Blackwell's Thirty-Four Man Crew

By Wally Blackwell, Pilot, 601st Squadron

I didn't know that a 398th Bomb Group Memorial Association existed until 1985. I was visiting my daughter and her family in Seattle when Boeing's 50th year celebration of the B-17 occurred. I was one of what was estimated to be more than 10,000 ex-B-17er's to show up. When I returned home to Maryland I discovered that WWII 8th AF Bomb Group data was available for viewing on 16-mm tapes in a library at Boeing AFB in Washington, DC. It took some labor, but I eventually found the records to reconstruct most of my 398th experience. It wasn't long after that I caught the 398th spirit and got "involved."

One of my first interests was to assemble the names of those that flew with me. I was a bit surprised at the number that did. I would never forget my original crew of ten, but I also remembered that others were assigned to fly with me from time to time because of various "events." The facts were: the bombardier had been wounded in a leg on our first mission (July 31, 1944 - my 20th birthday), a crew member asked to be released from combat duty after the second mission and we got shot down on our fourth mission (August 8, 1944) all surviving but the tail gunner. Then another crew member decided that he had enough after the bail out, then the toggilier was wounded in the face on mission 25, and then the navigator fell on icy ground and broke his wrist after mission 29. Along with these events were a few fill-ins for illness. All of my crew shortages were filled from other 601 Squadron crew members needing a few more missions to finish their tours. In the end, only four of my original crew finished 35 missions with me on December 28, 1944. All I can say is "we made it" although not necessarily the easy way. Perhaps I set the record for crew assignments.

But along the way I had many courageous and proficient individuals assigned to my crew. Now is surely the time to remember them and give them thanks for believing that I could bring them back safely to Station 131.

The head count of Blackwell's thirty-four:

  1. 35: Wally Blackwell, Roy Anderson, Arnold Brunsberg, Pete Brown and Gerry Decker
  2. 30: Jack Bohn
  3. 29: Ike Cassuto
  4. 25: Adrian Bacon
  5. 14: Jack Eder
  6. 9: Frank Yarmoski
  7. 4: Joe Bigda
  8. 3: Robert Beckley, Don Coffee and Edward Hoag
  9. 2: Charles Simons (KIA), Cliff Donahue, Bob Augustin and John Bell
  10. 1: Ray Gainey, John Gibson, James Crouch, Henry August, John Shrader, Leo Terrion, Albert Albro, K. McCroskay, George Gouvein, George Abbott, W. Burns, David Broderick, Russell Lachman, Clayton Johnson, R. Rickabaugh and Robert Hatcher

 

Personal History Information
  1. Veteran: Wally Blackwell
  2. Position: Pilot
  3. Squadron: 601st
  4. Date of Personal History: December 2002
  5. Author: Wally Blackwell
  6. Submitted to 398th Web Pages by: Wally Blackwell