be a 'flying saucer.' Mantell was one of three Kentucky national guard officers sent to investigate a reported 'flying saucer' in the air near Fort Knox. The object was also reported visible at Hopkinsville, Ky., Nashville, Tenn., and other points in the two states. Mantell was flying a P-51 national guard plane, which witnesses said apparently exploded in the air and crashed near Franklin." Mantell was flying P-51D-20-NA Mustang 44-63869 10 January The troubled twin-engine French Arsenal VB 10 program stumbled when the second prototype, VB 10-02, caught fire over southern Paris. An uncommanded propeller pitch change over-revved the rear engine, destroying it and starting the fire. The pilot, Pierre Decroo, bailed out and survived with burns. 27 January USAF Douglas C-47B-25-DK Skytrain 44-76443 (c/n 32775/16027), carrying wives and children of American servicemen to Italy to join them, became lost in a snowstorm after departing Istres Air Base in southern France for Trieste. The pilot attempted to return to the airport, but winds carried it off course. The plane a mountain, killing all twelve aboard. 30 January A Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, searching for the Douglas C-47 which disappeared on 27 January in France, spotted the downed transport on the mountainside before it too crashed and burned. Only one member of the ten crew survived: Sgt. Angelo LaSalle of Des Moines, Iowa. He was aided by former Luftwaffe pilot Horst Kupski, a prisoner-of-war working for a French farmer, who loaned him clothing and helped him down the mountain. 31 January Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster BI TW902 of 115 Squadron, on a training flight from the Middle East, crashed just outside Istres Air Base in southern France. The Air Ministry announced that six of the 14 aboard were killed. 7 February "SAN DIEGO, Feb. 7 (AP) - Two Navy fliers were killed today when their torpedo bomber crashed and burned during amphibious maneuvers at San Clemente island, 55 miles west of here. The Navy identified the dead as Lt. Comdr. James A. Huser of Lemon Grove, California, the pilot, and Norman C. Benson, aviation radioman 1/c of Leavenworth, Kan. The plane, carrying live ammunition, was nearing the end of a bombing run on the island when it burst into flames and began to disintegrate." Four soldiers were killed and six injured when an Air Force Douglas C-47 Skytrain crashed into fog-shrouded Mount Page, two miles from Saluda, North Carolina. "HARRISON,