Preparing for the 100th mission party for the 467th Bomb Group at Rackheath in 1944, Phyllis, serving with the American Red Cross at Rackheath, and her fellow helpers found they had no way of freezing the ice cream made from carious substitute ingredients, including dried milk.

Fred Jansen, a Canadian pilot of ‘Witchcraft’, the only B-24, which thanks to an excellent ground crew, completed all her missions without turning back, says Mrs. Smales, was ordered to lad the ice cream in it’s bomb bay and fly to 18,000 ft for an hour.

“The ice cream froze, and so almost did the crew!” Recalls Mrs. Smales of Swan Cottage, Stoley Road. “There was no heating in those days of flying, and is was a standing joke among air crew that the B-24 was designed not to leave the ground.

“Fred, who was a good friend, flew ‘Witchcraft’ on her last 11 bombing raids, and finally back to the states where she was broken up. Another trip he made in 1944 was to Scotland to pick up crates of whiskey. When crews were flying three missions a day to Germany, they became exhausted, and Fred told us they were given whiskey on their return to make them sleep, and Benzedrine in the mornings to keep them awake!”