398th Bomb Group Research

Anstey Castle Mound And Moat,  St. George's Church, 

Yesterday I mentioned the tragedy of the crash of Command PFF plane 42-97746 in the village of Anstey, just a few miles south of the main runway. Fortunately the large bomber missed all houses and crashed into the moat surrounding the old Anstey castle mound behind St. George’s church. All ten crewmen were killed including pilot William Meyran and Command pilot Charles Khourie.

This tragic event would later become the impetus for serious research into the 398th Bomb Group. In the fall of 1972, three local Englishmen, Vic Jenkins, Malcolm “Ozzie” Osborne, and John Knight explored the crash site. Ozzie explains it best: “One October day in 1972 we climbed Anstey Castle mound, together with a colleague of mine from work. All we knew was Vic’s information that a B17G Flying Fortress had crashed into the mound shortly after taking off from Nuthampstead, with the loss of all onboard. Up on the mound this grey October day, my colleague, John Knight, suddenly called out “look what I have found”. It was the case of a wrist watch, no glass, hands or strap. John wet his finger and rubbed the back of the case and we saw the name ‘William L Meyran’ engraved on the back. That made the hairs go up on the back of my neck, suddenly this all became extremely emotional, it truly brought home the fact that 10 young American Airmen had perished on this spot. Who were they? What were their names? Where were they headed for that day? Why did they crash? There were so many questions, but nowhere or nobody to turn to for answers.”

“I decided then and there that I would not rest until I found out all I could about Nuthampstead, the Bomb Group known as the 398th, its four Squadrons and those young men who gave their lives on that Medieval Castle Mound. So I came up with the name ‘Nuthampstead Airfield Research Society’ (NARS) – how original. A society with only two members, well why not? So in 1972 we began our research quest.”

My Son Jeff And Me, Joyce and Malcolm Osborn, And My Brother Steve At Cambridge American Cemetery

From this humble beginning has grown a great deal of serious research, and has led to the formation of the 398th Bomb Group Memorial Association, the quarterly publication Flak News, the erection of an impressive memorial at the Woodman Inn adjacent to the old Nuthampstead base, the creation of a beautiful stained-glass memorial window at St. George’s church in Anstey, and more.

Perhaps because the 398th was a late arrival to the air war and only saw one year of combat, they have received little attention from 8th Air Force historians. But their contribution to Allied victory was noble and significant. Malcolm Osborne’s forty years of research is invaluable in telling their story, as are the efforts of Allen Ostrom, Cliff and Stan Bishop, and others.

 

Several books on the history of the group are invaluable aids. The first is Allen Ostrom’s 398th Remembrances, now available in re-publication. Another is Cliff Bishop’s fine Fortresses Over Nuthampstead, filled with valuable information including mission and aircraft histories, lists of KIAs, MIAs POWs, and much more. 

And Malcom Osborn has just finished a new book, A Photographic Journey With The 398th Bombardment Group. The 398th's quarterly publication, Flak News, edited for decades by Allen Ostrom, is a font of information and stories. And the website, 398th.org, is also filled with valuable information and personal histories, as well as Flak News articles.

The Search

My father lost his life in combat on March 2, 1945, when his B-17 was shot down by enemy fighters over Czechoslovakia. He was 27 years old; a member of the 398^th Bomb Group, 603^rd Squadron. It was only his fifth mission. It was also his wife Jocile's 24^th birthday and she was pregnant with their second child, my brother Steve, who would be born three months after my father's death. I was 2 ½ -years-old and my father was the biggest thing in my life. Growing up in his physical absence, and among other members of “the greatest generation,” I understand what Tom Mathews calls “the tidal pull of WWII,” especially for those of us who were born were born in its turbulence and grew up in the shadow of its heroes, living or dead.

I wrote something about my dad's childhood, which can be read here. My dad joined the Army Air Corps in June 1943, and graduated in Class 44-F at Pecos, Texas a year later. For the next seven months my mother and I joined him, living on bases at Roswell, New Mexico, Sioux City, Iowa, and Lincoln, Nebraska. I last saw him as he shipped out in January 1945, two months before his final mission. Since then I have only seen him in dreams and memories, but his effect on me has been inexorable.

I inherited a box of photos, letters, photos, documents, mementos, and a couple of medals.  I learned a good bit about his early life and his Air Force training in the states but only a sketchy story of his service and death. I knew he flew out of England, his plane had crashed in Czechoslovakia, and the tail gunner was the only survivor. His papers and documents revealed few clues about his service. War Department correspondence from 1945-46, indicated that he had flown from a base at Nuthampstead, England, and that the target that March 2 was Bohlen, Germany. There was a 1945 letter to my mother from tail gunner “Sam” Haakenson, written soon after his release from a POW camp, and another from someone named “Ridge.” (I now know that was Lawson Ridgeway, my father’s navigator who was on another plane that day.) Both expressed hope that my father and his crew would be found alive. For sixty years that was as much detail as I had.

I wrote to the Air Force, the Pentagon, and the National Archives seeking his military records and other information—to no avail. They told that a 1972 fire in St. Louis had destroyed many WWII records including his. I insisted that there must be a MACR (Missing Aircrew Report) somewhere, or at least a record of which unit he served with, but no one seemed interested in looking any further. I had hit a dead end.

Then in March, 2005, with the family gathered following our mother’s funeral, Steve and my son Jeff suggested we try a Google search on his computer. Starting simply with “B17 Bomb Groups,” we found a list of English air bases indicating that Nuthampstead was home to the 398^th Bomb Group. This linked us to the 398^th website and to their Flak News, with articles about the surviving tail gunner, Selmer Haakensen. We were stunned to learn there was a memorial to our father and his crew at Slany, Czech Republic; a website for the Slany Aeroklub had photos of the memorial! After 60 years, with a few keystrokes, the stone was rolling away!