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identification tags were no longer recognizable.
The name was determined by two captured mem-
bers of the same crew.’
Two of the crew members of the last Mismalo-
vin’ flight remain missing to this day - navigator
Lt. Mordkowitz and tail gunner T/Sgt. Fernandez.
Their bodies rest with the wreckage of Mismalovin’
at the bottom of the English Channel, not far from
the French coast.
Postscriptum: Some of the aircraft names in the
unit were inherited by newly arriving aircraft. This
was usually due to the ground crew, who, when
they lost their aircraft, sometimes named its re-
placement after it. Sometimes a new aircraft was
named by the flight crew when their original was
lost on ‘loan’ or they received a new, more modern
one. In the 100th Bomb Group, their successors
were named after original B-17s - Horny II, Skip-
per II and Skipper III (KC-135R), Rosies’ Riveters II
(and III, also KC 135R), Alice from Dallas II, Humpty
Dumpty II, Hard Luck II, Fletchers Castoria II, Holly
Terror II, King Bee II and more. Among them, the
legendary machines of Frank Valesh’s crew Hang
the Expense stand out, which made it to number IV.
Mismalovin’ also had a successor in a certain
way, although the transcription was somewhat
different. The pronunciation and meaning re-
mained. After the original Mismalovin’ sank in the
Straits near Calais on February 25th, 1944, a new
silver B-17G s/n 42-97127 arrived at sister unit
349th BS. She was named Miss Ma’ Lovin’. After
several weeks of service, she was shot down on
May 12th, 1944 in a raid on a synthetics factory in
Most (Brüx) in the Sudetenland region of Czecho-
slovakia. A direct flak hit above the target and
a subsequent explosion in the air killed the ball
turret gunner. The rest of the ten-member crew
of Lt Jack C. Moore took to their parachutes. They
thus became the first airmen of the 8th Air Force
to be shot down over Czechoslovakia.
Lieutenant Stewart A. McClain. Died while attempting
to fly the damaged Mismalovin’ across the English
Channel.
Mismalovin’ nose art from
the port side of the nose,
shown during two periods
of its existence. A gremlin
releasing bombs from
a potty is the centerpiece
of the 350th Bomb
Squadron emblem.
INFO Eduard
Speciál B-17F / The Bloody Hundredth 1943
76
June 2024