“Liberty Lad”

A Liberty Lad flew on the Group's first combat mission, to Lille on October 9, 1942, short a gunner; Bernard J. Edelman, a bombsight-maintenance specialist, volunteered to fill the position for the flight. This aircraft, crewed by pilots Lt. Frank R. Hodges and Lt. Orval H. Michelson, was reported missing in action on the April 16, 1943 Brest mission, in the same raid that also cost the crews of Bud Fleenor and Franklin Lown. Most of the crew were killed; Hodges, Michelson, and gunner Forrest S. Hughes survived as prisoners of war.

A second aircraft carrying the same nose art name flew the low-level Ploesti mission on August 1, 1943, under Maj. Kenton D. McFarland with co-pilot Henry A. Podgurski. On the withdrawal, fuel-line blockages knocked out two engines, and McFarland and Podgurski flew the rest of the route on the remaining two, McFarland straining hard enough against the rudder to break his seat. The crew fought through roughly fifteen minutes of attacks by a mixed force of German and Romanian fighters over Bulgaria while flying at low altitude with damaged radio, intercom, and oxygen systems; wounded radioman Oda Smathers repaired the radio and got a fix on Benghazi despite his injuries. Unable to reach North Africa, McFarland and Podgurski diverted to the hospital-equipped base at Berka II, landing on both dead engines on one wing after roughly sixteen hours in the air. With the instrument lights out, crewman Johnnie Brown held a flashlight on the airspeed and altitude dials during the approach; the aircraft hit hard, bounced, and rolled over a mile before stopping. Both pilots required hospitalization afterward.

Because the timeline runs from an October 1942 debut through an April 1943 loss to an August 1943 mission, the name appears to have been carried by two distinct airframes, with a second aircraft likely christened Liberty Lad after the first was lost. This record is matched to whichever airframe carried the serial 41-23742.