My father needs to find his 'Combat Record' for VA purposes.

Re:My father needs to find his 'Combat Record' for VA purposes. (1qwertyu)

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:06:36 GMT

Hi henry,
I found your fathers name in my fathers records. It appears to be a brief sortie record:
WSM 269 flown 11 march 1945
869th Bombardment squadron
APC Capt henry h. simms jr. 0-791510
It's from the 497th BG. it says a copy is place in the official 201 and form 5 file of each in dividual named.
Good Luck,
I might have more.
Roger Whitfield
rwhitfi@roadrunner.com

Re:My father needs to find his 'Combat Record' for VA purposes. (22hunter)

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 19:05:01 GMT

My uncle Roland Reddock was the crew chief on the Lucky Lynn. I have a picture of him and the crew standing in front of a bomber that I believe to be the Lucky Lynn. Let me know if you are interested and I will scan it for you. I found a link that lists the crew also that I can send you. Your father is a hero!
Shelly

Re:My father needs to find his 'Combat Record' for VA purposes. (hkellerjr)

Mon, 17 May 2010 03:40:01 GMT

You may want to try thefollowing:

- Contacting the Air force Historical Research Agency (http://www.afhra.af.mil/) and look up group in index section (http://airforcehistoryindex.org/). If the historical documents are on file, you can order and they should contain, assignment orders, promotions, etc. . .

_ The National Archives should contain the Unit Load Lists for each mission flown. http://aad.archives.gov/aad/ see contact us at top of page. The Unit Load Lists would document missions flown in combat.

Good Luck

Re:My father needs to find his 'Combat Record' for VA purposes. (SHAEF1944)

Sat, 15 May 2010 23:14:36 GMT

If you are looking for records SOLELY to establish claims to VA benefits and not a detailed history, try some of the things at the National Archives link below.

Scroll down and click on the link on that page " Alternate Record Sources " especially

http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/other-methods.html

Re:My father needs to find his 'Combat Record' for VA purposes. (Herb Harper)

Sat, 15 May 2010 19:12:00 GMT

Mr. SIMS:

Your father's Combat Record would be the FORM 5. If this was destroyed in the 1973 fire, then that is that. However there is another source to search for his combat missions. That is NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) at College Park, MD. There you can go to the historical records of his , 497th Bomb Group and search through the SORTIE REPORTS. The sortie report will give the date, aircraft serial number, a brief history of the sortie AND a crew member loading list. There are individuals or organizations that will do this for you at a price. For 40 or 50 documents, this could get expensive. If you want to do this yourself. I suggest you review the whole process on the internet BEFORE you go. Plan on spending quite a bit of time there just to learn your way around. If you wish, I can give you the name of an individual who has done a lot of research there. I'm sure she can give you some good tips.

Herb Harper. You can contact me at BOMBGRP98@aol.com

My father needs to find his 'Combat Record' for VA purposes. (Henry Holland Simms III)

Fri, 14 May 2010 07:27:28 GMT

My father has established his being a veteran.
He was in the following :
20th Air Force
497th Bombardment Group
73rd Wing
869th Bomb.Squadron
A Square 3 was his B-29
he flew 40 of the 50 missions "Lucky Lynn" flew during the war
He was Major,Henry(Hal) Holland Simms,Jr.
Dad will be 89 this August.
I have been on the Yahoo B-29 group found the roster for the 869th,found the planes record and the first pilot that flew 10 missions and named the plane before he went on another plane and was shot down.I guess the fire that occurred in the archives in the 70's caused many gaps in the combat records.
Dad asked me to contact Bob Morgan.He did not know that Mr.Morgan had passed away.Morgan lived near where I grew up in North Carolina.