Sunday, April 4, 1943. Airborne tragedies.
Today in World War II History—April 4, 1943: Mrs. Thomas Sullivan christens destroyer USS The Sullivans in honor of her five sons killed in the sinking of light cruiser USS Juneau in November 1942.
So reports Sarah Sundin, who also notes that the US II Corps took Hill 369 near El Guettar and that POWs escaped from the Japanese penal colony on Davoa point. Their escape would break the news of the Bataan Death March, particularly through POW William Dyess.
William Dyess.
Dyess was returned to flying status but would suffer a mechanically stricken aircraft over California, while taking off, that following December and chose to ride the plane down as it was over a populated area. He died in the crash.
On the tragic aircraft loss theme, I guess, a B-25 went down over Lake Murray, South Carolina on this day, but the entire crew survived. The nearly intact B-25 was raised in 2005 in excellent condition.
1Lt. W.J. Hatton, pilot; 2Lt. R.F. Toner, copilot; 2Lt. D.P. Hays, navigator; 2Lt. J.S. Woravka, bombardier; TSgt. H.J. Ripslinger, engineer; TSgt. R.E. LaMotte, radio operator; SSgt. G.E. Shelly, gunner; SSgt. V.L. Moore, gunner; and SSgt. S.E. Adams, gunner. Crew of the Lady Be Good.
Not so fortunate was the crew of Lady Be Good, a B-24. It disappeared on its return from a bombing raid on Italy, having taken off from an airbase in Libya, which is interesting to consider as North Africa was still subject to fighting on the ground.
The plane grossly overshot its base and was found in 1958 by a British Petroleum crew some 400 plus miles inland. The bodies were recovered, save for one, two years later after a search. The crew clearly bailed out once they realized, far too late, they were deeply lost and that the plane would go down. They appear to have survived the parachute descent but died in the desert. The one remaining crewman was likely found by a British patrol over the borderline with Libya in 1953, but was unaware of whom the crewman was, as the plane had been thought to have crashed over the Mediterranean.
A minor incident, it's recalled simply because of the mystery of what occurred to the crew. Worth recalling as part of that, and contrary to how this is often portrayed in film, many American aircrews were extremely green early on in the war, as in fact this crew was. This contributed to an extremely high accident rate.
German radio announced that Former Prime Ministers Édouard Daladier and Léon Blum, and former French Army commander in chief, General Maurice Gamelin, had turned over to the Germans by French authorities. They would spend the rest of the war in Buchewald.
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