414th Bomb Squadron (97th Bomb Group) archival records

Mr. Schneider:

Thank you for your response.

I had previously obtained that information - in fact, the MACR 1303 aircrew list was forwarded my myself to that website.  I did make a typo in that submission in that the aircrew member reflected as "Shipe" should have been "Shupe".  I have advised the website of my mistake and suspect it will be corrected in the near future.

I also have two picture of the aircraft (42-30705) on bombing missions over France:

He was also a member of the original deployment of the first bombardment to England (Operatioin BOLERO):

And co-piloted the B-17 "King Kondor" (41-9024) as part of that deployment:

It is the above "loading lists" of the 414th BS from June 1942 thru 27 November 1943 that I am most interested in obtaining.

I am submitting a request for his OPF (201) from the MPC in St. Louis and am also considering going to the National Archives in Silver Spring, MD to review the archives of the 97th BG and 414th BS.

Thank you again for you efforts to assist - it is much appreciated.

v/r

George Waldroup

COL (Ret), AUS

Mr. Ohler:

Thank you for your response and please accept my apologies for the delay in responding as I was unaware that History Hub listed responses in an oldest to newest formnat.

In response to your question, there were two B017Fs named "Ther-N-Bak"  and in your RedDog attachment, my father's "Ther-N-Bak" had a tail number of 42-30705 which is depicted in the fourth picture.  The first three pictures are of   the second "Ther-N-Bak" which had a tail number of 42-5223.  Ironically, both were assigned to the 414th Bomb Squadron until 42-5223 was transferred to the 346th BS (99 Bomb Group) on 14 Nov 1943 and flew out of Oudna

In that fourth picture, my father is not represented and I note that only eight of the ten cr ewmen are shown.  In fact, my research, including the few remaining family documents, reveal that my father was not supposed to have been on that 27 Nov 42 mission since he was being transferred to join Paul Tibbets in organizing what would later become the 509th Composite Bomb Group.  The assigned pilot (unknown) apparently had taken ill and my father was asked to fly the mission since no other pilot was apparently available at the time.

BTW:  I have located the crash site of my father's B-17F which is just outside Apecchio, Italy (a little SSW of Rimini which was the target to that mission.

Again, thank you for responding - it is appreciated.