“Friday's Cat”

Friday's Cat was Captain Frank Hinshaw's aircraft, and she was lost during the 93rd's stormy September 1942 crossing of the North Atlantic to Prestwick. Flying near the front of the formation, Hinshaw's ship cut across the nose of another 328th crew and appeared, by their account, to be correcting onto a southerly heading that would have carried it further from Scotland rather than toward it. Radioed warnings from other crews that he was off course went unheeded; Hinshaw insisted his own navigation was correct. The last transmission heard from the aircraft reported its position as some 400 miles west of Scotland, flying on two engines through the storm and expecting to be forced down at sea. No trace of the crew or wreckage was ever found. The loss of Hinshaw and his men became the 93rd's first casualties of the war.