The board
Thirty-one sorties
Twenty-eight combat missions, three humanitarian drops. Joyce numbered the scrapbook to twenty-eight. The food carries no number at all.
Fourteen captains’ charts survive in the locker, missions one through fourteen without a gap. The list opens on those. The rest of the tour is in the crew record. Each combat sortie links to two modern compilations: the 95th Bomb Group database, and the Eighth Air Force day page in the Imperial War Museums American Archive. Neither is a wartime paper issued at Horham. The three food drops have no matching 8th AF day page. The crew listing in the group database is titled F.J. Calicura, 31. That figure belongs among the seven counts. Each morning also opens the chapter that already tells it.
01
Chemnitz
14 February 1945
First combat mission. Marshalling yard in Saxony. Copilot for the day was Richard J. Austin, on loan from John Bradley’s crew. Victor Probst flew the same morning in The Red Fox. One of 457 B-17s sent to Chemnitz while a separate force hit Dresden, forty miles away.
“Key Rail City Near Capital Is Pounded”
02
Cottbus
15 February 1945
Second day of the war, flown before the crew had been in combat forty-eight hours. The group lost two aircraft: Big Casino of the 335th, MACR 12378, and Easy Going of the 336th.
03
Osnabrück
19 February 1945
Rail targets in the Ruhr corridor, escorted by Mustangs and Thunderbolts.
“1,100 Heavies Hit Nazi Rails”
04
Nuremberg
20 February 1945
First of two consecutive mornings over Nuremberg.
“900 Fortresses Rain Bombs, Incendiaries on Rail Center”
05
Nuremberg
21 February 1945
Second consecutive day at Nuremberg.
“P47s Blast Yards Near Hitler’s Den”
06
Bamberg
22 February 1945
Stars and Stripes of 23 February reported six thousand aircraft against the German rail network. Bamberg is not in the story. Frank wrote it in the white margin in block capitals.
“Biggest Blitz Hits Nazis”
07
Bremen
24 February 1945
Part of the fourteen-day run that produced 94 hours 35 minutes in February.
08
Munich
25 February 1945
Terminal rail station and marshalling yards in the city’s eastern and western districts. Fourth consecutive day the Eighth had thrown its weight against German communications.
“Rail-Hitting Heavies Tear Into Munich”
09
Leipzig
27 February 1945
Ninth mission in fourteen days. Air Medal awarded this date, GO 289.
10
Brunswick
3 March 1945
The 95th put up thirty-seven aircraft and lost one to a mid-air collision: Aunt Callie’s Baby and Paisano, both of the 335th. Nine killed. MACR 12889.
11
Ulm / Baumenheim
4 March 1945
Primary was a Messerschmitt components factory at Baumenheim; Ulm’s marshalling yard was the fallback under ten-tenths undercast. Wake at 0215.
12
Dortmunderfeld
10 March 1945
Industrial corridor the Eighth had been working since Chemnitz. Copilot for the day was Claude C. Greear, on loan from C.D. Crawford’s crew — the reverse of the February trade. Victor Probst flew the same morning in Poof Proof. No clipping in the scrapbook.
13
Swinemünde
12 March 1945
German naval base on the Baltic, requested by Soviet command. A city swollen with civilian refugees. The crew flew it and came home. Nothing in the family’s record indicates what, if anything, Frank understood about the civilians below.
“Heavies Hit Near Rhine, Along Baltic”
14
Seelze
14 March 1945
Among the roughest days that spring: 38 dispatched, 16 damaged, one lost, one written off after landing. The crew’s annotated captains’ chart for the day survives. Promoted to First Lieutenant the next day.