Lt. Fain H Pool flew the first classified Top Secret  “Aphrodite” mission on August 4, 1944, from Fersfield Air Base, England, and parachuted out of his B-17 at about 500 feet altitude.  It was the first mission using radio-controlled B-17s against missile launch sites in France, where the Germans were building intercontinental missile launch facilities.  The new missiles were called the V-3 and were designed to destroy New York City and Washington D.C., and other large cities on the East Coast of the United States.   July 1, 1944, ten pilots and ten autopilot technicians were selected from the various bomb groups of the 3rd Bomb Division of the 8th Air Force to volunteer to fly the ten aircraft which had been modified for the test.  Each aircraft had one pilot and one autopilot technician.  The two crewmembers had to enter and exit the aircraft through the navigator’s escape hatch, which was the only entrance which wasn’t sealed and locked.  The explosives were loaded in relatively small wooden boxes and wrapped in dynamite cord.    After takeoff the aircraft was climbed to 1,500 feet and radio contact was established with the mother ship.  The autopilot was engaged.  The elevator control would not operate properly until the baby descended to about 1,200 feet.  Sgt. Etherline bailed out at that altitude.  Lt. Pool put the aircraft into a dive using the autopilot and started the procedures of setting a timer, arming the load manually and electrically.  As a result of having to descent to get the elevator control to function Pool’s bailout was considerably lower than planned.   Pool’s drone made it all the way to the target, but when the mother control pilot tried to dive the baby into the target the elevator altitude control would not respond, so they circled the target and made another attempt.  As the baby approached the target for a second time, an anti aircraft battery shot it down short of the target.    None of the aircraft launched as flying bombs actually hit the target as it was designed to do, even though  they did destroy a lot of enemy anti-aircraft guns and personnel near the targets.