Major Willis "Bill" M. Huebner

Major Bill Huebner served with the 9th BD, 9th AF, 394th Group, 584th (M) Squadron, Station A-74, in Cambrai, France as a B-26 pilot.

"MRC Plane 4334231" is Maj Huebner's crash report from 27 December 1944 at 1650 hours. He was forced to belly land the "Firebird" aircraft number 4334231 due to flack damage to the hydraulics of his nose gear, complete with photos at the bottom. The landing was successful and no one on his crew was injured. He received the distinguished flying cross for this, and the manual landing gear mechanism had to be reassessed and improved on the planes after this incident due to the cable breaking.

Bill Huebner was from Strawberry Point, Iowa and passed away in 1981 of heart failure at age 58. He had rheumatic fever as a child and resultant enlarged heart and loud murmur which made physicians tell him he would never see age 40. He was kept from playing sports as well, so there apparently was some "creative magic" used to pass his physical for flight training.

When Bill returned home, he had achieved the rank of Major.