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Mar
29
Several weeks ago my eleven year old son Alec had to do a school project, an essay about members of his family. Being a war buff he decided to focus on members of the family that had gone to war. There were several on my wife’s side of the family that I already knew of but we discovered another - Victor Ratliff - front row, right, in the photograph above. Hand written on the edge of the photo is “Victor + crew killed April 18 1944”. My wife found out that Victor was buried in Arlington Cemetery but that’s all we really knew.
A search on the internet found that “Good Pickin”, serial no. 42-6153, was used as a trainer with the 452 Bomb Group and was stationed at several bases in Texas so I’m assuming that’s where Victor received his training and that the others in the photo were his crew mates.
Over Spring Break Alec and I headed for DC. Arriving at Arlington Cemetery we inquired at the visitors center. With just a first and last name and the year of interment (we assumed that he was buried the same year he was killed) a kind member of the Arlington staff started going through microfilm records and within 5 minutes had a Victor Ratliff, grave marker 4520 in section 34. Needless to say, Alec and I were elated to have a “hit” but were also aware that given the number of WWII buried in Arlington it was possible that the Victor Ratliff we were looking for was not the one we were about to find.
After a brisk walk to section 34 we found the grave marker and were amazed to discover that the marker had more than one name and more than one date, but it did have Victor Ratliff and the date April 18, 1944. (Click here to see enlarged image of grave marker) The names on the marker were; Albert C. Joyce, Anthony C. Formato, Leonard Hersch, Eugene J. Harpster, Victor B. Ratliff, Leon J. Sarnowski, Robert D. Stetler, Pete N. Rayhawk and James T. Finch. There were 4 other names with the date of May 24, 1944.
After much research it turns out that the names dated 18th of April were all crew mates and served in the 390th Bomb Group which was based in Framlington, Suffolk England during WWII.
Most lightly the group photos shows the same individuals including the pilot Ben C. Wassell who’s remains are interred in the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium, C/23/3
On April 18, 1944 they were just one of many B17 crews that took off with the Heinkel aircraft factory near Oranienburg Germany as the target. Over the Heinkel factory, their plane (sn 42-97242) was hit by anti-aircraft fire and the entire tail assembly from waist door to rear was blown off. There were no survivors. This had been the crew’s 6th mission, the first had been only 10 days before. (see Crew’s Missions below)
On May 24, 1944 a B17 (sn 42-39924) from the 95th Bomb Group was shot down in the same area of Oranienburg/Germendorf. Eight of the ten crew members perished. Four of the crew were buried in the same common grave as the 9 crew members from the April 18 mission.
In February of 1952 the remains of all 13 were interred in Arlington.
The Crew of 42-97242 (Crew 12 of the 568th Squadron (H) - 390th Bombardment Group - 8th USAAF)
Ben C. Wassell - Schenectady, New York - Pilot
Albert C. Joyce - Salem, Massachusetts - Co-Pilot
Anthony C. Formato - Bronxville, New York - Navigator
Leonard Hersch - Brooklyn, New York - Bombardier
Eugene J. Harpster - Furnace, Pennsylvania - Radio Operator
Victor B. Ratliff - Hellier, Kentucky - Engineer & Top Turret Gunner
Leon J. Sarnowski - New Britain, Connecticut - Ball Turret Gunner
Robert D. Stetler - Van Wert, Ohio - Waist Gunner
Pete N. Rayhawk - Sharpsville,Pennsylvania - Waist Gunner
James T. Finch - Wantagh, New York - Tail Gunner
The Crew’s missions (Crew 12)
Mission Date, Group Mission Number and Mission Target
44-04-08 ~ 081 ~ Quackenbruck, Germany
44-04-10 ~ 083 ~ Maldegem, Belgium
44-04-11 ~ 084 ~ Rostock, Germany
44-04-12 ~ 085 ~ Leipzig, Germany
44-04-13 ~ 086 ~ Augsburg, Germany
44-04-18 ~ 087 ~ Oranienburg, Germany
The Crew members of 42-39924
William T. Sheehan - buried at Arlington
Charles W. Beck - buried in Pennsylvania
Victor L. Bubbet - unknown
Robert I. Temple - buried in Indiana
Gregory P. Aversa - buried at Arlington
Jerome J. Hentz - Ardennes D/5/56
Norman S. Rosenburg - buried at Arlington
Ross S. Rito - survived as POW
Wilbert S, Nichols - survived as POW
Orin V. Burgman - buried in Arlington
April 01, 2008
The photo directly below was sent to me by Mario Schulze of AG Fliegerschicksale Oranienburg, see comment section. The photo was taken by a bomber of the 381st Bomb Group that was about 2 minutes behind Victor’s plane. Mario has kindly identified the Heinkel Factory target (which clearly shows multiple explosions) and the smoke from Victor’s plane just after it hit the ground. As Mario explains in the comments section, it was this aerial photo that enabled him and his associates to locate the actual crash site just a few years ago. Click here for a larger version of the aerial photos shown below
Mario, many thanks to you and your associates for all the help and kindness you have provided in this search.
Click here http://www.381st.org/Portals/4/old381st/missions/mission_041844.html to see same image at a slightly wider angle. Top image - about 1 inch in from the left and one inch down
April 04, 2008
Shortly after my initial correspondence with Mario Schulze he confided in me that in 2000, the same year that he had identified the crash site with the help of the aerial photo, he had discovered something special. The crash site is farmland and so he had to wait until after a grain crop was harvested to conduct a search. But it was worth the wait as his search found a wrist ID with the name Robert B. Stetler. Click here for photo. The following year as ground was being prepared for a potato crop his son, Robert, found another ID tag with the name Robert B. Stetler. Click here for photo.
Think about it - 56 years after the crash - in a field that probably had been ploughed each year to plant a crop - and both of Robert Stetler’s tags are found - a year apart - one found by a boy named Robert. You have to believe that this was not just mere chance, there was a greater power at work here. Add to that the fact that several years ago Mario and his group had been instrumental in returning the id tags from another crash site to the crew member’s family. That crew member was Gregory P. Aversa, you’ll see his name on the grave marker photograph.
Mario had made several attempts to find Robert Stetler’s family but had been unsuccessful. So I took up the challenge. It took a while but having found Linda Croucher, a distant cousin of Robert, who provided me with a phone number, I finally found Robert Stetler’s brother - Dudley.
This morning I spoke with Dudley B. Stetler of Van Wert Ohio and explained my story. When I got to the part about Mario and his son having found the ID tags and how they wanted to find his family to return the tags - well, you can imagine. Robert D. Stetler is in the front row, far left.
I’ll update this story as things happen.
May 3rd
The United States War Department kept records of aircraft that went missing. Known as MACRs (Missing Aircraft Report) they documented what ever information was known about the aircraft. These reports were not made available to the public until 1996. Each link below is to a page of MACR 4014 for Victor’s aircraft. Most MACR were eventually saved on 16mm film so the quality varies.
The first 3 pages would have been generated shortly after the plane was shot down - one of the pages is dated 04-19-44. The last four pages, although generated around the same time, would not have been attached to the MACR report until after the end of the War as they are transcriptions/translations of original German documents generated by the Reich Air Ministry
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7
May 12
Many thanks to Debbie who answered my message at Rootsweb and put me in contact with Mercer County Genealogy and many thanks to Toni at MSG for sending me copies of MIA and KIA notices that appeared in the Sharon Herald (Sharpsville Pennsylvainia) in 1944. With these I can identify Pete N Rayhawk as front row, either 3rd or 4th from the left.
May 22
This morning I made contact with Victor Ratliff’s son, also named Victor. He had a copy of the very same photograph on the back of which are the names of the crew.
Back row, left to right;
Ben Wassell - Albert Jocye - Anthony Formato - Leonard Hersch
Front row, left to right
Robert Stetler - Eugene Harpster - James Finch - Pete Rayhawk - Leon Sarnowski - Victor Ratliff
God Bless them All.
May 27 - Memorial Day
Just as I was checking my e-mail before heading to bed I noticed someone had posted a comment. My jaw dropped when I realized that the person making the post was Emeline, the sister of Eugene Harpster. Read the comments to see how she came to this site !
June 11
Made contact with Leon A. Sarnowski, nephew of Leon J. Sarnowski. See Leon’s post below (#5) below. Thanks to the folks at UCONN !
June 12
Carol, a niece of Leon J. Sarnowski has also posted below (#6). Carol, thanks for the kind words.
My name is Mario Schulze, I am 40 years old and live in Oranienburg, Germany, not far away where both planes have crashed. I am an amateur air war historian in my home district Oberhavel and in research for local air war history and crashed planes since ten years.
Mr.Declan Curran had send this bloc to us and I am so gratefull to him. It seems to be a late easter gift.
I had done a lot of research in the matter of both planes and crews, especaily to the B-17 of Lt. Sheehan. For me it was the first B-17 crashsite I had located in 1999. Among the few wreckage parts I had found both ID-tags of the crew engineer Gregory P. Aversa, wich were handed over to the US authorities in 2000. One year later I had located the crashsite of the B-17 42-97242 by an Strike photo made by the 381st Bomb Group, which was two minutes after the 390th over the target and have catched the tragic scene on pictures.
If you are interested to get more informations, please feel free and contact me.
Sinserely
Mario Schulze
AG Fliegerschicksale Oranienburg
(Association Airmen’s Ordeals Oranienburg)
I found your comment on Kylee’s blog, Our Little Acre. Since I grew up about 30 minutes from Van Wert–and since my grandfather was a bombardier on a Liberator in the Pacific theatre, and I have been fascinated by WWII airplanes all my life–I couldn’t resist coming here to read this story.
It amazes me that you have found so much information online… and that Mr. Stetler’s ID tags were found so many years after the crash… amazing. I can’t even imagine what his brother would be able to say upon hearing that news.
Eugene Harpster, one of the men on the plane Good Pickin, was my brother. I was 5-6 when he went off to war. As someone has already discovered, they were declared missing in action and then declared dead one year later. Gene’s home was in central PA. When the mass grave was found, it was determined that the bodies would be returned to the US for burial. Originally they were to be buried in a military cemetery in MO but some of the parents got in touch with their congressmen and asked them to interven so they could be buried in Arlington. I was about 14-16 when the bodies were brought back to the US and buried in Arlington. I vividly remember going to the ceremony at Arlington. There were 7 caskets with two flags on the caskets and of course the flags were presented to the families present. The families were told that they had been buried in a mass grave by a German farmer which fits with all the pieces already discovered. My brother was the radio operator on the plane. Our son who is a West Point graduate was to give the Memorial Day speech in the small town where he resides and wanted some information on his uncle so he googled him and came across the website.
Emiline,
I assume you have a copy of the crew photo. If not, let me know and I can get you a copy of mine. Your brother and my Father are both included in the phote. I was at the same inturnment service ,at Arlington, although I was 6 or 7 at the time. I do have some additional information, but have commended Declan and Mario for all their efforts.
Best Personal Regards! VBR II vratliff@printcfp.com (work)
My father, Stanley Sarnowski is Leon (Leo) Sarnowski’s brother. Stanley visited the crew in Amarillo, Texas a few days prior to their departure for England. Stanley was working in Kansas City at the time. The crew had a difficult time in obtaining spirits and he brought them 5 bottles of whiskey. My father and the entire crew had a party to celebrate their departure.
My father, Stanley Sarnowski was Leon(Leo)Sarnowski’s brother. I attended the ceremony at Arlington with my father, a brother, my grandparents and aunt. I was only nine years old at the time but I found it to be a very impressive and moving ceremony. I never knew my uncle Leon as I was under two years old when he died. Thank you for all your research and time in locating family members. This was very informative and interesting.
I am amazed at this story. I found the site “googling” the Harpster surname, as my great-great grandmother was Nancy “Ellen” Harpster Harshberger from Centre Co, PA (she is buried in Gatesburg) I suspect Eugene was in this same Harpster line somewhere As a teacher/sponsor of our school’s annual History Day competitors, I applaud Alec for his scholarship and the great parenting that supported this project— It truly ended up going above and beyond! Bravo!
My grandmother is Berniece Stetler Young, Robert Stetler’s sister. She is currently 95 1/2 years old. Her younger brother, Dud, was contacted last year about the ID bracelet and dog tags. It was very hard for both of them to believe that after 64 years later they would finally have something of Bob’s back from the war. In January they received a package from Mario with the dogtags, ID bracelet and a coin found nearby. My grandmother and her brother are the only two remaining siblings of a family of 6 boys and 2 girls. We have photos of the Arlington burial as well as a photo of 30 young men that must have been in training together. The photo has 3-21-A written on the bottom left corner. I am not sure what this means. So many thanks go out to Mario and his son for finally providing my grandmother and her brother with personal items of their brother. It is certainly a blessing well worth the wait.
Great to see someone preserving the memories and photos of the brave men who served our country in WWII. I too have a photo of that particular B-17, however, it has a different crew. I was wondering if you had any information on the earlier crews that flew that aircraft. My great uncle Phil Kierstead was in the picture and I’m trying to find out the rest of the crew. The names I can make out are Jeff Roberts, Stephen O’Lear.
Thanks
Gerald,
Thank you for your kind comments on the Good Picken story.
Your Great Uncle Phil was with the 96 Bombardment Group, 339 Squadron, 8th USAAF. He was stationed at Snetterton in England (station 138)
He was a Ball Turret Gunner
His B-17 was hit by german fighters near Magdeburg while on a bomb run to Berlin on March 8, 1944. The actual crash site was near Helmstead. The seriel number of his plane was 42-31576
Crew list of 42-31576:
Richard F.Lemanki - Pilot
James W.Buttermore - Co-Pilot
Leroy G Chappell - Navigator
Marthew J Mendys - Top Turret Gunner
David A Hohm Jr. - Radio Operator
Phillip G Kierstead - Ball Turret Gunner
Jeff D Roberts - Waist Gunner
Edgar A Currie - Waist Gunner
Dean L Shuck - Tail Gunner
Frank Sewell - Bombardier
I believe all survived and spent the remainder of the war as POW’s at Stalag Luft 4
Stephan O’ Leary is not listed as a crew member but that’s not unusual, he could have been assigned to another crew to fill in as a replacement or he may have been injured himself and one of the above was his replacement.
Missing Air Crew Report for your great uncle’s plane is MACR 3426. You should be able to purchase a copy at either on of the sites below
http://www.aviationarchaeology.com/default.htm
www.accident-report.com