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2nd Lt Vance R. Colvin graduated from Emporia High School in 1936 and worked with his father on the family farm.

Just before the target no. 3 engine was hit and had to be feathered. After dropping the bombs, the no. 2 engine was hit by a 20mm shell and started blazing. The crew somehow mamaged to put out the fire. Due to the power loss, the plane lost 8000 feet altitude but was keeping up with the formation above it, which provided an overhead protection against German fighters.

Co-pilot Clayton C. David recalled this mission very clearly: "On return, entering the airspace over Holland, low clouds were obscuring the ground. We only saw a few friendly fighters during this mission. Our navigator John Leverton reported that we were east of Amsterdam over the Zuiderzee, when a new attack of German fighters came. Our no. 2 engine started blazing again. The engine nacelle was burning so fiercely that Watson was afraid that the heat would reach the gas tanks. Watson gave the bail out order and rang the bell to abandon the burning plane. It appeared to be the only logical thing to do before the gas tank might blow up and set our plane in a spin as we had seen so many others to do that day. When I went out of my seat to prepare for the bail out, our bombardier Vance R. Colvin had not jumped out yet. I asked him "Are you ok or have you been shot?". He assured me, he was all right and he said he would jump after me. After the crew left, Jack Watson still was at the controls of his burning plane. He realized that he already was over the water of the North Sea. Bail out into the ice-water beneath him, most probably would mean a certain death so he decided to take the daring risk to try to fly the crippled burning plane back to England. Reaching England, he spotted an airfield, the U.S.A.A.F. fighter base Metfield and crash-landed the still burning plane over there."
Note: Vance R. Colvin had a neck wound and he did not wear a life belt. His body was recovered by Jaap van Vuure and Vicar Roest who had seen a parachute come down in the Kinselmeer. When they reached the parachute they found Vance R. Colvin's body, who had drowned. They brought it ashore where it was taken care of by the Germans.

Lt Colvin was initially buried at the Oosterbegraafplaats of Amsterdam on 17 January 1944.

Four crew members bailed out and were taken prisoner, four drowned. The pilot survived the crash landing.

Lt Colvin is remembered at Maplewood Memorial Lawn Cemetery in Emporia, Lyon County, Kansas, with a memorial marker.