Assigned to 846BS, 489BG, 8AF USAAF. Failed to Return (FTR) St. Lo, France in B-24 42-94905 'Censored'; shot down by flak and crashed near St Lo. Killed in Action (KIA) MACR 7915



Awards: AM (2OLC), PH, American Campaign, EAME.



"I am his daughter, Marilynn Tobash. I never knew him since I was only 16 months old when he was killed. My mother never talked about him so all the information I know about his is from my grandparents my aunt and uncle (all were his in-laws) who all adored him and other relatives, friends and neighbors who all told me what a wonderful person he was. He and my mother lived with her parents after they got married.



He quit high school during the depression to join the CCC to help his parents support his younger siblings. When he came back he went to work for the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. as a lineman and went back to school at night to get his diploma. He was taking night classes in engineering at Johns Hopkins University when the USA entered the war.



He coached boys football and baseball teams in Carroll Park and I have several trophies the boys gave him. Twenty years ago my husband was working on our then congresswoman's campaign and the partner assigned to him turned out to be one of the boys my father had coached. I was surprised the man remembered him and he remembered him warmly.



After I found the 489th Assn. I asked the editor of the newsletter to put in an item asking anyone who remembered him to contact me. I got several replies and two letters I cherish from 2 of his navigators who told me how much he meant to them.



My grandfather told me he tried to enlist as an air cadet the day after Pearl Harbor but was told he had to lose 15 lbs. to qualify so he used exercise to do it. The running took the pounds off but he also lifted weights and then Granddad said he was so hungry when he got home it seemed like he ate enough to put it all back on. Anyway about 4 weeks after his first attempt to enlist he was accepted and was inducted in early April, 1942 and sent for training.



He graduated from the navigation school at Maxwell Field, Alabama and was commissioned on May 1 1943. I was 6 weeks old and my mother couldn't travel with a new baby so Granddad and Grandmom went down to see him graduate and pin his Lieutenant's bars on. He was then assigned to a submarine patrol outfit flying between Greenland and Bermuda.



When the 489th Bomb Group was formed in the fall of 1943 he was one of the original members of the group. He trained on B24's at Wendover Field, Utah and in April, 1944 the Group left for England. He was the navigator on the last plane out which was piloted by Lt. Col. Leon Vance, the deputy commander and a medal of honor winner.



He was killed in action on July 24, 1944 while flying tactical mission in support of troops in the battle for St Lo. He wasn't scheduled to fly that mission but the crew's navigator was grounded by the flight surgeon that day and he was supposed to be training a replace navigator on that mission so my father volunteered to go himself rather than send another one of his navigators since part of his job was training the navigators. This information came from men assigned to the 489th and from a letter the only survivor sent to my mother.



In 1950 the government shipped his remains back from the temporary cemetery in St Lo where they were interred. He shares a grave with a gunner on the crew, Virgil Deyo (I don't remember his rank), in the Long Island National Cemetery in Farmingdale, NY. Both sides of my family went to Long Island for the funeral. Granddad, my father's father-in-law paid for the entire family to take an overnight Pullman from Baltimore to Penn Station and transfer to the Long Island National Cemetery where they had transport waiting at the station to take us to the cemetery. I remember the train ride, the funeral where I got to see my other grandfather and aunts & uncles. After we got back to NYC we had until evening to do some sight seeing and I remember Granddad taking all of us to the top of the Empire State Building.



I must add a special thank you to Al Skiff for colorizing the picture of my father I posted here a few months ago, it's the first picture I've ever seen of him in color. I can't tell if he has light green eyes or red hair like I did at that age, but my face shape and features are the same as his. Thank you Al !!!"