Foster R. Lamb, Holladay, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, September 10, 2004: Saving the Legacy tape no. 711

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FO TER R. LAMB P MB R 10,2004 the shuttle. Around the time ofD-Day I left Warren Base and was ent to an th r ba north of London. BEC: You had been reassigned? FOS: Reassigned, transferred. We just took care of those planes and they were being shot up really bad. The gunners were getting it. They were getting killed. The planes they'd take off. So many planes would take off, but we never knew how many were going to come back. We'd work on them in the night and they'd take them and put them back in the air. They'd take off the next morning. Then on D-Day, that was a big occasion. We didn't ever know what was happening in the Army but we knew something big was happening that day. There were a lot of planes in the air and so on and so forth. About then, the Germans started sending over buzz-bombs. [Editor's note: Buzz-bomb was another name for the notorious German V-1 missile. The V-1 was an unmanned flying bomb. It was, in effect, the first cruise missile. It was powered by a pulse-jet engine which gave it a characteristic burbling sound as it flew. Guidance was crude. V-1 s were simply launched in the direction of a target with an amount of fuel calculated to run out over the target. When the fuel ran out, the engine stopped and the missile fell silently onto its target and detonated its large conventional warhead. Later in the war, the large V-2 rockets, the first rocket-powered ballistic missiles, also began to fall on England. These fell silently onto their targets at supersonic speeds from sub-orbital heights and were impossible to defend against.] When the fuel was expended, the engine cut out and the bomb fell. They were sent over into England. As long as we could hear the buzz bombs coming over, it was okay. But if we heard the motor tum off, look out. It was going to hit. 12