AWARDED DFC: 1
CONFLICT/SPACE FLIGHT/EVENT:  -
MODEL:  -

Citation:  1.) The AWARD OF THE DISTINGUISHED FLYING CROSS To 2nd Lt. Palmer Bruland When 2nd Lt. Palmer Bruland's B-24 bomber was shot down in 1944, he remembers he awoke to the drone of American bombers flying over the German village where he was being held prisoner. It game him a new perspective on the war. Suddenly, I thought all those German villagers seeing these planes going overhead every day it took two hours for all of them to pass and I wondered how they felt. He was flying his bomber dubbed Q for Queenie, because it ha a Q painted on the tail for identification to its target when a group of German Focke-Wolfe 190 fighters attacked. Two of the four engines on his plane were shot out and the oxygen tanks that allowed the crew to breathe at high altitudes were hit, so he had to drop out of formation and descend to a level at which he could breath. But the extra oxygen in the air allowed the plane to catch fire. Then I gave the order to bail out, he said. After waiting to make sure the entire crew of nine others had escaped, Bruland bailed out in a parachute made for a shorter crewmember who apparently had made off with Bruland's in the confusion. Boy, I hit the ground hard with that smaller chute, he said But hew was glad to ht the ground at all while he dangled defenselessly from his parachute a German fighter squared off and flew at him, apparently attacking. I figured, well, this is it it's allover, he said At the last minute, however the German dipped his wing and flew to the side of the young pilot. Then he came back around and gave me the thumbs up sign, just to say I Gotcha! Bruland was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross as a result of that flight and for his exemplary conduct throughout the crisis.