Re:S/Sgt Daniel B. Breckenridge / John BEACH's crew
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10/18/2008 02:55:45 PM
Andy Udall,
I just joined this group and have begun reviewing various post in the hopes of discovering a "new" trail for my research into my dad's service with the 490th.
He was with the unit from deployment thru April 1945. He kept a very good diary of his combat service. When I read your question, I recalled that he'd mentioned Lt. Beach's loss prominently because his best friend was aboard. His buddy, Kenneth C. Wolfe, and another member of his own crew, Lt. Biegler, were with the Beach crew that fateful day. I hope that this extract from Dad's journal can help you in your research. Pleasde let me know whether I can offer any other service.
Winston D. Edwards
(son of S/Sgt Edison Ray "Pete" Edwards of Waldorf's crew)
P.S. Of Course the Editor's Note is all mine, based on some other research I have found, aside from Dad's diary.
September 9th, 1944
Editor’s Note (8):
S/Sgt K. C. Wolfe, 13126160, Philadelphia, Penn and 2nd Lt. S. E. Biegler, O-703687, Minneapolis, Minn. was flying with Lt. Beach {John D}.(8)
Nearly half a page was left blank following this entry. I can only guess that he intended to record more thoughts, but never did. BCR #16 reported that Kenneth Wolfe was tail gunner on John D. Beach’s 851st BS crew on the mission to Manheim, Germany. MACR 8929 reported the aircraft (B-17, #43-38324) lost with 3 KIA and 6 POW. Beigler was flying as the A/C navigator. He and Wolfe bailed out and spent the rest of the war as German prisoners. Two other survivors [Joseph L. Milliken & Michael T. Walsh, Jr.] of this shoot-down wrote after the war that the enlisted men were sent to Stalagluft IV in the north of Germany, with the officer cadre sent elsewhere. The POW’s survived the cold winter of ‘44-‘45 warmed only by “hot bricks made of a peat compound, watery green soup, hard bread, oleo and ersatz tea”. The International Red Cross supervised the prison camps closely and “around once a week the boys got Red Cross parcels that were divided among the men in each room, where about 20-21 men slept on straw mattresses on the floor”. These parcels usually contained items not available otherwise, such as “chocolate bars, cigarettes, powdered coffee and powdered milk”. There were roll calls held “twice a day” and, if a POW did not answer to their name, the whole group had to stand in the “cold & snow until they were found” and in formation. They were guarded by older German soldiers, too old to be at the front lines; and, “large Shepherd dogs that were allowed to run loose in the camp at nights”. Before being “liberated by the Wolverine Division”, they were force-marched in January 1945 away from the camps to avoid the advancing Russian Army. Their columns were strafed and bombed by Allied airplanes while being moved; but, luckily, there were “no casualties”. The pilot, Beach, and co-pilot, 2/Lt. John O. Terlecky, were both KIA by flak burst before the plane crashed. The ball-turret gunner, S/Sgt. James S. Vogt, died when struck by the tail section of the aircraft as he attempted to bail out. His parachute apparently never opened. He was later identified by other crewmembers for the Germans who captured them, where he fell, lying near a farmhouse.
I remember our family visited the Wolfe’s around 1952 where they lived on a farm in Maryland. So, thank God he made it home, too. [See Photograph of he and Dad]