All gave some ... some gave all.
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View complete roster of 13th casualties. (50K) |
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 John P. Ahlers Pilot MIA August 10, 1952  Leslie E. McHaney Gunner MIA December 9, 1952  Sherman R. Beaty Group Cmdr, Pilot MIA April 1, 1953  Jerome Karpowicz Gunner MIA May 17, 1953 |
The very first American deaths in the war (Ray Cyborski and Jose
Campos) were not due to enemy action but to a loss of control
letting down in bad weather. Standard procedure was that the gunner
kept his turret guns in the trail position -- pointed toward the
rear. Lt. Lister, who survived the bailout and was picked up by
a Japanese fishing boat, said Cyborski got out ahead of him and
was hung up on the forward pointing guns. The second fatal crash occurred at Ashiya returning from a combat mission that first day when Remer Harding and William Goodwin were killed trying to land in bad weather. The weather in Japan that day was too poor to fly but there was a war to be fought. Sometimes you died and didn't get credit for it. Well, not a combat death anyway. In January 1951 Pilot Capt. Daly and Navigator Lt. Hauber were returning from a night transition training flight to Tokyo. They reported they had the "homer" and were inbound for landing. They never landed. Next day the wreckage was found on a mountain many miles distant from the base. The 3rd Bomb GP. used an island in the bay for gunnery and bombing practice. It was called "the rock". In April 1951 the aircrews were assembled to watch a demonstration of proper techniques of using various ordnances working under flares. A few attacks had been made on the rock and then Major Stein turned on final for a long flat skip bombing approach. Everyone watched his approach until he hit the water just short of the rock -- no survivors. Sometimes it seemed it just wasn't fair. It was that way in July 1951 when the crew of John Burtis, Ed Cayemburg, and Philip Moscatelli were making an emergency landing at Suwon (K-13). They had made it back to the emergency landing field and lost control of the airplane while under GCA control just 3 miles from touchdown. People dealt with the possibility of "not making it back" in their own ways. Some were sure they would make it and some were sure they wouldn't. People in both groups were wrong. In comparison with the great air armadas of WW II in Europe and the huge losses of that war, Korea was a pretty safe place. Statistics didn't matter if you were one of the losses. -- Charles Hinton, 13th Navigator  |
 Clifford G. Selman Navigator MIA May 17, 1953  Howard L. Crowshaw Gunner MIA July 14, 1953  Stanley B. Haladyna Pilot MIA July 14, 1953  Glen Story Flight Engineer MIA July 14, 1953 |
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