Pat Gang

It Was A Two-Egg Mission Pat Gang

On 5 January 1944 Lt. William Foley and the crew of the B-17 Lucky Lady took off on a mission to bomb the Merignac airfield just outside Bordeaux, France. It was the first mission for the crew. Nearing the target they were hit by German fire but stayed in formation. leaving the target area, they once again came under attack by German fighters and suffered critical damage over the Bay of Biscay. Pilot Lt Richard Stakes turned the plane around and managed to crash-land the plane in the Gironde River. One man had been badly wounded in the attacks and was left with French civilians. He died that evening in a German hospital. Foley, Stakes and the rest of the crew set off south to try and evade capture and make it to neutral Spain. After splitting up, they made their way toward freedom. Four of the crew were captured but Foley, Stakes and three others made it to Spain and then back to England. The men who succeeded were extremely lucky, All of them stated later that they could never have made it without the with the aid and assistance of French resistance groups and many individual French citizens who risked their very lives to aid American airmen who were fighting to free them from German occupation. "It was a Two Egg Mission" relates the stories of those who made it out using official debriefing files and post-war reminiscences as primary sources.