Gerald E Sorensen

Military ROLL OF HONOUR

Shot down 1 May 1944 in B-17 #4231152. Managed to evade with the help of the Belgian COMET evasion network. Killed in Action (KIA) on 3 September 1944, fighting with the Belgian Resistance. See his page at https://www.evasioncomete.be/fsorensge.html

Connections

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Units served with

The insignia of the 96th Bomb Group.
  • Unit Hierarchy: Group
  • Air Force: Eighth Air Force
  • Type Category: Bombardment

People

  • Military/Civilian/Mascot: Military
  • Nationality: American
  • Unit: 96th Bomb Group 339th Bomb Squadron
  • Service Numbers: 35624150
  • Highest Rank: Staff Sergeant
  • Role/Job: Engineer-Top Turret Gunner
Eugene W Dingledine
  • Military/Civilian/Mascot: Military
  • Nationality: American
  • Unit: 96th Bomb Group 339th Bomb Squadron
  • Service Numbers: O-806979
  • Highest Rank: Second Lieutenant
  • Role/Job: Pilot
  • Military/Civilian/Mascot: Military
  • Nationality: American
  • Unit: 96th Bomb Group 339th Bomb Squadron
  • Service Numbers: 33113787
  • Highest Rank: Staff Sergeant
  • Role/Job: Radio Operator
  • Military/Civilian/Mascot: Military
  • Nationality: American
  • Unit: 96th Bomb Group 339th Bomb Squadron
  • Service Numbers: 31306690
  • Highest Rank: Sergeant
  • Role/Job: Assistant Engineer- waist gunner
  • Military/Civilian/Mascot: Military
  • Nationality: American
  • Unit: 96th Bomb Group 339th Bomb Squadron
  • Highest Rank: Second Lieutenant
  • Role/Job: Navigator

Aircraft

  • Aircraft Type: B-17 Flying Fortress
  • Unit: 96th Bomb Group 339th Bomb Squadron

Missions

Places

Events

Event Location Date Description

Born

Blackfoot, Bannock County, Idaho, United States 31 October 1919

Enlisted

Moscow, Idaho, United States 18 May 1942 Enlisted as a Private in the Air Corps

Died

Marcq, Enghien, Belgium 3 September 1944

Other

Killed in Action (KIA)

Marcq, Enghien, Belgium 3 September 1944 Gerald Sorensen had joined the Belgian Resistance to fight alongside his friend Roger ABEELS, the son of the family who had sheltered him in May and August 1944 in the commune of Ganshoren, Brussels, Belgium. On a mission to harass the retreating German troops on the road from Tournai to Brussels, they shot from a side road at German officers in a slowly moving staff car. Gerald and Roger were unaware that that car was the leading vehicle of a column of SS troops and they were subsequently fired at and had to find refuge in a rabbit hutch in a field; outnumbered and outgunned, they fired at the attacking Germans until they were killed by a grenade explosion. Their bodies were found later by liberating British troops and brought back to Brussels.

Buried

Ganshoren, Brussels, Belgium 10 September 1944 Buried together with his friend and comrade in arms, Belgian Roger ABEELS in the communal cemetery, Ganshoren (Brussels)
Pocatello, Bannock County, Idaho, United States

Revisions

Date
ContributorED-BB
Changes
Sources

Added website address for a page about him

Date
ContributorED-BB
Changes
Sources

MACR 4237

Date
ContributorED-BB
Changes
Sources

MACR 4237
NARA WWII Enlistment Records database
NARA WWII POW Records database
Research for his page at http://www.evasioncomete.org/fsorensge.html
American Jerome Sheridan has written a book about Gerald Sorensen : “American Airman in the Belgian Resistance - Gerald E. Sorensen and the Transatlantic Alliance”
(McFarland, & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina, October 2014)

Date
ContributorED-BB
Changes
Sources

Correction : Name is Gerald E. SORENSEN, not Sorenson.

Date
ContributorEmily
Changes
Sources

Robert F Facer, via American Air Museum memory book correspondence.

Date
ContributorAAM
Changes
Sources

Drawn from the records of the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, Savannah, Georgia / MACR 4237 / MACR 4237; Snetterton Falcons, pg 133 & 145 / Paul Andrews, Project Bits and Pieces, 8th Air Force Roll of Honor database