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Tech. Sgt. Kegin
Last of the 10 men who maned the "Superistious Aloysius" a B-17 Flying fortress is back safely to the United States after making fifty missions over Europe is Tech. Sgt. Francis "Buddy" Kegin, 20, son of Mrs. Opal Murray, 417 N. Division, who is spending a furlough here before reporting to a rest camp at Miami, Fla.
He hopes to be sent to an officer's training school after that, he said Saturday.
Sgt. Kegin has been awarded an air medal and nine Oak Leaf Clusters for his participation in the aerial warfare against the Nazis beginning with the invasion of Sicily.
He grew up at Perry, then moved to Guthrie, where he attended high school in 1942. On May 2 of that year he enlisted in the air corps, and received his training at the Spartan school at Tulsa, the gunners school at Windover Field, Utah and his flight training at Boise, Idaho, and Rapid City, S. D. He was sent overseas June 11, 1943 landing in Africa in time to take part in the bombing that prepared the way for the landing of troops on Sicily.
In December, he was sent to Italy, and from a base there the "Superstitious Aloysious" continued her trips over Italy, Greece, France, Africa, Hungary, Germany, Rumania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, striking hard at important factories in each of those countries.
I could tell some interesting things about the bombing of these places, but that might tell the enemy something they would like to know," he declared.
Although their Flying Fortress was damaged more or less on these missions, sometimes so badly that it had to be left behind for repairs while the crew used another, none of the men were injured except the bombardier who received two scratches on the back of his hand. Kegin was top turret gunner on the B-17.
One of the missions that stands out in his memory is the one on which the plane's engines started acting up just when they were right over their target. One engine went dead, another developed a "run away prop" and the third was not working right, leaving only one engine to carry on. All energies were bent toward putting as much distance between them and the anti-aircraft fire as possible while they tinkered with the engines, finally getting three of them to running again.
Besides visiting with his mother, his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Lyman Williams, and his aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. L. A. Fischer, Sgt. Kegin has been getting acquainted with his stepfather, Pfc. Forrest Murray whom he had never seen before. Pfc. Murray, who is stationed at Del Rio, Tex., came home on furlough to meet his new son, who is a veteran of 50 missions.
© Guthrie Daily Leader
April 2, 1944
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