It's August 1st 1986, this is Ted Harwood from Van Nuys, CA. I'm a poor writer so I thought I would try this on tape, maybe I won't get the penmanship cramp. For your first question, for your roister, my beginner grade while entering the 323rd was 2nd Lt. and I flew 28 missions as copilot, then I got my crew and flew 17 missions as first pilot, I came out the conflict rated as 1st Lt. And your second question on your chapter on Marauder Men devoted to the night bombing missions. I don't think I was frightened, it was just a new experience to us, we went in on a Pathfinder, our biggest problem was on take off. There was a white line like we have here at the end of the runway, only it was it was in the British stripe in the center. The white line came up and we pulled off, almost at stalling speed and we had quite a problem maintaining flight speed, finally we got our flaps up and went out over the harbor and we just barely cleared the barrage balloon which were all over the place. It was uneventful on course, we picked up the initial point flare, dropped our bombs, turned off and at that point we hit prop wash very severely which raised the hackles on our backs because we knew just a second before there was another 26 there. On our return flight we drifted off course and got over I don't recall either the Gernsey or Jersey Island, the Germans promptly through up very high intensity para flare that lit up the whole scene and then they proceeded to shoot at us, fortunately they missed and that is about all I can recount on that mission. The second question you have on the last mission April 25, 1945 to Arding, Germany of the 262s I was in ship 040 in the low flight as I recall, according to your diagram everything was in the rear of the flight, however as I recall, I saw the Me262 come up from our right - position itself below us and shoot at the lead flight, as I recall, according to your diagram here number 969 which was on the right of 131 the lead ship, I don't recall any other ship numbers except our own, however I could see the 37 MM. puffs of smoke from his cannon as he fired, and as I recall the right nacelle door flew off number 969 in your position, that was about all there was to that mission as I could see. Our top turret gunner was firing which that was the first mission in my 45 mission that the gunners ever fired a shot and that was sort of startling because I didn't know they were going to fire made considerable rattle, the whole sky in front of me was filled with 50 Caliber empties coming out of, I guess the lead flight there but I don't know how they got back there because according to your diagram, this ME 262 was ah unless I got this thing reversed, but I wasn't in the lead flight, but this trail you got here shows everything in the rear of the flight, but defiantly we saw the 262 and I saw it fire and saw the smoke from the, when the cannon went off you could see a little puff black smoke every time it fired. Our top turret gunner engineer was considerably hyped up he thought he hit the thing - I don't know there was so much brass in the air, that was by big problem worrying about the brass coming though the canopy or through the ah bombardier's nose compartment. Then I did not fly the D-Day mission, the first mission I flew was the night mission which was way after- that was way after the D-Day operation. I have no other news on Parker, I would give you some names, John Kuzwara who was our navigator was the lead navigator and he went through school with a Los Alamedos, California address and phone number. The bombardier was on Lt. Flitties crew and Art Pacula was his copilot and he lives Illinois now he would definitely know about Flitties bombardier who was killed you can contact him in regards to that. The only, now according to this note here you have J.V. Harwood is that you? I am not J.V. Harwood I am T.V. Harwood and is evidently a miss type I have several of my orders with a J where either T or V should have been. I'll send you some information on that, the only other thing I say that may be of interest on my 37th mission to Hanover, Germany, we were bombing a fuel dump and I was in ship 967, this was on April 8th, 45, we has eight 500 pound bombs and going into the initial point to the bomb release point I was hit with flak on my main fuel cell left between the Nacelle and the pilots compartment - we got a big rupture in the main fuel cell and the hydraulic system out, our electrical system was out and the engineer went and automatically cranked open the bomb doors triggered out the bombs - cranked the bomb bay doors shut - started transferring fuel from the outer wings to the inner tank and we kept the engines running and I called to Johnny Kuzwara who was the flight leading bombardier/ navigator on that mission and he gave me a heading to the alternate field which was a Spit-Fire base just behind the bomb line and we proceed there - crash landed. The wheels went down but they wouldn't lock cause there was no hydraulic pressure, but our crew managed to get down and we lost no one - had no injuries on that flight, they picked us up the next day in a B26 and went back to our base and they loaded me on another mission on April 10th so they didn't give me time to think about it, but that was our only other real thrill as far as close calls. That's about all I can think of now if I can be of any further help to let me know, thank you very much.