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Show Milford Bombardier Completes Combat Tour First Lieutenant Vernon C. Beard, son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Beard, returned home Tuesday evening following completion of his tour of combat missions over Germany and GermanKccupied territory. He had spent a day j visiting with relatives in Salt Lake City, after checking in at Fort i Douguas. Unfortunately!, he ar-' rived in this country a few days ' too late to contact his only bro- j ther, Harold, before the latted left for overseas duty, probably in England. . Lieutenant Beard enlisted in the : army air corps in May, 1942 and j received his wings as a (bombardier : and commission as a second lieu-! tenant Mlay 29, 1943, at Roswell.i New Mexico. He received further; training in Texas, Washington and i Florida before going overseas in , late December, that year. First assigned to the Mediterranean Mediter-ranean theatre of operations, after a flight crossing of the Atlantic by way of Brazil, he flew 19 missions from bases in Italy before being transferred to the Eighth air force, where he flew 19 more missions mis-sions to complete his tour. He was promoted to first lieutenant May 30, this yefar. He has been awarded the air medal with oak. leaf clusters and the distinguished flying cross. While on an early flight from his base in Italy, the weather closed in on his plane to such an extent that they lost their bearings bear-ings and they were forced to "ditch" into the Mediterranean. Luckily, they were off-shore from a British-occupied part of the "heel" of the Italian boot and they were rescued without casualties. Some of his flights from the English Eng-lish base took him across Germany to the border of old Poland. Following a 21 -day leave to be spent with home folks, he will go to the Santa Monica, California air forces redistribution center for a thorough checkup and reassign-! ment. j |
