Robert John Hanson (May 25, 1920 – October 1, 2005) served on board the B-17 bomber aircraft the Memphis Belle during the Second World War. Early life Robert Hanson was born in Walla Walla, Washington state on May 25, 1920. He and his two brothers were placed in an orphanage following the death of his mother when he was young. His father was a road builder and regularly absent. An uncle took them out of the orphanage and raised them at Garfield, Washington. While there, Robert was a star at athletics at high school. His sporting prowess saw him win a baseball scholarship to university. However, Robert opted to go straight into work and became a construction worker in Spokane. From there Robert enlisted in the US Army in the summer of 1941. However, he determined not to become an infantryman after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and volunteered for radio training which saw his transfer to the US Army Air Forces. When training at Walla Walla, he was assigned to the Memphis Belle. Memphis Belle The crew flew the Memphis Belle to their wartime base in the United Kingdom in September 1942. From there they flew against targets in France and Nazi Germany between November 7, 1942, and May 17, 1943. The air raids amounted to 148 hours of flying and over 60 tonnes of bombs dropped. The first raid on November 7 was against the dockyard at Brest in France. The crew's other missions came approximately every 10 days attacking the ports of France, Belgium and Nazi Germany. Hanson carried a lucky rabbit's foot on their missions. The crew had some close shaves: on one occasion the tail of the aircraft was shot away. This happened on January 23, 1943, while attacking the submarine pens at Lorient in France. As Hanson related - The Memphis Belle made it back to base with 68 rips in the fabric of the fuselage. On another occasion Hanson sneezed while writing in his logbook. At that moment a bullet passed through the space previously occupied by his head, striking his logbook. He kept the book for the rest of his life. The first aircraft to complete at tour of 25 missions was the Hot Stuff, a B-24 Liberator bomber. However, it crashed into a mountain en route to the United States in bad weather. The Memphis Belle was selected to return