Bob Valliere, Navigator, 385th Bomb Group
Bob Valliere arrived in England during the last months of the war, armed with an extremely high IQ and a string of rosary beads, (a gift from his mother). Neither his brain nor the beads could prevent the amazing events that plagued the young navigator's first combat mission. However it would be a "non-combat mercy mission" that would prove to be his most memorable. This "milk run" to drop food and supplies to the starving people of the Netherlands (during a shaky truce with the Germans there) would put at risk, the lives of every man on board Lieutenant Michael Swana's B-17...and earn them all a special place in World War Two history.
© 2005 Travis L. Ayres