I am trying to piece together information for the crew that successfully ditched this aircraft into the North Sea on 29 March 1944 around 4pm. The pilot was 2Lt Edgar O. (or C. ?) Downing. A German JU-88 overflew them twice, about an hour apart, as the 10 man crew bobbed around in high waves in two 5 man life rafts. After it got dark, the crew began shooting up flares every half hour and they were eventually picked up by a German boat 28 nautical miles W-NW on 300 degree radial from Ijmuiden, Netherlands. The plane was on a bombardment mission to Brunswick, Germany (AKA Braunschweig). A plane above them may have dropped a bomb that took out their #4 engine. I believe they were unable to feather it - but it did stop windmilling. They tried to drop their bombs, but they wouldn't fall out. Their "toggleer" (bombardier) went back to manually drop the bombs. When the pilot pushed the switch, "everything fell out" (except the toggleer). Then they couldn't get the bomb bay doors to close again. The were falling out of formation when a German fighter went by and shot out the #1 (?) engine. They went down low to perhaps 6,000 to 8,000 feet. (Scattered cloud tops around 5,000 feet ?). Heading for home, but unable to keep up with the formation - a witness aircraft from the 423rd squadron reported their last sight of them at ____ 0715, while still about "30 minutes" from the ZuiderZee (a big shallow inland lake near Amsterdam). They then encountered lots of flak, but the pilot was doing a good job of avoiding it. Then they lost another engine... and were limping along on one engine & unable to feather some (or all?) of the inoperative engines. (I wonder if they ever got the bomb bay doors to close?) All that drag, the airplane was heading down. The flew west past the Zuider Zee and were about 24 miles beyond the coast of the North Sea. The pilot gave the crew the choice of trying to limp 80nm or 90nm more to back to the English coast, and about 150nm to 160nm (probably an hour) back to Bassingbourn, with a probably fatal crash if they lost the one remaining engine... OR... risk a controlled ditching with the one operative engine into the North Sea during daylight hours (around 4pm).They opted to ditch. Eight of the crew members were in the radio room sitting on the floor facing to the rear. Curt had his back to the wall with knees drawn up and hands holding knees against chest, with 2 or 3 boys in front against him. (The way they were trained.) The plane hit the water 2 times. The first one wasn't too bad, but the second hit was a S.O.B.. When Curt came to there were bodies, arms, legs, and water. Standing up, there was "no floor". The top hatch was open and Curt held onto that with one hand and let the others step in his [cupped] other hand so they could get out. He was the last one out and wasn't able to lift himself out, so the others helped pull Curt out. They got into the two 5 man dingies and were a little away from the plane when it took it's final dive around 4pm.They were picked up The pilot of this aircraft was 2Lt Edgar Downing. The aircraft flew from AAF 121, Bassingbourn, near Cambridge, England. The aircraft was