Pictured below is Ray Lepore and yours truly.  We had Ray speak at our club meeting the other evening.  He is one of the few surviving pilots from the 357th-- "The Yoxford Boys".  He flew with Bud Anderson in the 364th squadron from August '44 till March 2nd 1945, when he was shot down over Magdeburg Germany.  He became a guest of the German Government at Stalag Luft 17 until the end of the war 2 months later. 

He was gracious enough to recount his story in great detail- which he is very good at.  I am traveling slowly on my top flite ARC-- building his fighter-- "Pretty Pat". 

There are two pictures of Ray's mishap on January 1st, 1945, in Merle Olmstead's book "To War with the Yoxford Boys" from Eagle Editions.  They are found on pages 176 and 189.  Ray recounts the story of flying a fighter sweep over Belgium for 5 hours, then returning to a totally fogged in airfield- being able to only see the flare come up through the clouds to identify the field.  Upon touchdown he found a sheet of ice and skidded into a revetment. 

Ray was shot down on March 2nd, 1945 while strafing an airfield South of Magdeberug.  He was honored last summer at Lieston, England at the 60th anniversary of the airfield.  He is still in good shape and still atttends reunions when he can.  Proud to call him my friend.  Now if I can just get this airplane finished, so he can see it fly!!--Goodday-- Matt