Personnel

CREW

                            LT GLENN W. DYE

                            ORIGINAL 100TH PILOT



CREW #25   351st SQUADRON   A/C #42-30089  "SUNNY"



1ST LT  GLENN W. DYE                          P CPT 16 SEP 43  BORDEAUX

2ND LT  JOHN H. LUCKADOO              CP  CPT 13 FEB 44  LIVOSSART (NO-BALL)

2ND LT  TIMOTHY J. CAVANAUGH     NAV CPT 16 SEP 43 BORDEAUX

2ND LT  FRANCIS C. CHANEY           BOM  CPT 16 SEP 43 BORDEAUX

T/SGT   VICTOR R. COMBS                TTE CPT  16 SEP 43 BORDEAUX

S/SGT   ELDER D. DICKERSON          WG  KIA   8 OCT 43  BREMEN (WITH CREW #22)

T/SGT   GEORGE E. FLANAGAN        ROG CPT  16 SEP 43 BORDEAUX

S/SGT   RICHARD B. COOKE              BTG CPT 16 SEP 43 BORDEAUX

S/SGT   DONALD O. ELLIS                 WG CPT 16 SEP 43 BORDEAUX

S/SGT   LEROY E. BAKER                   TG CPT 16 SEP 43 BORDEAUX



THIS WAS THE FIRST CREW OF THE 100TH TO FINISH A TOUR OF 25 MISSIONS.



TIMOTHY CAVANAUGH AND FRANCIS CHANEY WERE BOTH KILLED IN A B-29 TRAINING ACCIDENT SHORTLY AFTER RETURNING TO THE STATES. ELDER DICKERSON, APPARENTLY A MISSION OR TWO BEHIND HIS CREW WAS KIA ON HIS 25TH MISSION WITH CREW #22, CAPT. MURPHY AND THE PICCADILLY LILY.



JOHN LUCKADOO flew 21 missions with this crew then WENT ON TO BECOME THE OPERATIONS OFFICER OF TWO OF THE 100TH'S SQUADRONS; 351STand 350th. 



The plane was named Sunny which was the nickname Lt Dye gave his son Glenn Dye Jr. On the way overseas with the original cadre, Glenn Dye got sick.  The crew had to stay in Gandor for 2 weeks while Lt Dye was getting better.  It turns out, that after two weeks he was still weak from the drugs and John Luckadoo flew the crew to England.



Missions for Glenn Dye Crew 



   Date                  A/C #           A/C Name              Target

Jun 25, 1943          230051         Nevada Wildcat       Bremen     (Olli Turner flew as Command Pilot, Lucky did not fly mission) 

Jun 26, 1943          23307           Skipper                  LeMans

Jun 28, 1943          23307           Skipper                  St Nazaire (Flak City)

Jun 29, 1943          23307           Skipper                  LeMans     (Lead Crew mission

July 04, 1943                                                          La Pallice

Jul  10, 1943          230089         Sunny                    LeBourget

Jul  14, 1943          230089         Sunny                    LeBourget

Jul  17, 1943          230089         Sunny                    Hamburg

Jul  24, 1943          25865           Janie                     Trondheim  (Lead Crew, w/Olli Turner)

Jul  25, 1943          230089         Sunny                    Warnemunde

Jul  26, 1943          230089         Sunny                    Hanover (Lucky flew as Formation Officer

Jul  28, 1943          25865           Janie                     Oschersleben

Jul  29, 1943          25865           Janie                     Warnemunde

Jul  30, 1943          25865           Janie                      Kassel

Aug 12, 1943         230089         Sunny                    Wesseling

Aug 15, 1943         230089         Sunny                    Merville AF & Lille AF (Lead Crew)

Aug 19, 1943         230089         Sunny                    Woensdrecht

Aug 24, 1943         230089         Sunny                    Conches

Aug 27, 1943         230089         Sunny                    Watten 

Aug 31, 1943         230089         Sunny                    Meulan Les Merueaux 

Sept 03,1943                                                         (Sunny Shot Down with Lt Richard King Crew)

Sept.06,1943        230796        Sunny II*                Stuttgart, Conches, Evreux Airfield (ST)

Sept 07,1943        230796        Sunny II*                Watten-V-Weapons 

Sept 09,1943        230796        Sunny II*                Arth, AF 

Sept 15,1943        230796        Sunny II                  Paris, AC Factory (Renault)

Sept.16,1943        230796        Sunny II                  Bordeaux & LaPallice



*Plane flew on these missions but  cannot confirm 100% it is the plane Glenn Dye Crew Flew on those missions.



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Hooked on History: B-17 stuck in the mud at Harry Clever Field

                       By Jon Baker-Times-Reporter



Posted Apr 16, 2012 



 Army Air Force Lt. Glen “Sunny” Dye’s short visit with his wife in New Philadelphia on April 23, 1943, lasted longer than he expected after his B-17 Flying Fortress got stuck in the mud at Harry Clever Field.

 

Dye and his 11-member crew, based at an airfield in Nebraska, were on a routine flight when he decided he would like to see his wife, who lived near Amsterdam, Ohio. He circled his home, and that alerted his wife and baby to travel to New Philadelphia, where Dye had received his pilot’s training with the second class of the Civilian Pilot Training course.

 

Dye had no difficulty in landing the 30-ton bomber at Harry Clever Field, but while taxiing his plane at the west end of the runway, the landing gun sank in the soggy turf off of the runway.

 

Crew members, assisted by airport employees, Naval Air Cadets, state troopers and scores of volunteers, worked three hours to extricate the plane out of the mud. The Dover Daily Reporter reported that a New Philadelphia city grader and truck failed to move the plane, but the Weaver Motor Co. wreck crew finally got it to move with a winch.

 

The plane took off at 12:30 a.m.

 

“Although the field was crowded most of the night with spectators, members of the crew, heavily armed, kept sightseers at a safe distance from the craft,” the paper said.

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From John Luckadoo (2012):

 

"Yes, I most certainly was on this flight and it turned out to be a nightmare for all of us.



There are several serious inaccuracies in this account, however.  

1. There were only 10 of us on board.

2.  There was no runway -- it was just a grass field and that is why we got mired in the mud.

3.   It is ludicrous to say that the crew was  armed  -- and kept the spectators at bay.

4.  They brought in all the farm equipment -- tractors, back-hoes, trucks & wreckers for miles around to pull the plane up onto some wooden planks.

5.  Then they had to line the field with their headlights.

6.  We had to runup the engines to full power & leap off the boards fast enough not to bog down again.

7.  We barely cleared the trees at the end of the field by dropping about 1/2 flaps on take-off.



This was a near-disaster that should have gotten Dye court-martialed."   



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Additional service information on Glenn Dye, courtesy of Geoff Buchanan:



My interest in the B-29 comes from my many years of flying in light aircraft with the late Captain Glenn William Dye. When he landed his B-17F, 42-30089, "Sunny", at New Philadelphia, Ohio in 1943, Glenn was on his way to Thorpe Abbotts, England to join the 351st Squadron of the 100th Bomb Group as the Group entered combat in the E.T.O.. After finishing his tour in the E.T.O., Glenn was stationed at Smokey Hill A.A.F.B., Salina Kansas, where he took part in the program that is sometimes referred to as the "Battle of Kansas". At Salina, a lot of B-29s were extensively flown and many modifications were made to them in order to get the airplane ready for operational service. Glenn flew the B-29 there as a test pilot and also as a flight instructor. He also was a crash investigator. He was involved in the training of the 509th Composite Group and he was at Battista Field in Cuba with them, but he did not go overseas with them. His remark on this was: "We knew we were training for something big, but we didn't know what it was!" Glenn was flying a training mission in a B-29 out of Salina when word came over the radio that Japan had surrendered.



I was lucky enough to get to fly to Salina a few times with Glenn in the 1960s and 1970s. He would always have something to say about the B-29 when we were in the area. And whatever it was, it was always interesting.



Also, when Glenn was at Smokey Hill, he held the position of "Acting Colonel". Hap Arnold froze promotion for non-combat personnel and Glenn finished his B-17 tour in the E.T.O. as Captain. The only way he could command the people he needed to was for the Army Air Force to give him "Acting" rank! The "Acting" rank dissolved for Glenn when the B-29 testing, modification and initial crew training was finished and I suppose when he left the 509th training area. He was discharged as Captain.



The book, "CENTURY BOMBERS, The Story of the Bloody Hundredth", by Richard Le Strange, assisted by James R. Brown, Published by the 100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum, Thorpe Abbotts, Diss, Norfolk, England...Printed by M.F. Barnwell, Penfold Works, Aylsham, Norfolk, England..ISBN 0 9515159 OX contains a crew photograph of the boys that landed at New Philly, their ground crew chief and Olen Turner. The airplane in the picture is not the one they had in New Philly. The B-17F, 42-30089, "Sunny", that Glenn landed at New Philly, blew up in a field near Beaumont Le Roger, France on 3 September 1943 after being landed wheels up by Pilot Richard King and Co-Pilot, George Brykalski. Glenn was "stood down" that day and his buddy, Lt. King, borrowed the airplane to fly his mission. The airplane received a direct hit in the bomb bay from a German Flak 88 and King tried to get her down, but she blew up right after he landed.



I want to pass this along. Glenn used to say: "A pilot could like a B-17 and fly it without much trouble, but you had to RESPECT a B-29." --vMany thanks to Geoff Buchanan for sharing this story with us. 



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