Excerpt from Heroes of the 483rd

The following is an excerpt from the book, "Heroes of the 483rd: Crew histories of a much-decorated B-17 bomber group during World War II", compiled by Jacob L. Grimm, Edited by Verne H. Cole. This book is available for sale through the 483rd Bombardment Group (H) Association's website, http://www.483rd.com/. The two page section reproduced here is the only section of the book that mentions John Thomas Wilson.

Harvet A. Mitchell Crew

483rd Bombardment Group (Heavy), 815th Squadron

Name	Position	MIA	POW	Hometown(1944)
Harvey A. Mitchell	Pilot	*	*	Charlottesville, VA
James Sutton	Co-pilot	*	*	Culver City, CA
Roy J. Broome	Navigator	*	*	Columbia, SC
Howard C. Bonniken	Bombardier			Medford, OR
Harold G. M. Strunk	E	*	*	Reading, PA
Matthew F. Thompson	Radio	*	*	Long Island, NY
John Nelson	Nose Gunner	*	*	Brooklyn, NY
August D. Winnego	Ball Turret	*	*	L'Anse, MI
John T. Wilson	Tail Gunner	*	*	Emlenton, PA
Others
Amburse J. Triplett	Left Waist Gunner	*	*	Matewan, WV
William F. Wilson	Gunner	*	*	Crawford, GA

The crew assembled at Lincoln, NE, and shipped to Alexandria, LA, in October 1944. After 10 weeks of intensive combat training, they returned to the staging area at Lincoln on 28 December 1944. At Lincoln, they were issued combat clothing and equipment.

From Lincoln they traveled by train to Camp Patrick Henry, VA, and boarded a Liberty ship at Newport News 18 January 1945. They docked at Marseilles, France, and spent a few days at “Pointe d’Rouge,” the estate of a champagne heiress, then boarded a French ship, Ville d’Oran, manned by British sailors. The ship dropped off some “red fez” Algerian troops at Algiers before continuing on to Naples, arriving about 5 February 1945. Near Caserta, they boarded a “40 x 8” cattle car for the trip to Foggia. A jeep took them to Sterparone.

Mitchell began flying orientation missions early in March. His targets were Linz, Wiener Neustadt and Graz. Most of his crew, plus Triplett and Wilson, joined him for the first time on 14 March 1945, and they went down.

Their target was Almasfuzito, Hungary, and they were flying in B-17 42- 32017, Sweet 17. After they left the target, other planes in the formation observed the Number 3 engine was feathered, and a radio message indicated a loss of oxygen. As they fell behind and below the formation, a message indicated they would try for the Russian lines to the east. Harvey Mitchell recalled the events that day:

“Over Almasfuzito the ‘unlucky flak’ hit, in what was otherwise a ‘milk run,’ severed an oil line to the Number 3 engine, and while Sutton knew to hit the feathering button as soon as pressure began to drop, it dropped too quickly and the prop came almost to full-feathered, and then went back to unfeathered and proceeded to windmill. A short time later Sutton reported smoke coming from the engine and it was about then I decided not to put the crew at risk of explosion and ordered the bailout at about 10,000 feet. Sutton stayed in the cockpit with me and Broome asked if he could stay as long as we did, and I agreed if he would stand by the escape hatch in the waist. (The front hatch was frozen shut, and the bomb bay filled with armed bombs.)

“Sometime in there the windmilling prop froze up, shuddered violently and broke off at the shaft. We came down through an undercast, and as we broke clear a small flak battery began tracking our crippled airplane almost like a sitting duck. I told Sutton we had to get out of there. He headed for the waist, and I leaned over to set the auto pilot, and as I did, a flak burst shattered the front window and lodged in the back of my seat. Needless to say I rolled out and went to the waist, and first Broome, then Sutton, then I, bailed out.

“We landed outside a village called Kotor, Hungary. Broome and I were fairly close together and we were immediately captured by a cordon of Hungarian troops. Sutton was further away, and as we later learned, was captured by troops under the leadership of a German officer. I had sprained my left ankle on landing and Sutton had sprained his right ankle. Broome and I were taken to a vacant room of a school building in the village, and sometime later Sutton was brought in. From what he told us, he was beaten by the German officers using a riding crop or swagger stick, and I don’t think civilians were involved. Neither do I think he was seriously injured physically. He felt humiliated and was just mad because as he said, ‘In a fair fight I could have killed that s.o.b.’

“Incidentally, when we left our formation I had asked Ray to give me a heading for what was termed a ‘safe landing field’ in Russian control at Pecs, Hungary. What we didn’t know was that the battle lines left a deep bulge under German control and we flew right down the middle of the bulge.

“Early morning March 15, we three were taken outside and boarded one of two horse-drawn two-seater buggies. The second one carried a guard detail. The ride took several hours, and we were taken to the nearest city — Nagy Kanisza — which was a collection point for captives. We spent the night in the city jail and the next morning we were herded outside, along with others, to stand in the back of a truck which ran on a charcoal burner. That was when my crew was reunited in its entirety, to my tremendous relief.

“I would like to note one incident on our way to Nuremberg. On March 21 we were headed on foot to Amstetten, Austria, and about 1.5 km outside the town our Volksturmer guards heard air raid sirens ahead and decided we should wait there for the ‘all clear.’ We went to one side of the valley we had been walking through, and lay down on a grassy knoll. With warm sunshine — for a change, and through sheer exhaustion, I think we all went to sleep in short order. We were suddenly and most shockingly awakened by 500-pounders going off no more than a football field away. That was the beginning of a three-hour-long maximum effort raid by our own 15th Air Force (probably 20 March 1945). We watched wave after wave, coming in from various directions, and if an occasional plane was not in tight formation we prayed he would get back in before dropping its bombs.

“After the raid, our guards insisted over our objections that we had to go into town, and we would be all right if we stayed close together and kept quiet. They were almost right until we got to the town square, where two SS officers were sitting in an open car. They ordered our guards to bring us there, and proceeded to harangue us as ‘murderous American swine’ until they gathered a crowd. Then they incited the crowd to pitch into us with buggy whips, fists, kicks, etc. until they knocked us down in a heap. They made us get up and knocked us down twice more. Once my head was sticking out and got kicked by a hob-nailed boot, I guess, splitting my scalp. After we got up a third time, a one-armed civilian started a shouting match with the SS officers, and our guards edged us away through a door into someone’s courtyard, where there was an unexploded bomb.

“That was the end of that memorable day.”

William Wilson had trained with the Henry Froelich crew at Dyersburg, TN. Marriott’s records indicate Wilson previously flew a tour with the 8th Air Force.

Triplett also previously served in the 8th Air Force with the 452nd Bomb Group. His missions from England included a shuttle mission to Russia on 11 September 1944, when they bombed Chemits, Germany. On the way home, 13 September 1944, they landed at the 483rd Bomb Group in Italy after bombing Drosgyor, Hungary.

The 452nd Bomb Group returned to England on 17 September, but Triplett’s crew remained behind when their pilot became ill. After more than a week at Sterparone, the crew returned to England and was assigned to the 100th Bomb Group.

On his seventh mission, Triplett and his crew headed for Bielefeld, Germany, when Number 3 engine caught fire shortly after takeoff, with flames burning the horizontal tail section. They bailed out over King’s Lynn on the east coast of England. Two men were injured. The crew was broken up and the enlisted men were sent to the 15th Air Force.

Triplett and crew member Kennerd Wilson were assigned to the 483rd Bomb Group and the 815th Squadron. They remained together as tent mates, but they did not fly together. Wilson usually flew with Perry Holden. Wilson recalls that he and Triplett made “lots of friends” at Sterparone on their original visit with the 452nd Bomb Group.

Broome previously served in the Army before entering flight training.