Richard Monroe Ferguson Jr was from Attalla, Alabama, USA, he completed training as a member of Boeing B-17 crew number 7612, on August 23, 1944. His assignment (which one record has as being in November 1944) was as an armorer-gunner, which including assisting the bombardier and manning the nose turret



By his 34th mission, on April 7, 1945,he had been assigned to the chin turret.



His crew was sent to the Snetterton-Heath Areodrome in Thetford, home of the 96th Heavy Bomb Group and they were assigned to the 337th Squadron. The pilot was Norman Jones.

His first mission was on December 24, 1944, when 1,884 heavy bombers flew to support soldiers fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.



On February 18, 1945, his crew was to fly their 18th mission, but their plane was grounded because of flak damage and the loss of an engine over Munich rail yards – so the crew, that one time, flew the famous “5 Grand,” the 5,000th B-17 built by Boeing that was signed by every person who had a part in its construction. Part of Ferguson's diary entry for that day was “…neat camouflage and interesting reading!”



His crew’s last mission, #35, was on April 8, 1945, to bomb a tank factory in Grafenbourg.