel competent about your choices for those eligible Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15 through December 7. If you're walking past age 65. You might be able to delay Medicare enrollment. Depending on your employer coverage. It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be this UHC Medicare health and's.com to learn more United healthcare helping people live healthier lives. You guys, this is Tori, and Johnny with the 90210 MG podcasts we have such a special episode brought to you by never attack ODT we recorded at at iHeartRadio's tentpole event windows handout. Did you know that never attack ODT were magic pant 75 mg and help migraine sufferers still such an exciting event like Wingo tango. It's true. I had one night and I took minor attack ODT and I was present and had an amazing time. Here's a little glimpse of our conversation with some of our closest friends. This episode was brought to you by never attack ODT were magic pant 75 mg life with migraine attacks can mean missing out on big moments with friends and family, but thankfully never attack ODT were magic pant 75 mg is the only medication that is proven to treat a migraine attack and prevent episodic migraines and adults sell lively events like Wingo tango down have to be next. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop for small business insurance. I need my State Farm agent and make sure my business days piping hot and I people and confident their small business owners to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on like that neighbor there. Call your local State Farm agent for quote today and were back with our American stories and Jean Bishop stored about her sister, Nancy and her sister's husband Richard's project. If no, it's return for more Jean Bishop in her store one day I got a phone call in my apartment from the local CBS reporter who wanted to know my reaction to the arrest and my sister's murder case and he said what what arrest he said there's a teenage boy in custody in the police station and I was shocked. It was the last thing the world I expected to find out that it was this skinny 16-year-old who lived a few blocks away from them that had been the one who killed them. He had practiced his friends and nobody believed him. They thought he was joking when he said that he had done it until one friend finally did believe him because by this time the trail had grown so cold that that the killer felt confident enough to show the gun to his friend to show the handcuffs like the ones he used to tell them in detail how he done it in the friend wasn't going to turn them in at first didn't turn him in. And then when he was afraid that this young man might kill again and that he be a kind of a accomplice to any fee due finally walked into the police station. Attorney men so the police had gotten a warrant had gone to this young man's home, I found the gun under his bed tested. The ballistics found it perfect match to the bullets that killed my family members felt the glass cutter he used found this notebook. He kept without killing them without the press clippings about the murders. We even found out that he had continuity in Richard's funeral so he was arrested he was held without bond in the Cook County jail and he went to trial about a year later and he took the stand and denied the crime try to blame it on someone else that he hadn't done it at a friend of his had come to his door the night of the murder and knocked on it headed in the content here hide this site.

I just killed two people with it. The jury didn't buy it. It contradicted all the physical evidence that contradicted the details of the crime scene. Only he would've known about his own confessions to the crime and so they found him guilty and when he was sentenced he got the mandatory sentence that you got at that time in the state of Illinois for multiple homicide and that's life in prison without the possibility of parole. When he got that sentence. My mom was sitting next to me on these hard wooden benches where you sat in the courtroom as a spectator and she said to be will never see again. When she told me that I was glad I thought good you know I never have to think about him again. I decided very early on, that whoever had done it. I was not going to hate him or her because I knew that if I had my heart over the murders of my family members that there would be enough hate the world beat this vast endless ocean of hate that I would drift into and so I had to forgive that person the forgiveness that I had given to him wasn't directed directly to him.

I didn't tell him it was the forgiveness in my own mind and heart just to unchain myself from him and it was the forgiveness that wasn't really supposed to be about him or for him in any way.

It was really for God because my faith teaches me that we have to forgive us. We've been forgiven and it was for Nancy because I knew her she was generous and loving and kind and funny and she loved life she left people she was carrying life in her body when she was killed so that when I decided to work in her memory against gun violence against the death penalty against anything that shed more blood and I forgive for me because of this, saying, I love to write about it in my book that hating another person's like drinking poison and expecting that other person to die and I knew that if I harbored bitterness in my heart person it wouldn't affect him at all, that he might even want my hate is he would eat me alive and so I found not so. He was sentenced to life. He was taken to Minard prison.

This dungeon like fortress in downstate Illinois for 20 years. I went on my way. Not thinking of him at all, but just trying to live my life in a way that honors God in this gift of life that I still had been given an honor. Nancy and her memory so I did a lot of speaking against the death penalty all over the country in the world. From my perspective as a murder victim's family member. In the course of doing that I met this law professor Newmark Ostler, Mark Ostler is like me a really unlikely opponent of the death penalty.

He's a former prosecutor who doesn't believe in it, and he had written a book about faith in the death penalty and I met him at this conference down in Atlanta, Georgia at Martin Luther King Jr.'s church, Ebenezer Baptist, and he gave me his book and later he gave me another one of one chapter written by a colleague of his from where he is to teach and this chapter is written by Randall O'Brien so Randall says guy who grew up in Macomb Mississippi veteran of the Army in Vietnam. First, the teacher of religion at Baylor and then at college, university president in Tennessee. He wrote this chapter about forgiveness which I was really interested in, and in that chapter. He wrote this, that no Christian man or woman is relieved of the obligation to work to reconcile with those who've wronged them. And when I read that sentence I was so affronted, I was just completely indignant and I thought your telling me that even though this killer of my sisters not sorry and hasn't apologized and showed no remorse whatsoever that it's my job to walk out to him, hand outstretched and say let's make peace. You and I was so angry that I actually called Mark Ostler to yell at him for giving me this, but and he said Ito don't be mad at me. I didn't write this call, the author, call Randall O'Brien telling what you think. And so I did. I called the president of Carson Newman University and left a message that Jean Bishop wanted to speak to him. Gosh will never call me back in the stranger coming out of the blue, but he did.

I was sitting in my car waiting to pick up someone from O'Hare airport. It was when it is freezing cold Chicago nights in the snow swirling around in the heaters on full blast and I get this phone call from this guy who sounds just like Jimmy Carter's Jean Bishop and it was Randall and I told him the story about my sister and the murder in this unrepentant order and this thing he written that it's so you know, upset me and I said to him you know what is reconciling with this remorseless person like what what would this even look like and he said it would look like Jesus on the cross and I know that I'm speaking to an audience of people of many faiths. There may be no faith at all, but my Christian faith is his highest rate and so I know what he meant by that, when he said that the Gospels record that when Jesus was dying been crucified by people who are not sorry to have an apologized to him who showed no remorse that he was praying for them that he says father forgive them forget them think they don't know what they're doing and I was so convicted in that moment because I never once prayed for this young man who killed my family members. I never even said his name. I went through my life saying Nancy and Richard's name because I wanted their names to list in the name of this killer to die and I realize that if I were going to pray for this young man I needed to say his name because you you kind of make him a nonperson by not saying so the first thing I did was I started praying for him is to say his name is David Barrow, David Barrow. He is a child of God. My faith teaches me that God loves him every bit as much as God loves me and that I was flawed and fallen as he is and is in need of grace. You are listening to Jean Bishop or words to Troy Mubarak not easy to be met other person is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to God's idea of how to reconcile with the remorseless person how to forgive mercury in our heart more Jean Bishop story on our American stores Medicare coverage decisions for next year and United healthcare can help you feel competent about your choices for those eligible Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15 through December 7.

If you're walking past age 65. You might be able to delay Medicare enrollment. Depending on your employer coverage. It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be this would UHC Medicare help I'm's.com to learn more United healthcare helping people live healthier lives. You guys, this is Tori, and Jenny with the 90210 MG podcasts we have such a special episode brought to you by near attack ODT.

We recorded it at iHeartRadio's tentpole event windows handout. Did you know that near attack ODT were magic pant 75 mg can help migraine sufferers still attend such an exciting event like Wingo tango.

It's true. I had one night and I took minor attack ODT and I was present and had an amazing time.

Here's a little glimpse of our conversation with some of our closest friends.

This episode was brought to you by near attack ODT were magic pant 75 mg life with migraine attacks can mean missing out on big moments with friends and family, but thankfully no attack ODT were magic pant 75 mg is the only medication that is proven to treat a migraine attack and prevent episodic migraines and adults sell lively events like Wingo tango don't have to be next. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop for small business insurance. I need my State Farm agent make sure my business days piping hot nice people and confident their small business owners to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on like a good neighbor. There call your local State Farm agent for quote today returned to Jean Bishop remarkable journey. Forgiveness was returned to Jean and the remaining parts of this story, but I don't know those years is built. This very convenient wall between me and him and one side of the mall with him in your evil murder and the other side was speed the good innocent victim's family member and I saw that God breaks down that long and that instead of trying to shut him away. I should try to bring him back to bring him back into community and to fellowship into the grace of God. So I wrote him a letter and I said in that letter, I forgave you a long time ago and I never told you that was wrong and I'm sorry I've waited all these years for you to apologize to be going to go first. I am sorry and if you want me to come see you. I will and I mailed that letter.

Not knowing how he'd react. I put it in the mailbox to Pontiac prison where he was at that time and I pictured him getting it and maybe crumpling it up and throwing it away showing it to his cellmate having a good laugh of it you over and over this.

This woman and her lofty words about forgiveness or maybe getting back some you know smarmy ingratiating you know letter trying to manipulate in some way.

This is the last thing in the world I expected was to get on very thick envelope. A few weeks later in my mailbox at the public defender's office with his name Barrow up in the left-hand corner of the return address and for two days.

I couldn't open it. I was just afraid to see what it would be and so I asked Mark asked him to open it and read it to me and when he did he said it's good that he went beyond the whole letter that started like this, you and your family waited so long to hear this. I am guilty to kill your family members and I'm so sorry if I could take it back. I would spend the next 15 pages front back in this letter he traced his whole trajectory over those 20+ years of how he gone from trying to get away with the crime to getting to prison and seeing the people around him and realizing that he didn't want to be like them, and yet he was that he done this terrible thing that he deserved to be there when he'd see the news on TV of some horrific crime like a baby being murdered her old woman being raped. Think instinctively persons an animal… And then he thought, wait a second that's me. I shot a pregnant woman in the stomach. He started reading. He started self teaching. He had a friend who had come to visit him and then one day she just banished, never wrote him again never called him again. Neighbor came to see him. Never answered his letters to her and he started just wondering why you know it wasn't something he had done was it something that happened to her. Then he started having great empathy for my family, thinking that the Bishop family wishes they do. Why like why had I done this to them. Why did I kill your family members so he became very remorseful and wanted to reach out to me but didn't want to do that unbidden because he was afraid of how that wage traumatized me or my family asked if we didn't want to see that name Barrow on the envelope to us. So the minute I had written to him.

He started writing back. I did go to see him I'm seeing him still is, but incredibly healing to hear about Nancy's last moments to learn about things I didn't know one thing I learned that I loved was this in Nancy was kinda like that, the tatty talking one Richard was like the strong silent type and so he mentioned that as they were talking to the person who can help them begging for their lives, that she would've been the one doing the talking, but what David Barrow told me it wasn't was Richard from the moment he saw a gun pointed at his wife and child.

He never stopped begging, finding ways, trying to find anyway that she would be let go, that he would stay behind and that that that she was be like. I would be able to live and it was incredibly healing to speak to hit David because I got to have this one-on-one victim impact statement that I never got to do when he was sentenced to life without parole. She didn't have these aggravation and mitigation proceedings that usually has in a court case because the sentence was mandatory, so we never got to do a statement that we could read out in court about how his actions had hurt us hurt everyone who love Nancy and Richard, my mom, my dad, my older sister deities neighbors, her coworkers, her classmates, everyone loved them and when I talk about DC to him this kind of shadow comes across his face. He told me once he set the more I get to know her through you. The worse I feel about what I did and that's the only justice he can give me. You can't bring Nancy back baby husband but he can do it.

He's done, which is to grasp the enormity of what he did and to feel great shame and remorse for them to do everything he can now to live a quiet life in the prison where he's doing life because I told him that it's his job now to do every bit of good in the world that she can no longer do so. I seen in a choir at my church and one day one of my client members SPT what is it like to go and see the person who killed your family members. What is like to shake the hand that can't tell her it's like frozen earth that used to be hard and barren were nothing will grow, becoming soft and moist where green shoots are springing up and life is coming out of the ground. The used to be so. That's what it feels like I feel like my heart had been frozen and now it's a place for so many things can grow.

This love is forgiveness's mercy. This reconciliation it's so healing. It's so helpful and it isn't just phobias for everyone, for everyone within the sound of my voice. Whether it's the coworker who undermined you at the business partner who betrayed you that the family member that wounded you and abused you the neighbor. The friend, you name it we've none of us got through this life unscathed. Every single one of us has something that we have to forgive and every one of us.

I think knows what it's like also to go to another and say I am so sorry.

I can't believe I did that I am so ashamed of it and I apologize will you take me back when you let me back in. That's what I've learned from this tragedy from the loss of my sister and from that message of love that she wrote those last moments that love is greater than our woundedness love is greater then he bitterness or vengeance. Love is the way out this this hurt that were in office is going to miss out her room was into Jean Bishop forgiving her sister's murder or book. Change of heart, justice, mercy, and making peace with my sister's killer is available on Amazon in the book is change of heart. Go to Amazon to pass it to everyone you know. By the way, what I loved about the spaces he was messing with enough service time for anyone who's had a family member is a victim of a crime will need to be in jail and pay the price for what they did this beautiful way of dealing with interpersonal level and reconciliation model simply beautiful Jean Bishop story or sister story of her sister's husband story and David her story to tell Americans millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year and United healthcare can help you feel competent about your choices for those eligible Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15 through December 7. If you're walking past age 65. You might be able to delay Medicare enrollment. Depending on your employer coverage. It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be this would UHC Medicare helpful and's.com to learn more United healthcare helping people live healthier lives. You guys, this is Tori, and Jenny with the 90210 MG podcasts we have such a special episode brought to you by near attack ODT we recorded at at iHeartRadio's tentpole event windows handout.

Did you know that near attack ODT were magic pant 75 mg and help migraine sufferers still attend such an exciting event like Wingo tango.

It's true though I had one night and I took minor attack ODT and I was present and had an amazing time. Here's a little glimpse of our conversation with some of our closest friends. This episode was brought to you by near attack ODT were magic pant 75 mg life with migraine attacks can be missing out on big moments with friends and family, but thankfully no attack ODT were magic pant 75 mg is the only medication that is proven to treat a migraine attack and prevent episodic migraines and adults sell lively events like Wingo tango down have to be next. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop for small business insurance.

I need my State Farm agent make sure my business days piping hot and I say cool and confident their small business owners to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on like a good neighbor. There call your local State Farm agent for quote today and we returned to L American stories mixed in incredible story from John Doe the national Museum of the mighty Air Force and poor Georgia outside of Savannah in 1943. John's father John J. O'Neill Junior served as a tool and waste, an experimental B-17 became the first American plane.

The bomb balloon all by some extraordinary chance. John was restored 1943 the United States Air Force had one problem. Weather was hampering operations.

British came over and said looking we need the real hardware gardens, boats, ammunition, we have some secrets that were willing to trade for those one of them was radar the United States was so far behind in radar. The British were so far ahead.

So when Roosevelt heard the said give them what they want. We want their information because the Germans had radar for a new one.

Bombers were common over where they were crossing so MIT 3000 scientists took this information and built the first operational United States radar sets to be put in specially equipped B-17s all top-secret they could literally do navigation and bomb through overcast.

My father's friend Maj. Fred Rebo was tasked with bringing these 12 B-17s from Boston Logan Airport with the first radar sets in. So they brought those over 1943 and they formed a bomb group called the 42nd bomb balk very crucial. Every one of the bomb groups they train them how to use radar the very best navigators the very best pilots the very best crews were tasked with the first operational radar mission. So these guys would get up the night before. They were told, you're going to lead the hundreds bomb groups of these special planes would fly the night before to a base park there the next day they would work with the lead ship was doing dead reckoning navigation and provide them radar fixes so nobody knew they couldn't name their plans. Most did you guys take a lot of pride put their nose or not but there were these contraptions sticking out from underneath the plane either under the nose. It was of age to ß or underneath the ball turret or underneath the front of the nose and was amazed to ask Mickey's very top-secret.

They were called the Pathfinders either forced Pathfinders.

My father's patch on his jacket is a lightning bug with the light on the tail lit up with a bomb was basically that the lightning bug would like the target or over they would drop the bombs all the different force water practice at very similar type. It was an eagle holding a bomb with hook with a flashlight. They were called the Pathfinders we wanted to reach for when going back to November 43. There were attempts to reach you because number.

Now we had the long-range P 51.

They also thought it was a great target of morale boost because number we had a landed on the beaches of Normandy, so they want to send a message that Hitler's capital could be reach so they tried six times starting November 1943 in each one of those missions was scrubbed fast-forward.

March 4 my father's ship sent to the 95th bomb group the night before they were to lead the 13th combat way to Berlin.

Maximum effort mission 750 B-17 and be 24 bombers or leave for Berlin fighter escort all the way to the target back target the boss electrical components factory in mind: call suburb one just on the southeast there and hit that target because they make the fuel injection systems for the Hinkle Ballmer waffles Messerschmidt and also 19 get up that the pull the curtain for the briefing and they see the map of Europe and they see the string which would take him to the chart.

Everybody sees Berlin might my father's waist gunner guy named beans from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania things to my father goes. What word did Richard get everything to my parents back in Pittsburgh at about course beings would say that they were going on a training mission and he was like the EU or of the crew. So every time they would go anywhere but he says no. This time I really mean it.

They called my father only after O'Neill's like shortening only Bill had short names.

The other waist gunner was hopping the top third gunner's name was Don White and Whitey so we all had so Moffat was the Baltimore gunner so princes were not going to come back from this premise. They take off for Berlin. Maximum effort tirade their forces going weathers real bad the lead and take off.

We could talk about patient quiet house how long it took. Imagine 750 points trying formation with no SI collision radar.

It was all by sight you get into cloud you put it. See, there were so many collisions when you collide to B-17s or to be 20 force together with 2000 gallons of high-octane aviation fuel 7000 rounds of 50 caliber ammunition and a 12,000 pound bomb load. They would just explode in bodies with just never be recovered. So anyway to get over the continent. There is a real recall issue whether target obscured too much whether returned to base my father said we had got a really good position in the formation. We were in the middle of the 750 bomber streams so there were squadrons in front squadrons and back of this for modest editable there in the middle why the middle was important.

Why was considered safer waffle, try to wipe out the lien squadrons then they would have to go down and refuel the front squadrons usually took the broad tail and squadrons. Low squadrons would take the brunt all will suddenly start seeing these B-17s my father so tenant gets on the radio is the Pathfinders ship he's given the course corrections was served already.

Recall no maintain radio silence will continue the target that was it an increase in crew conversations were has the pommel gone mad. So is 1/95 Col. anyway, long story short, the mission commander Mulford's point was using dead reckoning. They were drifting further and further off, or so they were taking the fixes that the radar ship was given so finally got on the radio and said if you do not allow us course correct 49 miles off course right now or not I have enough you will get the target and were not home so at that point, Mumford says take the lead so the 750 bomber string 39 bombers to the target. It was the charge of the light brigade to get to the target. The 51s were there.

Chuck Yeager is first shipped on the fifth of P 51s worn there. 39 ships would've gone down, wiped out.about they get to the target. Col. wanted to be the first one to bomber one. It was a huge percentage than going back to the states pieces back off to a deputy lead position. So begins the back off the Col. gets on the IP are the final bomber on can openers bomb bay doors frozen shot bad weather uses take the we will bomb on the Pathfinder bomb the shooter flayer open the bomb bays. My father screws the first United States Army Air Force B-17 to reach its credited they thought for sure that he was using to get the silver star court-martial for disobeying him all radio recall work there explanation was that their radioman on the all be around B-17 that was the name of who was the lead ship was interpreted as a radio recall something my father's radio operator who had the opportunity to talk radio recall was as real as they got that was because they had special codes. They were given before every flight, and he says I verified that but they stuck with their they didn't they didn't divert, they stuck with him all the way to Berlin. But the P 51 save them for seven teams were lost over the target 35, 39, got home they flew over form. They landed my father's crew. One also very which was about another 25 minutes your Cambridge get out of the plane exhausted.

It was like 12 hours in the air combat and they were met by one press person. Meanwhile, there is a huge life magazine, Andy Rooney, Walter Cronkite, all these famous journalists were there at the base of the 95th they got all the credit in the world of these papers except for one guy from the New York Tribune was that all can vary, he heard the story and interview the crew they were ordered to meet with this guy after the mission debrief. He told the story and he hands him a copy of teletype is typing it out on special typewriter because the cross is translated back to New York as part of the code and he hands it to my father's pilot pieces hold onto this.

This is the true story of the mission is.

He let on my father's pilot would only talk to him if he was allowed to tell them who the crew was, but the original transatlantic cable is something that Holland is an I have the original navigation maps that were in the B-17 that Al Engelhard Mickey operator had made all the times chart courses how far off target.

They were and how they lit up in the first B-17. Special thanks to Monty's great job on the production story of John O'Neill is told by his son, you on our American story