On October 10, 1943, 18 aircraft of the 100th Bomb Group – an American Air Force squadron – were sent from their East Anglia base to strike targets in the Western German city of Münster. War was raging in Europe: Hitler’s Nazi party had successfully conquered most of the continent – from Greece in the East to France in the West.
Such was the chaos in the skies that five aircraft aborted the mission long before they reached their destination. All of the 13 planes that pressed on were eventually hit: 12 were shot down; only one badly damaged plane, commanded by 26-year-old New Yorker Robert Rosenthal, managed to return home.
