The 100th Bomb Group—famous throughout and far and near as the Bloody Hundredth—acquired a place of honor and tragedy in the history of World War II. They weren’t the quickest, nor the most dazzling, but where they lacked glory, they compensated in grit. These were the men who took off from Thorpe Abbotts, England, into danger-crammed skies, motivated by duty and bound together by sheer bravery. Their legend was not written in statistics; it was formed in flames, fear, and the unspoken defiance of crews who refused to surrender.
Their saga started in 1942 at Walla Walla Army Air Base in the state of Washington, where the transition from training to battle was far from smooth. Confusion, miscommunication, and overconfidence routinely transformed mundane drills into pandemonium. A disastrous navigation exercise scattered aircraft all over the western United States—some landing as far away as Las Vegas, and one landing as far away as Tennessee, all in the pursuit of love.
Their initial commander, Colonel Darr H. Alkire, recognized potential as well as the hard path that lay before them. When discipline slackened, Colonel Howard M. Turner took charge, stern and unyielding, intent on making the men a battle-ready fighting force for war in Europe.
By mid-1943, the squadron had made the crossing to England and was part of the great Eighth Air Force’s daylight precision bombing campaign. The mission was easy on paper—destroy Germany’s industrial backbone—but the experience proved a horror. Early missions were flown without long-range fighter escort, leaving the B-17 Flying Fortresses open to unremitting flak and pouring enemy fighters. Losses were severe, and survival was not assured.
Their baptism of fire was over Bremen, where three aircraft and thirty men were lost on their first mission. One of those who kept the group together was Operations Officer John “Bucky” Egan and Captain Gale “Buck” Cleven—two men whose humor and spirit kept morale afloat even when the situation was desperate. The series of mishaps that befell the group gave them a “jinxed” label, which stuck with them during the war and, paradoxically, made them legendary.
Their most notorious trial was on August 17, 1943, at the Regensburg Raid. Flying in what had become grimly known as the “Purple Heart Corner,” nineteen of their twenty-two aircraft were shot down. It was a slaughter, the largest loss of any squadron that day. Survivors reported seeing the sky filled with comrades falling, but they handled it the only way they knew how—through black humor and stubborn courage that teetered on madness.
Then there was October 1943—”Black Week.” On October 10, thirteen bombers departed on the raid over Münster. Just one returned. That survivor was Royal Flush, flown by Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal. A lawyer from New York who had become a bomber pilot, Rosenthal flew fifty-two times through flames, flak, and fear, surviving crashes and becoming one of the 100th’s true heroes.
The stress on the crews was enormous. Nerves were worn thin. Fatigue got its toll. Men started being sent to “flak houses” by the Air Force for rest after especially nasty missions. Commanders like Colonel Neil “Chick” Harding knew that it took something more than discipline to win the war—it took mental toughness. Camaraderie of friendship, laughter in freezing cabins shared among peers, and brief seconds of joy became the mortar that held these men intact.
Although some considered the 100th unlucky or cursed, their fame ensured they could not be forgotten. The missions that had almost annihilated them—Regensburg, Schweinfurt, Münster—had already given them immortality. Their tale was one of characters as daring as their raids: the intrepid “Bucks,” the uncompromising navigator Harry Crosby, who once vetoed bombing Beethoven’s hometown, and many more whose heroism shone brighter than hopelessness.
By the end of the war, the 100th had flown 306 missions and lost 757 men. They bombed Berlin, supported the landings on D-Day, and endured the Battle of the Bulge. Their influence reached far beyond the statistics; it endured in the memories of survivors such as Capt. John “Lucky” Luckadoo and Lt. Jim Rasmussen, who took their brothers’ histories into the decades to come.
The Bloody Hundredth’s legacy is a reminder to all of what regular men can withstand when asked to do the extraordinary. They are seen in their bravery, good humor, and unbreakable will that still resonates through the ages—testimony that even in the bleakest of heavens, some opt to fly towards the light.