On this episode of Our American Stories, in March 1944, Lt. Bill Owen's crew wasn't supposed to make history. Flying one of the Eighth Air Force's secret radar-equipped Pathfinder B-17s, they pressed on toward Berlin after the rest of the bomber stream received a recall order. Through a remarkable twist of circumstance, their Flying Fortress became the first American Flying Fortress to bomb the heart of the Third Reich during WWII.

John O'Neil, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, shares the extraordinary story as first told by his father, John J. O'Neil Jr., the tail and waist gunner aboard that historic mission.

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