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Show i. -v. w , 1st. Lieut. Orson Dean Osborne L.'.eai. Orson Dean Osborne Is Home on Shari Furlough First Lt. Orson Dean Osborne, 21, has returned home from overseas over-seas duty, with an outstanding brilliant combat record to his credit. He is one of Spring City's War Heroes to return home. ; Lt. Osborne is the proud possessor pos-sessor of the Distinguished r lying ly-ing Cross and the Air Medal with seven oak leaf clusters. He has accomplished fifty combat missions and has destroyed de-stroyed three enemy planes. He felt he was extremely lucky that neither he or his plane was hit by the enemy. .On more than one occasion after completing a mission mis-sion he walked around his plane expecting to find it full of holes. In his A. A. F. P-38 he has flown over Italy, Austria, Bulgaria, Bul-garia, Hungary, Greece, Yugoslavia, Yugo-slavia, France, Romania, Albania Al-bania and Germany. Four of these missions were bombing missions for him, instead of the usual fighter escort. The first two missions he, was on wer,p dive bombing. His first victory a ME 109 was scored over Udine, Italy, January 30, 1944. His top thrill was an aerial scrap over Lagreb, Yugoslavia, March 26, 1944 in which he shot down his second ME 109. Over Budapest April 13, on filed day for his flight his machine ma-chine gun and cannon fire scored and knocked down his third enemy ME 109. He has to his credit 233 combat com-bat hours. His sixth mission from Southern Italy to Vienna, Austria was his longest mission, taking six hours and forty-five minutes for the trip. When asked how fast he had flown he smilingly smil-ingly answered "650 miles an hour." The young flier has flown 46,000 miles on missions, 8,000 miles non missions, totaling 54,-600 54,-600 miles he has flown in his ten months overseas. He remarked that to him the most beautiful sight he saw while there was the city of Venice Ven-ice which looked like an Island City built on stilts. Another beautiful sight seen from the air at 25,000 feet was the Danube flowing through the valleys. The Italian people treated the American fliers well, and to these young air men they seemed to have plenty of money, but clothing cloth-ing esoecially was scarce and difficult to buy. They paid from ten to fifteen dollars for a pair of old shoes. The young fliers had to pay fifteen cents each for fresh eggs. Lt. Osborne highly praised the work of the Red Cross, being on the job quickly and caoable in caring for the wounded. Immediately Im-mediately upon returning from each mission they were met by the Red Cross with doughnuts and hot coffee. In towns or cities the Red Cross had clubs for them, with snack bars, reading, writing and recreation rooms. At the Army Special Service were movies every night which were changed three times weekly. Out to the air field were movies three times weekly, also frequent U. S. O. entertainments. Of the latter the Italians presented much of the entertainment. Lt. Osborne is the son of Mr. . and Mrs. Pratt Osborne, and the husband of Mrs. Dona Rae All-red All-red Osborne, all of Spring City. |