Lt. Harold L. Fuchsmann, a twenty-five year old Chicago graduate of the University of Illinois, and leading navigator of a squadron of six Flying Fortresses, has returned home on a furlough with eleven medals, including the Distinguished Flying Medal and the Air Medal. He has been in service more than two and a half years. One citation which he received stresses the fact that his was the only bomber ever to make “a record of 50 consecutive, completed sorties, each directly to the target and return, without deviation from course.”
Operating in the African theatre, Fuchsmann’s Fortress, the “Wahoo,” went through 440 hours of flying time with its original four engines and its initial crew of ten intact, every man making every mission without a single replacement. “We bombed a dozen ports in North Africa, Pantelleria, Sicily, Naples, Genoa, Spezia, and other Italian cities,” Lieutenant Fuchsmann said. “We sank two Italian cruisers between Corsica and Sardinia and a battleship off Spezia. On land we hit all kinds of installations. We could do it,” he stressed, “only because every man was in there trying all the time.”
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