Their plane, Lady Luck, saw its luck run out on March 28, 1945. It was on a bombing run over Germany when it was hit by enemy fire. The plane crashed in France. The crew bailed out, and all nine were rescued by the American Advance Signal Corps and taken to Nance, France.<\/p>\n
The Lady Luck was part of the 401st Bombardment Group. The guys McCue flew with always meant a lot to him. Even while on their honeymoon in 1949, he and his wife, Fran, visited two members of the crew.<\/p>\n
Most of the nine kept in touch long after the war. They held their first postwar reunion in 1972.<\/p>\n
Robert Kamper, who was the pilot, brought eight glass-bottomed drinking mugs to that first reunion. Each mug was engraved with the name of the crew member who would receive it.<\/p>\n
The seven who were there that day (one had died, one was not in attendance) promised to drink from their mugs on only two occasions \u2013 with another Lady Luck crew member or on March 28, the day their B-17 had been shot down.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had that date circled on our calendar,\u201d Fran says. \u201cEvery year we would get a call from Tom on that day.\u201d Not that Chris needed to be reminded, but it was a good excuse for old friends to talk.<\/p>\n
Upon each crew member\u2019s death, his mug was to be sent to a fellow crew member, who would take a final drink from it, then break the glass bottom so that no one could ever use it again.<\/p>\n
All eight men stayed true to their vow. Two years ago, when Chris died at the age of 88, Fran sent her husband\u2019s mug to Tom at his home in California.<\/p>\n
Now, only Tom remains. He has all eight of the mugs, seven of them with the bottoms broken out. The last mug will be broken soon.<\/p>\n
After Tom\u2019s death, per the bomber crew\u2019s request, his wife, Joan, will ship all of the mugs to England. Waiting for them there is Graham Bratley, chairman of the 401st Bombardment Group Historical Society.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the time comes,\u201d Joan says, \u201che will take them to the old runway, from which the crew used to take off on their missions. It is now a farmer\u2019s field. Graham has agreed to bury them in the ground there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The old airfield is Deenethorpe, near Corby, England.<\/p>\n
When Graham receives those mugs, only one of them will still be intact \u2013 Tom\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wants Graham to smash the glass bottom out of it before he puts it with the other mugs and buries it at the end of the runway in Deenethorpe,\u201d says Joan.<\/p>\n
By e-mail from England, Graham said he will be honored to perform the duties.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is not too much of the base left, as the land has been returned to agricultural use,\u201d he wrote, \u201cbut the main runway together with the perimeter track remain. I would expect to have some form of ceremony when the mugs are finally committed to the ground on the old airfield, but I have not decided as yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever Graham does on that day sometime this spring, the saga of the crew of the Lucky Lady will end, just as they wanted it to end.<\/p>\n
Everybody has a story. The problem is that some of them are boring. If yours is not, contact Dave Bakke at 788-1541 or dave.bakke@sj-r.com. His column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. To read more, visit www.sj-r.com\/bakke.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Read the original article from The State Journal-Register<\/a>.<\/p>\n Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n Doctors give a California man, Tom Parker, weeks to live. Tom has cancer. Upon his death, events will be set in motion that will fulfill a long-standing vow \u2013 a vow that involves the late Frank (better known as Chris) McCue of Springfield. McCue was part of a nine-man crew that flew a B-17 bomber […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-383853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
\n<\/img><\/a><\/p>\n
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"