MACR List : MACR list added for about 170 aircraft.

Mission List : Mission Data (Aircraft Scheduled, Aircraft Sent and Duration) was added.

Missions Page : Added a Mission Page to provide a lead into the Mission Lists and Memorable Missions pages (e.g. D-Day, Poltava, etc.) For now page place holders identify where detailed text about these missions will be added.

Aircraft Page : Added an Aircraft Page to provide a lead into the Aircraft Lists and Memorable Aircraft pages (e.g. Big Red, Jamaca Ginger, etc.) For now page place holders identify where detailed text about these aircraft will be added.

List Pages : Data for three entities (aircraft, crew, and mission) has been collected and organized in Excel spreadsheets. For these entities a "complete" list has been established but with many details missing. The details will be added as time goes by.

The list html pages (where this information is displayed) have been given a new layout as seen in the Mock up. Each list is divided into pages of 50 lines with navigation links at the bottom to view all pages. A page number is displayed at the top and a column has been assigned links to the more detailed information. These pages are sorted by one particular column. In future there will be a means to sort the pages by any column (for aircraft this would mean that the list could be sorted by serial number, squadron, fate, mission count etc.)

These html pages are created by software using Excel data files and then stored on the server. When the data files are updated, it is a trivial task (60 seconds) for me to recreate new html pages and push them out to the server. The real server will create these pages on the fly as they are requested

Sortie Data : Sortie data has been collected for about 20 missions. The main portion of this data are the planes that flew the mission, their location in the group formations and their fate for that mission. This data is primarily gleaned from formation drawings and aircraft lists from mission files at the National Archives (NARA). With a couple of more trips to the NARA I hope to have Sortie data for all of the missions.

The sortie data will be used to create the formation charts like the one shown at the bottom of the Mission Detail in the mockup. These formation charts will graphically depict plane location in what formation and identify those planes lost to flak, fighters or whatever. Also the sortie data will be presented in tabular form for both the Airplane detail page and the Crew detail plane

Support : Since the Mock up has been up I have received great support from a variety of people. Jan Pack has provided the data for the aircraft list and crew list. Bob Simmons has provided invaluable data on a CD that helped with the aircraft list and a whole slew of other documents. Heather McCauley has provided extensive data which I will be sorting through shortly.

Many others have offered to help and I certainly appreciate that. At the moment it is challenging to come up with ways that we work together on this. I certainly appreciate the comments and support from all of you who have taken the time to write or talk with me. It keeps me going.

Upcoming : I would like to add more data to the aircraft, crew and mission lists. Also I want to get a Mission Detail page underway that contains mission description, sortie tables, group formation chart. An obvious goal is to have enough meat on the bones by the time of the reunion so that this project can be presented in a meaningful manner. .

Mock Up : A mock up of the website was created to provide information and display page ideas. The mock up contains simulated data with links among pages to demonstrate the types of navigation envisioned.

Data Model : A data model has been started which identifies the data that will be loaded onto the database. The data model has entities (tables) for such things as aircraft, crews, crew members, missions, sorties, targets etc. For each of these entities the relevant data is identified (an aircraft will have a serial number, a squadron, a number of missions, a start date, an end date, a fate, possible a MACR etc. With these defined the process of collecting the data can begin.

If you have any questions or comments regarding the project or would like to volunteer to help as a data collector please contact us at

rlhengg@comcast.net