I was his son-in-law.  While in college, I would ask him about his service, because of personal care and amateur historian. I asked Ed how many missions did he fly. Ed replied 37, with me being ignorantly unimpressed, until he exclaimed that they only had to fly 25.  I have learned that when he flew it was our earliest involvement causing them to fly, daylight raids without fighter cover.  This left the exposed to flak and enemy fighters.  Ed told me that one fighter buzzed plane so close that he saw the German pilot's face.  He exclaimed with a rueful smile that he would know him if he saw him on the street.  Ed went on to tell me many stories of planes flown back in tatters and crew, but they always had to be coaxed out of him.  After a valiant fight with cancer for several years, he passed away in 1995.

Drawn from the records of the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, Savannah, Georgia / www.388bg.info/Personnel.html