Haynes Baumgardner served as a B-24 pilot in the 491st Bomb Group. He flew a supply mission on Sept. 18, 1944 in support of Operation Market Garden. After dropping a load of supplies from tree top level to troops on the ground, his group headed home. When the plane in front of him, piloted by Captain Kerwin Hunter, started to gain altitude it was shot down and crashed near Udenhout, Holland. From that point on, to avoid anti-aircraft fire, Baumgardner flew out of Holland "below dike level”, as he put it to his nephew much later in life.