The Eighth took appalling losses on these strikes—eighty-eight heavy bombers—and the Hundredth was decimated, losing almost 200 men, nearly half its airmen. On the day after Rosie Rosenthal’s crew returned alone from Münster—where in twelve minutes the Hundredth lost twelve of thirteen planes—five of the group’s original leaders, John Egan, Gale Cleven, Frank Murphy, Howard “Hambone” Hamilton, and John Brady, were in German stockades.
