“Sugar”

Built at Willow Run as a B-24 Model H, Sugar compiled a 123-mission combat record, 88 of them flown without a single abort, entering service with the 328th Squadron before a stint as a 329th Squadron pathfinder and an eventual return to the 328th. Crew chief Cecil M. Trostle, who had a hand in 89 of her missions, recalled that when a 1,000-hour inspection nearly grounded her for good, he and three mechanics spent eight hours of slow-time work to put her back in the air for 21 more missions. Trostle also flew as her crew chief when General Timberlake took Sugar on a postwar sightseeing pass over bombed-out Germany, and again when she carried her ground crew home across the Atlantic - the old bird was finally left behind in Connecticut.