Readable family-history stories from the Bob Cary research project, with uncertainty kept visible where the evidence is still incomplete.
These stories can carry emotion and context, but family-memory details and unresolved record questions remain clearly labeled.
A USAF acquisition case-study style story about the B-26's urgent wartime requirement, no-prototype production path, requirements growth, early safety crisis, and recovery.
Key caveat: this is general B-26 context, not proof of Bob Cary's individual aircraft or missions.
Read storyA first-person composite target-run story grounded in B-26 crew experience: takeoff, formation, Norden bomb run, flak, bombs away, breakaway, and return.
Key caveat: this is not Bob Cary's diary, testimony, or invented personal memory.
Read storyA whole-life story about Bob Cary's path from Decatur through wartime B-26 service, Mary, dental school, Hastings, the farm, and family life.
Key caveat: some postwar details are family-memory and Dan-provided family facts rather than public record citations.
Read storyA narrative centered on the 25 December 1944 Singen mission, the accidental bombing of Thayngen, and the later return of Hartwell Davis and Bob Cary for closure.
Key caveat: Bob's exact aircraft and role on Christmas Day remain unproven.
Read storyA campaign-focused story about B-26 training, replacement movement, and Cary's late-war mission pattern in the 444th Bomb Squadron.
Key caveat: the stateside route is historically plausible but still an assumed reconstruction.
Read storyA family-memory story about pulled bomb pins, a no-drop return, and a hope for a safe, soft landing in a B-26.
Key caveat: plausible, but not yet matched to a specific Cary mission.
Read storyA compressed public-facing version for introducing the project to family and friends.
Read postA family character sketch from Peggy Hodgson's devotional attachment about Bob's steadiness, faith-in-action, and life after the war.
Read storyFamily-conversation material points toward future stories about Bob and Mary's August 1945 move toward California and possible B-29 training, Bob's close-formation memories, the red-haired pilot who flew too close, the France school/chateau memories, and the question of how Bob-linked bridge and rail missions fit the Battle of the Bulge and later ground advances.
Research status last reviewed: 13 June 2026.