S/Sgt Frank N. Schaeffer was Engineer/Top Turret Gunner on B-24 "My Peach", Serial 42-100415. On a mission to bomb the La Perthe airfield in France on 8 August 1944, he bailed out of the burning plane and landed near Orbais-L'Abbaye (Marne Department), France. French patriots and underground members helped him evade capture by the Germans until Gen. Patton's 3rd Army liberated the village of Orbais-L'Abbaye on 28 August 1944. Frank was interviewed in Paris on 2 September 1944 and flown to England the next day where he was again interrogated by US Intelligence. Frank was back in the United States on 18 October 1944. After a furlough at home, he found himself with other veterans at Keesler Airfield, near Biloxi, Mississippi. Feeling unneeded, with any specific assignment, Frank and some of his buddies asked the Commanding Officer to be allowed to volunteer for another try at combat duty. This was recognized and Frank, like the others who had been engineers, were sent to Ford's Willow Run factory school for refresher courses. In August 1945, he arrived at Laredo Army Airfield in Texas for other refresher courses, this time in aerial gunnery. The war over, he was transferred the same month to Sheppard Field, Texas, where he was based until his discharge on 29 November 1945. Frank was a member of the Air Forces Escape & Evasion Society (AFEES), as well as of the 8th Air Force Historical Society (8thAFHS) and faithfully attended many reunions of those organizations.