15TH AIR FORCE IN ITALY

We arrived in Foggia, Italy, home of the 2nd BombardmentGroup - 15th Air Force on May 1, 1944. We were still without our bombardier. Bomber crews carried the name oftheir pilots, so we were the Harper Crew. The flight from England had been a most interesting adventure. The night flight from the southern most air basein England was necessitated because the route carried us just west of the Brest Peninsula; then, north and west andvery near to Portugal and Spain, then on through the Straits of Gibraltar, landing at Casablanca near daylight. ATCflights over this route were extremely dangerous during daylight hours because of the presence of Nazi fighterplanes located in France and especially around the Brest area. We had flown from Casablanca along the NorthAfrican coast and on to Tunis, French Morocco. Our flight then continued across the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas,terminating at the port city of Bari, Italy.  The islands of Corsica and Sardinia were under Alliedcontrol as well as about half of Italy. Fighting continued on an east to west line across Italy from the Mediterranean tothe Adriatic Seas and just south of the city of Rome...

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