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PLANE CRASHES FIBill Henry Bowenf Bramwell, One of Crew in Sicilian Raid; Plane Crases on turn to BaseIt in a known fact that many of ■ the service man from this area1 hate taken part In the battle* on every field, where United States! troopa have been a part.This past week. It waa learned that William Henry Bowen of Bramwell. was one of th# mem- ? bers of a crew to bomb Sicily before the JnvMion—tn preparation for the invasion.That valorous crew, despite the fact that their plane was almost hot down in an attack over Sictle. flew back home on a win* and a praver ” And reaching their base, somew here in North Africa, j the nippled plane went in for a lt;rash landing but it got baca Imme.Proud of their feat in the war—! proud of their plane that brought tham back to safety, the crew members posed for a picture — showing the crashed plane the plane which was so much a part of that battle for Sicily,From ail sections of the earth, in every phase of the service, the men In uniform have come to have a certain respect for their j weapon of war. whether it be a plane, a jeep, a machine gun. a tank, or any other man-made machine sent from the United States factories to the war rones.The members of crew 12. United States army air forces, probably had that same respect for their plane - their Shangai La — from which they dropped their bombs on the island of Sicilv. Bowen's ! part on the plane was that of gunner, and it is a certainly that he saw’ planty of action during that raid—that his weapon was one of the main instrument* of that raid The picture was taken on May 2* probably the day after the raid on Siciiv.A story of the M». 27 raid stated that American Flying Fortresses slashed a screen of 50 Oer-man fighters to drop heavy cargoes of fragmentation bombs onthe oig Sicilian airfield of Comisco tn the shattering non-stop aerial offensive against Italy. Three of the opposing German Messer-schmitt-lOPs were shot down without loss to the fortresses, although two other allied planes were missing in operation* extending from Sardinia to llie Greek coast.Ip that raid, docks, shipping airfield*, a power station train and gun emplacements were battered ss the fortresses bucked a M-mlle-an-hour wind to spray steel among the despersed axts aircraft at Comiso1* is not known for a certainty that this is the same raid as the one in which the above plane and crew participated But it was during that time that this crew' helped to prepare the Italian people for the invasion to come.The combat crew of one of the Sicily raiders, lie fore the invasion of the Italian Island, is pictured beside the crashed plane at its base somewhere in North Africa. The plane returned to It* base on May 28, surviving heavy gunfire over Sicily. Disabled, its crew managed to mum to base where the plane was torn up in a crash landing Member* of the combat crew, left to right, are: C. L, Bunt, radio operator; William Henry Bowen, gunnnet, A, L Clark, engineer; C. C. Ducuir. navigation officer; J. A. Weir, co-ptlot; and J. B Sturm, pilot. Bowen is from Bramwell.
Newspaper Details
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Bluefield, West Virginia, US
Sun, Jul 18, 1943
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 29 Sep 2023
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