Kiel - 4 January 1944 - Mission #22

MISSION LOSS CIRCUMSTANCES: The best eye-witness account from another 392nd pilot’s report was that this ship was last seen at 1247 hours going down at position 54-48N 08-36E with (5) parachutes seen, altitude about 23,000 feet in complete 10/10ths cloud cover. A later post-war report given by the Pilot, Lt. Becker, generally confirmed this event. German fighter attacks in the target area, strengths not stated, were the primary cause of this crew’s loss.

INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTS OF CREWMEN FATES: A ‘Casualty Questionnaire’ provided by Pilot Becker after his return from POW status reported the following: The aircraft had just dropped bombs with the formation at the target when the fighter attacks heavily damaged the ship, and shortly thereafter, it caught on fire. The aircraft fire was extremely intense throughout the ship, and the bail out order was given with every crewmember abandoning the ship almost simultaneously as best recalled by the Pilot. He further noted that the aircraft caught on fire so quickly that he believed that perhaps (4) men did not have a chance to bail out. He noted further that he bailed out in Germany about (3) miles from the Denmark border and about (10) miles in from the North Sea. At the time the plane was heading westerly, but he believed it blew up before striking the ground. His report also noted that his plane was the first 392nd plane to go down of those lost at this target and thus the others possibly went down later into the North Sea, also. He and his other crewmen taken POW never saw any of the other aircrews of those ships in their captivity later. The German ground report concerning this ship’s downing, Report Al 33, Command Xl (EUSUM), cited the plane’s identification and crash at (6) kilometers east of Bredstedt (Holstein) with (3) bodies found in the crash remains. It further noted that (7) crewmen were taken as prisoners. (Author’s note: It is concluded that one of these POW crew members subsequently died due to unknown, unstated causes since the MACR reflects a total of (4) men as KIA from this aircrew).

BURIAL RECORDS: No enemy reports of crew member burials are on record. Only one crewman, Sgt. Ross, is interred in the U.S. National Cemetery of Ardennes in Grave B-l 9-17. He was awarded the Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster and a Purple Heart. No record of burial exists in this MACR on the other three crewmen in other overseas U.S. National Cemeteries.

NEXT OF KIN DATA IN WWII: The data available reflects the following. Becker (Mother, Emma Becker, Mckeesport, Pennsylvania); Roddy ( Mother, Verna Aeddy, Reseda, California); Feller (Sister, Leah kain, Brooklyn, New York); Vovos (Sister, Valerie Yginonis, Chicago, Illinois); Patterson (Wife, Mrs Henry C., Pulaski, Virginia); Williams (Wife, Doria Williams, Augusta, Georgia); Deal (Mother, Amy Deal, Durham, North Carolina); Ross (Mother, Inora Ross, Bluefield, West Virginia); Schilter (Father, John, Vesper, Wisconsin); and Miller (Mother, Christiana Miller, Council Bluffs, Iowa).

MISSION LOSS CIRCUMSTANCES: No specific 392nd crew eye-witness account is detailed concerning the loss of this aircrew and plane. A German Report, #KU623 of the mission date, 4 January, notes that this particular ship was found crashed in the North Sea at 1300 hours just off the small island of Langeness after having exploded in the air. Five dead crew members were located in this wreckage and the probable cause of the shoot-down was fighter aircraft. No other account exists on further circumstances of the crew’s loss.

INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTS OF CREWMEN FATES: From the 392nd published accounts in the "29th Centure Crusaders":

Shot down, presumed by German Navy flak, over the North Sea and crashed after explosions in midair off Langeness Island, southeast of Sylt Island, northwest Germany, about 75 miles northwest of Kiel. All 10 crewmen were KIA, nine bodies were recovered from the North Sea and buried in local cemeteries, then re-interred in the Ardennes American Military Cemetery after the war. The body of Sgt. Ambrose Pfeifer, waist gunner, was never found, and he is commemorated on The Wall of the Missing at the American Military Cemetery, Margaretten, Netherlands.

The nine crewmen recovered from the sea were: Raymond Lambert, pilot; Archie Haviland, copilot; Rudolph Kapp, navigator; Herbert Godfrey, bombardier; William Reese, flight engineer/top turret gunner; James Brown, radio operator; John Magee, ball turret gunner; William Tantum, waist gunner; and Walter Day, tail gunner.

BURIAL RECORDS: German Report #A133 from Air Command XI, dated 18 February 1944, noted the following crewmen whose bodies were found in the plane’s wreckage: Sgts. Day, Magee and Tantum; and Lts. Haviland and Godfrey. All (5) of these men were buried on 12 January 1944 at 1500 hours in the Nordmarschers Cemetery on the island of Langeness. No individual grave markers were cited. A separate report stated that the body of the Pilot, Lt. Lambert was found washed ashore on 7 January 1944 near land identified as Hallig Hooge. He was interred the next day, 8 January, in the Old Churchyard Cemetery of Pellworm in Grave #58. The total of the (6) crewmen thus found and buried initially were then subsequently interred in the U.S. National Cemeteries as follows: Lambert (ARDENNES, Grave D10-47); Godfrey (ARDENNES, Grave D-10-26); Tantum (ARDENNES, Grave number D6-3); Day (ARDENNES, Grave A-8-3); and one other crew member not identified prior in enemy records, Kapp, who is also buried in the ARDENNES Cemetery, Grave D-16-15.. At U.S. National Cemetery of the Netherlands (Margraten), Sgt. Pfeifer is listed on the WALL OF THE MISSING. No other record is available in this MACR on the whereabouts of Sgts. Brown and Reese in any reports, initially on the crew’s loss, or subsequently by U.S. authorities. Except for the German interment of Lt. Haviland, no U.S. Cemetery lists his name later for burial in an overseas National plot as is the same case for Sgt. Magee. Lambert, Kapp, Godfrey, Tantum, Pfeifer, and Day. All are recorded as having received an Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster and the Purple Heart. No records exist on a posthumous award for the remaining four members.

NEXT OF KIN DATA IN WWII: The information recorded is as follows: Lambert (Father, Napoleon of Lebanon, New Hampshire); Haviland (Father, Archie, Los Angeles, California); Kapp (Father, Valentine of New York, New York); Godfrey (Mother, Vera Godfrey, Winthrop, Massachusetts; Brown (Father, James, Norwalk, Connecticut); Reese (Mother, Clara Reese, Alpharetta, Georgia); Day (Mother, Elisabeth Day, Albany, New York); Tantum (Wife, Marjorie Tantum, Pennington, New Jersey); Pfeifer (Wife, Mrs Eleanor Pfeifer, Albany, Nevada) and Magee (Mother, Ellen Magee of Albany, New York). ID tags found on the bodies of Magee, Tantum, and Day also recorded the home Towns and States of these members, as recovered by the German reporting; while Haviland’s tag noted his home as Vallejo, California. (Author’s note: It is a question as to why the names of the two missing crewmen, Sgts. Brown and Reese, whose bodies were never found along with Sgt. Pfeifer’s, were never entered on the WALL OF THE MISSING in any overseas U.S. National Cemetery, as was the case for Sgt. Pfeifer).

MISSION LOSS CIRCUMSTANCES: Several eye-witness accounts of the returning 392nd aircrews reported several B-24H type ships going down, but no positive identification could be made on this specific plane or aircrew loss. The entire formation had come under intensive enemy fighter attacks and anti-aircraft fire. A number of aircraft picked up considerable battle damage, and it is known that some of the 392nd MIA aircraft were down in the North Sea, coast-out off the Danish peninsula, after the Kiel target attack. A 10/10ths cloud formation up to tops of 23,000 feet hampered all visual sightings. Since no enemy reports, or later Allied reports, about this aircrew were ever found, it is certain that the aircraft and crewmembers all perished in a ditching emergency at sea.

INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTS OF CREWMEMBER FATES: From the 392nd published accounts in the "29th Centure Crusaders":

It is believed that the B-24 went down in the target area. Since all of the crew are missing, it is likely that they perished either in the Baltic or North Sea on return. All are MIA and are commemorated on The Wall of the Missing at the American Military Cemetery, Madingley, near Cambridge, England.

BURIAL RECORDS: No enemy or later Allied reports are in existence on any crewmember. All (10) crewmen are listed on the WALL OF THE MISSING at the U.S. National Cemetery in CAMBRIDGE, England. All were awarded the Air Medal, and the Purple Heart.

NEXT OF KIN DATA IN WWII: This information of the record is as follows: Rigby (Father, Howard, of Fairview, Utah); Palmer (Wife, Geraldine Palmer, Chehalis, Washington); Wendorf (Sister, Ruth Wendorf, Milwaukee, Wisconsin); Dellitt (Sister, Virginia Dellitt, Dallas, Texas); Martell (Wife, Adrienne Martell, Akron, Ohio); Mihalso (Father, Michael of Whiting, Indiana); Zubay (Mother, Anna Zubay, Leechburg, Pennsylvania); Coudriet (Father, Fred of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania); Kaufman (Father, Jake of Kingman, Kansas); and Castiglione (Father, Salvatore, Buffalo, New York).

MISSION LOSS CIRCUMSTANCES: According to 1/Lt Page's Internee Report, "About a half-hour before we reached the target, the German fighters were on us. But they never touched us. We didn't have a hole in the plane. There was plenty of flak, too, especially over the target. But we weren't touched by it, either. I don't know what went wrong, but about ten seconds after we'd dropped our bombs on the target, I lost all four engines. They would come in for about five minutes, and then go out again. One engine finally came in and seemed to run steadily. We lost a lot of altitude immediately, I should judge about 3,000 feet. As I had only one engine now that wasn't cutting out, I knew I'd never make it home. At first I started for England, but the navigator said he knew generally where Sweden was, although he had no maps of that section. So I swung the plane round and followed the navigator's directions, staying in the clouds all the time to avoid the fighters we knew were around. When we were over the Baltic, we threw the bombsight overboard, along with all our papers and the IFF, as well as everything else to lighten the ship. We crash-landed in a plowed field at Skona, near Simrishamn. The nose wheel broke when we hit, and our B-24 stood on her nose. No one was injured, but the tail gunner's fingers were badly frost-bitten. As we hadn't received any orders to destroy the plane in that sort of situation, we made no attempt to do so."

INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTS OF CREWMEN FATES: According to his Internee Report, Sgt Axvig's fingers were badly frozen and he was in a Swedish hospital for seven days. He was returned to the UK on 25 September 1944. 1/Lt Page returned to the UK on 1 April 1944, via Stockholm. All crewmembers survived this mission. And, later - all were repatriated into Allied control and were shortly ‘returned to duty’ with the 392nd with the exception of the Bombardier, Lt. Pettigrew, who was evacuated to the U.S.A. for reasons not given. Lt. Page and others of this crew went back to flying combat missions in the Group. (Note: Pilot Page and his later crew diverted again to Sweden after extensive battle damage from the Politz mission of 20 June 1944, the details of which are set forth subsequently in MACR #6156).

BURIAL RECORDS: There were no casualties on this aircrew for this mission.

NEXT OF KIN DATA IN WWII: The record does not reflect any such information with the exception of the emergency-change-of-address given for Sgt. Quaglione of 14 April 1944 which noted his Mother’s address, Mrs Willie C. Quaglione, to be 169 Saint Paul’s Avenue, Tumpkinsville, Staten Island, New York. Sgt Axvig's home was given as Milton, North Dakota.

MISSION LOSS CIRCUMSTANCES: No specific eye-witness accounts were given on the loss of this aircraft and crew. The accompanying German reports in the MACR record give what facts are available: These enemy recaps contained in report #KU621 (headquarters at EUSUM) note that this plane crashed at 1255 hours (15) kilometers north of Eusum; and was identified as a B-24 with a capital letter "D" underneath a number 252083 in yellow writing and below a yellow H-Bar in capital letters within a yellow line horizontally; that the ship was 100% destroyed, probably by a fighter, and (10) crewmen were found dead with (5) of these identified as ‘unknowns’. Another exact location of this crashed ship was: 8 kilometers north of Bredstedt on the Danish peninsula.

INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTS OF CREWMEN FATES: Shot down by German fighters and crashed near Doerpum, 5 miles north of Bredstedt, Germany, about 58 miles northwest of Kiel. All 10 crewmen were KIA and buried near the farm Erholung along the road from Bredstedt to Lutjenholm. All were re-interred in the Ardennes American Military Cemetery after the war.

BURIAL RECORDS: The enemy report of 8 January 1944 at 1545 hours, #A-LFHZ 50 1/8, to Headquarters Air District Xl in Hamburg, Germany noted that these (10) crewmen casualties were buried in a cemetery at Farm Erholung, Road Bredstedt in the Community of Bredstedt, Map Leaf 1, Plot 9. The (5) men positively identified were: Lt Lassey and Sgts. Hay, Buchert, Griffin and Surls. (Author’s note: It is interesting to note that (4) of the ‘unknown’ crewmen cited in the German burial report were subsequently identified by U.S. authorities as these men rest in specific grave plots in U.S. National Cemeteries overseas). U.S. interments in overseas National Cemeteries are recorded as follows: Hull in the Netherlands (Margraten) location, Grave M-20-10; Durrance in the U.S. ARDENNES Cemetery, Grave A-11 -14; Coleman in the ARDENNES, Grave C-16-16; Johnson, also in the ARDENNES location, Grave C-20-2l; and Griffin, Grave A-13-9 in the ARDENNES National cemetery. No other reports exist on the subsequent re-interment of the other (5) crewmen in any U.S. National Overseas Cemetery, if such re-burial was ever accomplished elsewhere in the case of these men from their initial burial site in Germany. The German burials took place on 6 January 1944 by the enemy reports. For the crew members now interred in the overseas National Cemeteries, it is noted that medal awards were as follows;: Hull (Air Medal); Durrance (Air Medal); Coleman (Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster); Johnson (Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster; and Griffin (Air Medal), and all awarded the Purple Heart. Purple Heart awards for the remaining crewmen are not recorded, if such were ever made.

NEXT OF KIN DATA IN WWII: Hull (Wife, Mrs Robert L. Hull, Alvarado, Texas); Durrance (Wife, Mrs Edward of Bartow, Florida); Coleman (Wife, Mrs Vincent, Providence, Rhode Island); Lassey (Wife, Mrs John E., Brooklyn, New York); Vasques (Grandmother, Mrs. Rafaela V. Vasques % Dolores Prieto, Los Angeles, California); Surls (Mother, Ora B. Surls, Ferington, Kansas); Hay (Wife, Mrs. William R. of Biloxi, Mississippi); Buchert (Mother, Mrs Eilda Buchert, Cincinnati, Ohio); Griffin (Mother, Mrs Margaret Griffin, Malone, New York); and Johnson (Mother, Mrs. Maita Johnson of Morrill, Nebraska).

On Jan. 4, 1994, a monument to the Waugh crew was placed in the All Saints Churchyard in Upper Sherringham. It says, "Remember before God with thanksgiving the gallant crew of B24H "Alfred" of the 392nd BG, USAAF which crashed near this spot on 4th January 1944 whilst returning badly damaged from a mission to Kiel. In gratitude also to those who aided the survivors in the common cause of freedom." The memorial then names the ten men in the crew with a notation "KIA" next to the five casualties, and concludes simply, "Lest we forget." as the caption./