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Army Air Corps records?

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J

JHaydon

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I've been meaning to look for a source to find out more about my uncle's military service records.

I'm told he was a tail gunner on a bomber in WWII. I'd like to at least find out which model he flew in. My father told me once but I must have remembered incorrectly -- I later mentioned it to a military historian, but he just laughed and said the model was so rare he'd have recognized his name.

According to his gravestone he was discharged as a Staff Sergeant. Aside from his name and birthdate, that's about the extent of my knowledge.

Any ideas for making this needle stand out a bit in the haystack?
 
This might be a long shot but you could try the Military Records Center located in St Louis, MO. They might be able to provide what unit he was in which could lead to the type of aircraft.
The downside is there was a big fire a long time ago and many records were destroyed. I can’t remember what the time frame of the destroyed records.
Good luck.
 
Do you have any paper records, showing his service number, DOB and POB, etc.?

Also, was he in the Army Air Corps - or the Army Air Forces? and did he serve any time after 1946 (1947 was the creation of the USAF)?

Army records destroyed by the 1973 fire:

ArmyPersonnel discharged November 1, 1912 to January 1, 196080%

If you can find details, I can probably find what units he was assigned to, what a/c, where based, and what missions.

Tom M.
 
Air Corps, he served and flew in combat missions during WWII. His gravestone also states "S SGT US ARMY AIR CORPS WWII". DOB 07/07/24 -- I never heard any claims that he lied about his age to get in, so it's unlikely that he would have enlisted any earlier than July 1942.

He was discharged after (during?) the war but I do not know if he was ever injured. Unfortunately some pointless drama drove a wedge between his family and mine, so I have no access to any of his records. I remember meeting him once when I was very young.

I only know bits and pieces and anecdotes. I barely knew about his service until my father mentioned it after his death, and even then it was just an offhand comment when we were at the EAA Museum -- "That's the kind of plane my brother was on during the war." Prior to that, I think there was a story about a fellow crewman dying in his arms, but the story was never repeated and I was too young to ask about it.

His father had served in WWI, so his mother was not happy about him going to war (she is supposed to have pulled some strings to get my dad into a service branch that made it unlikely for him to go to Korea) -- ergo I don't believe she'd have helped him to enlist early. My father called him "just a kid" so I would think he enlisted before age 20.

The frustrating thing is that my family loved to tell stories and believed that history was important, but they spoke very little about important family history like this. I didn't even know that my mother was my father's second wife until I met my half-sister when I was about 15.
 
Good luck. As mentioned many records were lost in the ST Louis fire years ago, my dad's from his army time in Korea among them. And unfortunately before things transitioned to computer kept.
 
Thanks everyone for the replies and especially Tom, who instantly found several stunning bits of information which I had never heard. And with each piece of information, ten more pieces are discovered.

Once we were able to find out that he had served with the 8th Air Force, Tom verified that he was indeed the tail gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress ("Little Willie") in the 388th Bomber Group. Tom also found photos of the Little Willie nose art. Tom even found that he was mentioned in the book Blood and Fears, which quoted an article in Stars and Stripes about a 1944 daylight bombing mission.

This also unearthed a print (available on ArtUSA.com) depicting the miraculous return of Little Willie to England after the raid described in S&S. It's an absolutely chilling story.

Still trying to verify, but one (questionable) source says that he was injured on that mission. Another (more reliable) states that Little Willie was finally shot down over Berlin just a few weeks later... with a different tail gunner. Perhaps his injuries grounded him (or sent him home) and saved him from being captured with the rest of the crew.
 
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We have now found 3 books, at least one of which has the pilot telling his account of that mission -- including that my uncle was indeed hit but declared that he would stay at his station, and then succeeded in shooting down one of the attacking fighter planes.

The ground crew literally double-teamed the plane to get it airworthy in just 36 hours, but my uncle was apparently grounded for 3 weeks, so he missed that mission.
 
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