Killed in Action (KIA). Shot down 17 April 1943 in B-17 41-24459 'Hellsapoppin'. According to Havelaar, the target was the Focke Wulf aircraft factory. Fighters and flak were heavy and the 401st BS was hit especially hard.



Three or four minutes after passing over the target there was a very hard jolt under the left side of the plane, close in to the fuselage. An anti-aircraft shell had exploded just under “Hellsapoppin”. Flak ripped into the left front side of the aircraft, flaking off chunks of metal from the fuselage, and throwing them through the interior of the plane. At the same time, three feet of the right wing tip was blown off by a flak burst. A one and a half foot hole appeared in the nose compartment and the entire nose window Plexiglas blew out. There was a fire in the left wing, and nose compartment. The radio room became engulfed in fire from broken oxygen lines. The pilot, 1st Lt. John W. Wilson, was wounded in the head and the copilot, 1st Lt. Arthur A. Bushnell, in the right eye, both legs, left arm, and right hand by flying aluminum. In the nose the bombardier, 1st Lt. Harold Romm, was hit in the left leg by flak. Earlier, before reaching the target area, Lt. Romm had been hit in the same leg by a machine gun bullet during an attack by a F/W 190. IN the top turret, the flight engineer, TSgt Norman L. Thompson, felt the jolt and when he looked out saw the left wing on fire. He had just seen a fighter off the left wing going after a plane below and was afraid it would come back up ah Hellsapoppin. The enemy fighter was about 15 feet too low for Sgt Thompson to deflect his top turret guns to get off a burst. Since the intercom was shot out, Sgt. Thompson was not certain what was happening to the plane. He stepped down from the turret and went into the cockpit, there he saw both pilots with their oxygen masks off and blood pouring out from under their helmets. He assumed both were dead. Sgt. Thompson had not heard any firing from the gunners since Hellsapoppin had left the target area. He figured they either had been killed by the flak and fighters, or were too seriously wounded to move. From the intensity of the fire, he knew Hellsapoppin could explode any seconds. He took a final glance at the instruments to endure the plane was still in level flight, then went back to the bomb bay and opened the doors. After checking below and seeing there was no plane under him, Sgt Thompson dropped out. Almost immediately after he bailed out, the plane broke in two at the radio room. Four other somehow managed to escape the aircraft: Lt. Bushnell, Lt. Barton, Lt. Romm, and the Radio operator TSgt Howard A. Earney. All were wounded. The rest of the crew remained trapped in the falling aircraft and were killed in action.



Air medal, Purple Heart