PERSONNEL:

PERSONS WHO ARE BELIEVED TO HAVE LAST KNOWLEDGE OF AIRCRAFT

PERSONNEL WHO ARE BELIEVED TO HAVE SURVIVED

EYEWITNESS DESCRIPTIONS OF CRASH

B-17 A/C #089 blew up over secondary target, Beaumont Airdrome.  (Maj. Cleven)

Both the Forts were afire when I saw them first.  The one underneath (#089) lurched up and hit the upper one (#059) as if the pilot were wounded or had lost control.  Then it fell away, and I saw the bombs from the upper plane go down on the lower one.  Then they both vanished into fragments.  (2nd Lt. Curtice)

Ship 089 hit the tail section of 059 with its right wing.  059 dropped serveral bombs then exploded as it dove away.  089 went down in a steep dive and from 3 to 7 chutes were reported.  Flames were flames were pouring from its bomb bay.  It appeared that the oxygen system was burning out.  It did not appear to be out of control however, and it was thought that it may have made a crash landing near Beaumont.  (Compiled from the accounts of serveral witnesses.)

DESCRIPTION OF SEARCH EFFORT

PREPARING OFFICER

PREPARED BY: CLAUDE L. HOSFORD 1st Lt Air Corps Personnel Officer

DATE PREPARED: 1943-09-09

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Clouds obscured the primary target this day (the Renault plant at Paris) so the formation proceeded to its secondary target - the Beaumont le Roger Airdrome. There are conflicting accounts as to exactly what occurred, but the consensus seems to be that, while on the bomb run, the plane flown by Richard King (Crew #26) received a direct flak burst amidships and suddenly moved upwards striking the tail section of the ship flown by crew #23. King's ship then rapidly lost altitude and the plane carrying crew #23 exploded in mid air. One or more bombs released by Floyd's plane may have struck King's aircraft. Earl Griggs and Dale Huffer were flying in place of regular crewmen, Willis Stroud and Robyn Fulton, while Lt. Peter Theodore flew this mission in place of Edwin Morgan.

Statement by Robert M. Rosenberg: 
"I had finished loading two of the guns when the pilot began to say something over the intercom. Before he could finish speaking ,he, the co-pilot and bombardier apparently saw German fighters forming  to renew the attack. I began firing the right nose gun at an incoming fighter and while so engaged felt the plane jump violently. Observers whom I met later tell me that a plane salvoed its bombs from the high squadron just before it blew up. One of the bombs hit our already damaged and feathered number 3 engine and caused our plane to maneuver into the plane of the flight leader, from which plane, already on fire, the crew members were bailing out. Our plane was now out of formation with the left wing tip and right mid-wing section ablaze. The pilot and co-pilot were still fighting and managing to retain a modicum 0f control. German fighters were closing on us and everybody was concentrating on returning the fire of these oncoming ships. Word came across the interphone to abandon ship but before I could make a move, the ship seemingly exploded. I recovered consciousness 4 days later. We were not permitted any freedom while in the hospital at Paris but from what little I could learn, the bombardier, Frank C. Coon, and I were the only survivors. All the while we were imprisoned we fruitlessly sought to learn of some small word of the fate of the rest of the crew."

John M. Neal is commemorated on The Wall of the Missing at the Brittany American Cemetery. Dale Huffer is commemorated on The Wall of the Missing at The Lorraine American Cemetery, Saint Avold, France and Charles W. Floyd is buried in The American Military Cemetery at Omaha Beach; Grave D-7-40..jr