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HISTORY
… completion of the mission was solely due
to the extraordinary heroism and inspired de-
termination of Major Cleven. … under the circum-
stances which obtained, Major Cleven’s actions were
far above and beyond the call of duty and the skill,
courage and strength or will displayed by him as air-
plane and squadron commander in the face of hope-
less odds have seldom, if ever, been surpassed in the
annals of the Army Air Forces.
It won’t come as much of a surprise that the
honors-frugal Air Force High Command ended up
being far more stingy with the honors than the
recommendations had suggested. However, the
entire unit received a Distinguished (Presidential)
Unit Citation for this mission, an award that was
not given to units just like that. It was the first of
two for the Hundred during its history, and from
that moment on, all its members who were part
of the unit on August 17th, 1943, were allowed to
wear the dark blue, gold-framed ribbon of this
award on their uniforms.
After gaining combat experience, Lt.Col. Lay
returned to the United States where he went
through a training program with the 490th BG
with B-24s and then took command of the form-
ing of the 487th BG at Alamogordo, NM on Febru-
ary 28th 1944. It also flew B-24s. In April of that
year, he moved to England with his unit. Their
home base was Lavenham in Suffolk.
Lt.Col. Bernie Lay as the new commander of the 487th
BG, Alamogordo Army Air Base, New Mexico.
(photo: Sidney L. Hardaway).
A B-24 from the 487th Bomb Group during takeoff from
Lavenham Air Force Base. (Freeman collection)
INFO Eduard
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September 2024