Warbird Information Exchange

April 9th, 65 years ago today was Easter Sunday 1944. My father 2nd Lt Charles Stuart JR of the 381st Fighter Squadron of the 363rd Fighter Group 9th AAF flew his 3rd combat mission, a long overwater escort mission, the bombers were dispatched to hit the Focke-Wulf plant at Poznan, Poland with the Group picking them up over Denmark. No enemy planes were encountered, but bad weather resulted in the loss of two pilots, 2nd Lt William Steinke of the 381st, & 2nd Lt Benjamin Pollard of the 382nd.
Dad’s been gone several years now, he has been on my mind, just thought I would share this with yall.



Note on the back of the picture says something like, "my first ship if you can call it that"



Robbie

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Fly Fast Make Noise!

Neat story and picture! If that was my picture, I would get it reprinted to 8x10 have it matted and framed with a brass plate below it (in the matting) with your fathers words on the plate and his name and rank. Just a thought. Thanks for posting that.

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

Robbie,
thanks for posting the pic and calling out the names of those two MIA pilots.

God Bless your Dad and Lts. Steinke and Pollard

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The only reasons the airplanes matter is what the veterans did with them... and why.

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the kind words.



July 1944, Dad with "STINKY" B3 E.

Robbie

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Fly Fast Make Noise!

And from Atlanta GA Easter Sunday April 12th, 2009, I hope you all had a good Easter. My cat chased off the Easter Bunny, so I did not get my Easter Basket. I didn't give a crap about the eggs & all that stuff, but I was hoping for something from MR James Bean!

Robbie

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Fly Fast Make Noise!