Aryanna Pounds is a 5th grade student at Marshpoint Elementary.  Her teacher, Ellen Fulkerson, nominated Aryanna "because she is a very hardworking girl who always volunteers to be a leader. She is responsible and courteous with both adults and her peers. She is trustworthy and I have never worried about leaving her unsupervised.  Aryanna accepts constructive criticism readily and is never defensive or impolite. She is a positive role model for younger students and a wonderful big sister to her two younger siblings."  

Bill Ehmig has been a Mission Experience volunteer for 11 years. He feels he is very lucky to have been partnered with a number of WW II vets, including Ken Scott, Mark Shaeffer, Sam Najarian, and now Bud Porter. Bill says he has learned more from these and other volunteers than from any history books.

Bill graduated from undergraduate pilot training at Moody AFB, Valdosta, Georgia in June 1964 and after a brief leave, headed west to Stead AFB for survival training.  Once survival training was completed, he went on to Carswell AFB for special weapons training and then to Castle AFB for B-52 crew training as a co-pilot. Upon graduation from there, he and his wife Kathy drove to Glasgow AFB, Montana, arriving in early December. This was quite a shock for them both as Kathy was a daughter of a Pan Am mechanic who had lived in Brownsville, Texas; Burlingame, California; and Miami, Florida.  Bill grew up in South Carolina. Upon arrival at Glasgow they experienced 36 straight days with temperatures of 25 degrees below zero F and colder.

Bill joined the 19th BW (H) at Robbins AFB and was soon moved to a select crewas a member of the Standardization/Evaluation Board for the base. He started upgrade training to Aircraft Commander, but that was interrupted by his crew being selected to go to U-Tapao, Thailand to fly combat missions over Viet Nam for another 180 days. Upon return, Bill finally had a chance to upgrade to AC and had crew R-21 (Ready Crew) which was later upgraded to E-21 (Lead Crew).

Bill left the Air Force in October 1970 and moved to Charleston SC, flying with the 165th Troop Carrier Wing of the Georgia ANG here in Savannah. He was promoted by his civilian company to their home office in New Jersey, and then 12 months later moved to Northern Virginia as Mid Atlantic Regional Manager for Ortho Diagnostics (a J&J Company). After three years at this job, he was recruited to be a Divisional Sales Director for Auto Suture, the surgical staples company.  After two years of division sales management there he was recruited to be National Sales Manager for Amersham Searle, a joint venture between the British Atomic Energy Commission and Searle Pharmaceuticals.  Soon after he joined Amersham Searle, Amersham bought its way out of the joint venture and later it was privatized by Maggie Thatcher and became a stand alone corporation. In his 24 year tenure with Amersham Healthcare, Bill held many management positions in the US, UK and Canada.  When he retired in June 2001, he was an Executive Vice President. 

Bill and his wife retired to Beaufort, South Carolina and are active Master Naturalists, Master Gardeners, and volunteers with a number of local organizations. 

The need to cripple the German war machine was always the utmost priority for the Allies.  The idea for bombing Ploesti, Romania solidified at the Casablanca Conference in early 1942.  Romania produced roughly 35% of the liquid fuel used by the Axis powers and it was imperative that it be disabled.  Operation Tidal Wave was planned for August 1, 1943 on 9 oil refineries on the outskirts of the city of Ploesti.  This mission was not the first or the last to this region - a previous raid had been done in June 1942 and the Germans prepared accordingly for future attacks.  Hundreds of anti-aircraft guns were placed in and around the refineries (many well hidden in rail cars and fake buildings) and three Luftwaffe fighter units were placed within range of Ploesti.  These fortifications helped make Operation Tidal Wave the deadliest single air mission in USAAF history.

Although the 9th Air Force was in charge of planning the mission, the 8th Air Force provided three additional bomb groups - the 44th, 93rd and 389th - All made up of B-24 heavy bombers.  In an effort to avoid German radar detection and to achieve the crucial element of surprise, it was decided that the bombing would be done at very low altitude, with strict radio silence, and without fighter support.  This style of approach would also minimize the time the bombers would be in range of the anti-aircraft guns.  The attacking force was to be made up of 178 heavy bombers, the largest contribution of American planes on a mission to date.  After practicing low level bombing over the African desert, they left from Benghazi, Libya and flew across the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas, over the Pindus Mountains of Yugoslavia and onto Romania.  The 2000 mile mission got off with an uneventful start with all five groups taking off without incident, but over the Adriatic Sea, things began to fall apart.  The lead pilot of the formation suddenly began flying erratically and abruptly plunged into the ocean.  The bomber stream continued on but the formation got further spread out on the climb over the Pindus Mountains, which threw off the critical timing.  All 5 groups cleared the first check point and the 389th turned off for their separate, but coordinated, attack from a different direction.  Enroute to the next checkpoint, Col. Keith Compton and General Uzal G. Ent made a significant error.  Ignoring the advice of their navigator, Col Compton followed the wrong rail line and took his 376th bomb group and 93rd towards Bucharest.  Some groups broke radio silence to point out the error but the two groups would end up facing the tremendous anti aircraft defenses around Bucharest in addition to the defenses surrounding Ploesti.

The subsequent chaos and disorganization led to General Ent ordering that the 376th bomb targets of opportunity, while the 93rd bomb group made it to their assigned refineries.  Eleven B-24s from the 93rd alone were lost over the target.  Some planes flew over their targets as low as 50 feet, with at least one plane that was leaking fuel igniting from the flames below.  In all, only 88 planes made it back to Libya.  Operation Tidal Wave remains the most highly decorated military mission in U.S. History.  Five Medals of Honor, 3 posthumously, were awarded, the most for any single air mission in history.  While some oil production was affected, it only shut down the refineries for a few weeks.  Operation Tidal Wave is largely considered a failure from the American perspective for this reason.  However, there is some argument that can be made that this delay in production, even if only brief, was a victory for the Allies as it allowed the Red Army to take advantage of the lack of fuel for the panzers and launch two offensives at Smolensk and Dnieper, which helped liberate those previously German-controlled areas.

Ronald Barrett, President of AFNOA, presents the AF Navigators' Comprehensive History to Henry Skipper, President and CEO of the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force.

The Air Force Navigator Observer Association (AFNOA) has made a lasting contribution to navigational history with their digital Air Force Navigators' Comprehensive History.  Members provided technical manuals, training books, reports, photographs, and related documents that were then professionally scanned into a unique, historically accurate digital document with an Index-Search-Retrieval system.  This search feature makes this digital collection easy to use when looking for a specific topic. 

On 9 April 2013 AFNOA President, Ronald P. Barrett, presented a copy of this digital Air Force Navigators' Comprehensive History to Henry Skipper, President and CEO of the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force.  In addition, AFNOA has donated original copies of many of the digitized documents as well as a selection of navigational instruments.  Researchers are invited to consult this extensive collection in the research center.