We were coming out of England when we encountered some very bad turbulence. We suddenly dropped 3000 feet straight down and then a up-draft caught us, took us straight back up and flipped us over on our back. (Just prior to that I had checked the cargo bay to make sure things were tied down which they were).

The pilot then rolled the plane out. Just before that my seat had slammed up. Under the engineers seat there was an escape hatch that had fallen off. As we were on our back I was looking_UP_through the escape hatch and saw clouds. I hadn't had time to get my seat belts on. The way the pilot rolled it out, my seat slammed down and I hit it, otherwise I would have went right through the floor and out the escape hatch.

It knocked all the radios out. We limped on back into Germany and landed at Rhein Main. On landing, we discovered all the rudder cables were almost cut in half by the loading ramps that had broken loose. Everything in the cargo bay was torn loose. Both wings were buckled..

I had a new Samsonite Two Suiter bag that was totally destroyed.

The next morning the whole crew went over to the Flight Surgeon to ckeck in to make sure everyting was alright. He looked at us and said "what are you guys in here for?". Lt.Colonel Kennings said:"we're the crew that looped the plane yesterday". The Flight surgeon said: "OH!!then you guys are GHOSTS".

They took the plane to base shops and beefed it up somehow. Base shops took care of everything. They replaced the skin on the wings where it was wrinkled.

The plane was out of commission for three months. I was discharged out at Moses Lake Washington

SSgt. Onie Finley





Told to me at the 1998 reunion.