B-24 (Bomber)

Scope and Contents The collection of the 460th Heavy Bombardment Group Society contains a unit history of this B-24 U.S. Army Air Corps Group, 55th Wing, 760th, 761st, 762nd, 763rd Squadrons and Group Headquarters, which served in the Italian Campaign. This collection primarily focuses on the memory of the war and those who served in the 460th. Included is a listing of the airmen who were held as prisoners of war, including their squadrons, positions on the plane (e.g. pilot, gunner), the date, mission, and what country or stalag in which they were held. Also included is a booklet, "Remembering the 460th Bomb Group (H)," which contains photographs, personnel lists, and maps, and was prepared as a...

Scope and Contents

This collection relates to the 484th Bombardment Group (Heavy) that was assigned to the 15th Air Force and based in Torretta, Italy as a component of the Foggia Airfield Complex during World War II and assigned B-24 Liberator heavy bombers.  The materials contained in this collection were subsequently assembled during the post-war period by the 484th Bombardment Group Association.  The collection contains official reports, data sheets, statistics, newspapers, Missing Air Crew Reports, personal histories, photographs, and unit histories.

Content Description

This collection relates to Nicholas Baldino who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps with the 5th and 11th Bomb Groups in the Pacific Theatre and his wife Jeanne Baldino. This collection contains an oral history transcript detailing Nicholas Baldino's military service and how Jeanne met Nicholas Baldino.

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This collection pertains to First Lieutenant Elwood Harry Fredrickson who served as a bombardier in the 743rd Bomb Squadron, 455th Bomb Group. The collection contains flight records, textbooks and notes from flight school, assignments from flight school, various documents regarding Fredrickson’s postings, personnel lists, volumes one and two of the 455th Bomb Group Journal, booklets on aviation and cadet life, various receipts, certificates and photographs.

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This collection contains the oral history interview of Lieutenant Colonel Everett Walker conducted by the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience. Walker was forced to bail out very near the target on his eighteenth mission as a bombardier and gunner on a B-24. He discusses his rescue from the water, his interrogation experience and the conditions of his internment. He also talks about the many different escape attempts made by the American POWs at Stalag Luft III.

Content Description

This collection relates to Stan Hall who served as a captain in the U.S. Air Force at the beginning of the Office of Strategic Services project where he completed tours in the European Theater (ETO). This collection contains various photographs and descriptions of Hall's service in World War II.

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This collection includes photographs and documents pertaining to aerial operations over Europe during World War II. Lt. Herman Simler flew over 30 bombing missions over Europe during his service. The squadrons specified in this collection are the 8th Army Air Force, the 15th Army Air Force, and the 716th-719th bomber squadrons.

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The Edwin Ivy papers illustrate 2nd Lieutenant Ivy's service in the Army Air Corps in the 485th Heavy Bombardment Group, 831st Squadron, from 1942-1945 in Italy, France, and Austria where he was shot down and became a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft III. Ivy's oral history encompasses the majority of his collection and provides detail of his military training, time spent in the Army Air Corps, as a prisoner of war, and being discharged. His papers also include the first chapter of Old Man in a Baseball Cap by Fred Rochlin. The chapter describes the significance of remembering the past and passing down experiences to others.

Scope and Contents This collection relates to John C. Henning who served in the Eighth Air Force, Second Air Division, 14th Combat Wing, 392nd Heavy Bombardment Group, 578th Squadron at Station #18 at Wendling, England during World War II. The collection contains privately published statistics for the 392nd Heavy Bombardment Group. The collection contains basic statistics for the 392nd Heavy Bombardment Group, diagrams of take-off patterns, a diagram of flight formations, a list of crew with their basic backgrounds and a description of their adjustment to each other, a list of missions followed by details of each into Germany from England [Ingolstadt, Pforzheim, Swinemunde, Gutersloh, Zossen...

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This collection relates to John Eugene Zemanek who served as a bombardier on a B-24 with the 455th Bombardment Group in Italy during World War II. The collection contains a typed account of the events of April 25, 1945, Zemanek's last bombing mission, and annotated photocopies of pages from Stephen Ambrose's The Wild Blue.

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Kenneth H. Larson served as a colonel in the Army Air Forces during World War II. He attended technical school at the Ford Airplane School and the Army Air Force Technical School in Amarillo, Texas. Exercises, study guides, and manuals from his time in technical training are included in this collection, showing the work that students had to complete during this training.

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Alan May served as a gunner on a B-24 Bomber with the 451st Bomb Group during World War II in Italy and was shot down during a mission to Ploesti, Romania, and became a POW.  May was awarded the Purple Heart, Air Medals, 2 Presidential Unit Citations, and the Distinguished Flying Cross. Included in this collection is a footnoted manuscript diary of missions.

Content Description

This collection consists of photocopies of personnel records, official orders, and photographs related to the service of John E. Phillip Picket with the 13th Air Force, a tail gunner serving aboard a B-24 with the 307th Bomb Group of the 13th Army Air Force during World War II. There are official records documenting the number of missions Pickett and his crew undertook. Copies of a number of publications, including a history of the 13th Air Force in the Pacific, as well as summaries of each bombing mission that Pickett and his crew undertook in 1945, and several postwar reminiscences are included in the collection.

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The Raymond Wayne Davis papers are largely centered around letters Davis wrote to his sister Mildred Kingston Renwick throughout World War II. During the war, Sergeant Davis served as a machinist in the Strategic 3rd Air Depot of the Army Air Force as well as serving in the infantry as a part of the Third Army, 90th Division, 358th Infantry, Company C. Davis served in England, France, Germany, and Czechoslovakia. His papers also include postwar division newsletters, an oral history interview, a veteran's questionnaire, discharge certificate, and photographs.

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Robert H. Dodd was in the Army Air Force during World War II and served with the 459th Bombardment Group. His collection includes handwritten letters to his parents about his Air Force training in the USA and time overseas in Italy and North Africa. The collection also includes an oral history about his upbringing, time in Yugoslavia, Austria and Italy during the war and his retirement in Florida. Aerial photographs of Italian and Romanian cities and newspaper photocopies are also included.

Content Description

This collection relates to Leonard P. Schmitt who served in the Army Air Corps in North African and China-Burma-India (CBI) Theaters with the 436th Squadron, 7th Bomb Group during World War II. This collection contains a veterans questionnaire and bound manuscript titled "Life and Times of Leonard P. Schmitt Sr." which recounts his experiences during the war.

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Technical Sergeant Seth A. McKinney served as a flight engineer and a gunner on a B-24 Liberator stationed at Cerignola, Italy. He completed over 40 missions as a part of the 767th Bombardment Squadron, 461st Bombardment Group of the 15th Air Force.  This collection includes photographs, documents, and artifacts.

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This collection consists of an oral history and the three brief memoirs of Rolf Slen who served as a navigator with the 494th Bomb Squadron, 7th Air Force, in the Pacific Theater during World War II.

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This collection contains seven World War II U.S. Army Air Corps related photographs: 1) Line of parked P-51s at unidentified airfield, 2) Ladd Army Airfield, 3) P-39s taking off (photo from Bell Aircraft Corporation),4) P-51 "Buffalo Belle," 5) A C-47 Sky Train, 6) Cartoon of Japanese occupation of Kiska Harbor, 7) B-24 "My Baby" and crew: John C. Bechtel, Navigator; Robert A. Weiss, Pilot; R. C. Murphy, Co-Pilot; E. R. Michael, Bombardier; A. Centore, Ball Turret Gunner; L.J. Binghold, Radio Operator; W. M. Leighton, Nose Gunner and Assistant Engineer; J.W. Shupping, Top Turret Gunner; E. R. Herron--Tail Turret Gunner and Assistant Radio Operator; J. E. Williamson, Engineer.

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Thomas C. Cartwright served as the pilot of the B-24 bomber, Lonesome Lady, in the 494th Bombardment Group, 7th Air Force. His plane was shot down over Japan at the end of July 1945. Cartwright and one other member of the bomber crew were transported elsewhere, while the majority of the crew was interred in prison in Hiroshima, Japan. All those crewmen were killed when the US dropped the atomic bomb on that city.

The collection contains correspondence, articles, and testimonies related to the bombing of Hiroshima and discovering the fate of Cartwright's bomber crew.

Content Description

This collection relates to Colonel William G. Walker Jr., and his service in the Army and Army Air Force during World War II in the European/Pacific Theater of Operation. The collection consists of a manuscript he wrote for his grandchildren describes his experiences in the during the war years and includes some photos of himself and aircrafts. He shares a timeline of his time in World War II, starting with his enlistment and training as a pilot shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He also includes certain anecdotes of missions he carried out in Newfoundland and the Owi islands, including naming the specific aircrafts he used.

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This collection centers around a Corporal and Combat Radio Operator in the 310th Bombardment Wing, 528th Bomb Squadron, 380th Bomb Group, in the Southwest Pacific theatre of World War II. It includes handwritten radio messages, commendations, strike reports, a copy of the Filipino Press from May of 1945, and a Japanese newspaper. It also includes twenty-two aerial photographs of the Southeast Pacific, including Saigon, Indochina, Formosa, and Muong Man, Vietnam. It also includes two envelopes without letters, a Christmas card, and a modern day article from CNN.

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This collection relates to First Lieutenant Kay Arton Young who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II. This collection contains a biography written by his daughter Nalani Young Wight, photographs of Kay, and a veteran questionnaire.