“Silver Eagle”
Returning to Hardwick on January 10, 1945 through near-zero visibility and a severe snowstorm, Lieutenant Austin Searles' Silver Eagle was sideswiped on final approach by an unidentified Liberator, which sheared off the end of its left-wing panel. Too low to order the crew out, Searles put the crippled bomber down at nearby Bungay; he suffered a broken leg, spinal injuries, and multiple fractures, and other crewmen were hospitalized with cracked ribs and chest injuries. The colliding aircraft was never identified and got away unscathed, while Silver Eagle was written off as a total loss. No one was killed. Co-pilot Claudius Hodges, promoted to first pilot after the crash, and navigator Paul Steichen went on to fly fifteen more missions together breaking in new crews.
Sortie Log
A sortie is a single combat mission flown by an aircraft and its crew. The entries below document known sorties associated with this airman, drawn from flight logs, mission records, and archival sources. This list represents verified flights but may not be complete; gaps may reflect missing documentation, transferred assignments, or records lost to time.