MEAT HOUND

Staff Sgt. Frank T. Lusic served as a waist gunner for the Eighth Air Force’s “Meat Hound” — a B-17 Flying Fortress assigned to the 423rd Bomb Squadron, 30th Bomb group. In early 1943, he was re-assigned to the 358th Bomb Squadron, 303rd Bomb group in the RAF Molesworth in England.

On it’s 25th mission in January 1944, Meat Hound took fire from an enemy aircraft over Durgerdam. her crew bailed out over Ijsselmeer lake in Holland— the largest lake in Western Europe. The pilot, Jack Wilson, kept her in the air as long he could and flew her all the way to a field in Suffolk where he crash landed. Meat Hound was no more. 

Four crew members drowned upon landing in the Lake— The co-pilot, Clayton David, evaded capture while four of the other crew became German POWS. Among the four was Staff Sgt. Frank Lusic— he was sent to Stalag 7A where he was imprisoned with 8,209 other Americans for a little more than a year and a half.