Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 11:44 PM

subjectRe: TAPS submission

My father, Bernard "Yorkie" Meyerson, 32342874, passed away on the 6th of Aug, '09, in White Creek, NY. He was a ball turret/waist gunner with the 530th, and after being wounded in action, worked in Headquarters.

My dad went overseas as a welder with the ground crew, but after the terrible losses the aircrews suffered, and no replacements, the CO offered a promotion to Staff Sgt. and a pay raise to anyone who volunteered for aircrew. My dad flew 6 missions, one of which was a raid on Balikpapan. His ship was hit by ground fire and lost an engine. They tried to land on an emergency jungle strip, and stalled on final. One of the men (the top-turret gunner I think) was pinned in the wreckage and my dad and the Captain were unable to pry him out. He burned to death, and my dad had nightmares about that crash night after night, right up until his death. [I did a little digging: he was shot down on a mission over Timor.] He spent 2 months in a field hospital for back and knee injuries.

I don't remember who he flew with (he didn't like to talk about a lot of what happened over there), but I know that as a ball-turret gunner, he took that fantastic photo of the fully loaded B-24 in a vertical spin. They were the only ones to ever pull out of a dive like that.

Jonathan

Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 11:44 PM

You may already know about this or your researchers might, but I have discovered that there are some original documents on the National Archives of Australia website that are freely available to the public that relate to the 380th. Most of the content on the site can be accessed for a fee per document but if someone has already requested a scan of any docs, they put them up for anyone to access.

I have just come across a memo, for instance, in a folder that contains details of RAAF personnel killed in USAAF accidents, some of which of course involve A/C from the 380th.

If this is of any interest to you, please let me know and I'll send you the details about how to search. I was thinking that there may be family members of those who may have been involved who might like to get some further detail about what may have happened to an aircraft.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Regards

Andrew Bock
E: bockarch@optusnet.com.au
Web: http://tinyurl.com/6874bn

Re: A Godforsaken Spot

To All Members of the 380th

Living at Adelaide River in the NT and just 37 miles from Fenton and many other old WW2 sites around the district is one great experience, and a huge learning one at that. I have visited Fenton on quite a few occasions and will continue to do so - it has a sense of mystery and history mixed which keeps me going back. Each time my friend in Darwin and I go camping or just for a day visit, we always visit the crash site of the RAAF B-24 S/n A72-88. Our next target is the hard-to-find the crash site of USAAF "Nothing Sacred."

I would also like to thank Roger W. Caputo for his wonderful continuing story about Australia in "Dream Time - A War Story" and to William Bever for his friendship over the Internet and emails.

Phillip Hoare is trying to gather information about Fenton and Long Airstrips and Camp areas so he can put all your information into a long, long overdue book about these Airstrips, where young Americans and Australians endured the hardships of the Australian Outback. The young ones of today have it so easy compared to what you servicemen had back then, and they still have no idea at all. Even I was only a few months old when all hell broke loose to our North but as for this country around here, I can almost get the picture of what it must have been like in the wet season with millions of insects and mozzies [mosquitos], with no fly and insect repellants in a handy pressure pack back then! So C'mon you blokes, get your memories out and tell Phillip what you saw, the hardships and joys (if there was any) you felt, and participate in a book about you. [See Newsletter #40, "A Godforsaken Spot" for a message from Phillip about his book.]

And while on the subject of our harsh Outback, I have read the book called "Savage Wilderness" about the crew of a B-24 "Little Eva" of the 90th BG that was stationed at Iron Range on Cape York and unbelievable survival of Gaston Grady. I have been up there around Burketown, easy these days in a 4x4, but then he and the other crew members were walking .... in that country in 1942/43, just plain unimaginable hardship.

Doug Tilley

Adelaide River, NT

dtilley5@bigpond.com