#17 OTHER ARMY AIR CORPS CREWS AT ZACHARY TAYLOR

This B-24, 42-78243, "Dallas Lady," and crew were assigned to the 831^st Squadron of the 485^th Bomb Group. On September 12, 1944, it is believed they were on a secret mission flying for the 885^th Squadron, Operation Coastline, off the coast of northern Italy and crashed into a mountain, the peak of Corne de Bouc, Fontan, Maritim’s Alps, in southern France. All the crew except Lt Bryant were buried on May 3, 1949 in Section E Plot 60-61 of the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery

2/Lt Earl A. Desjardins, Pilot

2/Lt James W. Bryant, Navigator Unknown Burial Location

2/Lt Robert M. Hermans, Bombardier

2/Lt Guido Lancia, Bombardier - Observer

2/Lt Frank D. Rugg Jr, Pilot Observer

2/Lt Dale W. Marston, Copilot

S/Sgt Joseph H. Boone, Gunner

Sgt Stanley Gluckman, Radio Operator

Sgt Lewis E. Kees, Gunner

Sgt Anthony R. Skarl, Gunner

Sgt Stephen E. Levcik, Engineer

The plane took off at 2008 hours from Maison Blanche in Algeria for Operation Coastline to drop an Italian Resistance man and supplies at DZ “Mockingbird” in the vicinity of Crescentino, about 33 km NE of Turin at 45 degrees 20’25”N, 7 degrees 30’32” E. Aircraft crashed about 2300 hours into the mountainside at Clos de Carle SW of the Pointe de la Corne de Bouc following errors in navigation and adverse weather conditions. All the crew were killed.

AIR FORCE SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND (AFSOC) BRIEF HISTORY

Air Force special operations forces (AFSOF) have ebbed and flowed since they were established to support our World War II (WW II) Allies in the North African, Mediterranean, European, and China-India-Burma theaters. AFSOF forces were also very active in the Cold War, Korean War, and South East Asia (SEA) War.

The earliest missions involved the Special Flight Section of the 12th Air Force's 5th Bombardment Wing in North Africa in October 1943. This small adhoc unit operated highly modified and mission unique bombers into France and other parts of occupied Europe. Later they evolved into the 885th Bombardment Squadron (Special) and flew out of Brindisi, Italy, into Yugoslavia.

The largest Army AFSOF effort in Europe was conducted by the 801st Bombardment Group (S) nicknamed the "Carpetbaggers," and was based in England. They operated mostly long-range bombers backed up by medium bombers and transports.

The above units dropped supplies and parachutists to allied partisan and guerrilla units. They also air landed behind enemy lines to drop off personnel and supplies and recover hundreds of shot down allied aircrew.

In late 1943 the 1st Air Commando Group was organized and went into combat in March of 1944. Set up to perform a variety of conventional and unconventional combat and support missions deep behind enemy lines they used an array of aircraft including transports, fighters, bombers, light planes, gliders, and helicopters. They accomplished the first AAF behind the line night airfield seizure and combat rescue with a helicopter. All AFSOF units were disbanded at the end of WW II.

Support for Resistance Movements

Following the German victories in Europe, patriotic elements arose in virtually every occupied country. The Allies encouraged these groups, popularly known as the "underground" or as "partisans," to organize, gather intelligence, and resist. As early as 1940, the British government established the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to aid them. Later, in 19 42, the Americans followed with their own Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The activities of both of these organizations came to be called "special operations."

In the Mediterranean theater, special operations started slowly. Before September 1943, the Allies conducted them on a limited scale, flying only a few missions into France. But Allied agents, acting with the French resistance, soon pressed for more. Faced with expanding special operations, the RAF formed the 334th Wing in November 1943 to command almost all special-duty aircraft in the theater.

The Balkan Partisans

When Baker arrived in the Mediterranean at the end of 1943, he ex pressed an interest in special operations and arranged for an American unit, the 122d Liaison Squadron, to participate. Additionally, in February 1944, two squadrons of the 62d Troop Carrier Group arrived in Brindisi, Italy, to support the Balkan partisans. Flying C-47s, they airdropped guns, ammunition, dynamite, food, clothing, and medical supplies to the partisans waiting below. When landings became possible, gasoline, jeeps, and even mules were quickly unloaded. In a typical mission, the Americans dropped thou sands of pounds of ammunition and supplies, several SOB/OSS agents (called "Joes" and "Janes"), and hundreds of thousands of leaflets.

The C-47s solved a critical supply situation that the RAF 334th Wing, always short of aircraft, could not solve. Flying sorties in central and southern Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, and northern Italy, often in dangerous winter weather, the Americans dropped nearly 400,000 pounds of supplies and leaflets and numerous personnel in February and March 1944. A few weeks later, the original squadrons wearily welcomed their relief when four new C-47 units of the 6Oth Troop Carrier Group took over. The cargo pilots faced harrowing problems. They flew mainly at night and frequently had difficulty spotting the primitive landing strips in narrow valleys surrounded by peaks and ridges. Many of these fields could be approached from only one direction and failure on the first attempt could mean a wrecked aircraft and death. Despite the dangers, the number of night landings and escorted daylight sorties steadily increased. Between April and October 1944, the 60th Troop Carrier Group made more than seven hundred landings, almost all in Yugoslavia. Much of that support went to Marshal Tito (Josip Broz), a Yugoslav partisan leader locked in a savage struggle with the German invader. One typically dangerous mission involved delivering twenty-four mules and twelve 75-mm guns to Tito's partisans in Montenegro. Flying on instruments through terrible weather, the pilots slipped between two jagged peaks to a safe landing.

In October 1944, the AAF assigned heavy bombers to augment the transports, and the 885th Bombardment Squadron began flying to distant points in northern Italy and Yugoslavia. Until the end of the war, American units continued supplying partisan bands wherever they fought, from remote mountains and valleys to the teeming cities of Belgrade, Zagreb, and Sarajevo.

The Italian Resistance

The Italian resistance movement differed from its Yugoslav counter part. In Italy, partisans took a supporting role while Allied and Axis forces fought on major battlegrounds along a well-defined front. The anti-fascist guerrillas harassed German lines of communication, protected Allied agents, gathered information, and helped downed airmen evade capture.

After the invasion of southern France, the United States increased its support for the Italian partisans. flying first from North Africa and later from Italy, the 885th Bombardment Squadron dropped tons of supplies to resistance forces in the Po Valley. Supply drops increased dramatically when the 62d and 64th Troop Carrier Groups joined the effort. Partisan at tacks on the enemy also increased. field Marshal Kesselring reluctantly diverted nearly 40,000 troops from his crumbling front to suppress the guerrillas. Although the Germans killed or captured hundreds of partisans, they were unable to crush the resistance movement. American-supplied partisans continued fighting Germans in northern Italy until the war ended.

Evacuation from Enemy Territory

As the tempo of Balkan operations intensified, the MAAF faced the problem of evacuating increasing numbers of downed Allied fliers. Many aircraft did not return after missions against heavily defended targets. Fortunately, some aircrews parachuting from damaged aircraft or surviving crash landings came under the protection of the underground, which fed them, cared for their wounds, hid them from the Germans, and frequently helped them reach the Adriatic coast. When possible, partisans led downed airmen to secret airstrips where special operations aircraft flew to them to safety.

In late July 1944, Eaker directed the Fifteenth Air Force to form Air Crew Rescue Unit No.1, an outfit specifically devoted to rescue and evacuation. During the night of August 2/3, in a mission typical of many flown until war's end, the unit dropped a field party fifty-five miles south of Belgrade, where roughly one hundred airmen had assembled. The rescuers immediately set to work on a landing strip. Six days later, C-47s evacuated nearly three hundred men there.

Later in August, when Romania abruptly left the Axis and joined the Allies, the Fifteenth Air Force learned of more than one thousand American airmen held in prison camps near Bucharest. The POWs faced imminent deportation to the Third Reich. Hurriedly converting 56 B-17s into transports, the Italy-based fifteenth Air force mounted Operation Re union. As the newly converted transports touched down near the camps, the former prisoners surged forward, happily crowded into the B-17 s, and were flown to safety.

* * *

The special operations units, using equipment and techniques adapted to their peculiar operational problems, took on a certain aura that distinguished them from normal combat units. Bombers and fighters made headlines, but the work of special operations personnel remained secret and apart. The looks of relief on their passengers' faces kept morale high and added immeasurably to the pride they felt in flying these dangerous but unsung missions.

Plaque Ceremony September 14, 1991

In the night of September 12 to 13, 1944, B-24 serial 42-78243, called "Dallas Lady", crashed against the abrupt wall of the Corne de Bouc, mountain located on the commune of Fontan, in the valley of Roya (department of the Maritim's Alps). Its mission was to drop containers and packs to the underground of Allessandria's sector (N/E of Piemont, north Italy).

Their mortal remains were recovered by the German soldiers who brought them to the civil cemetery of Fontan.

Just after the war, the bodies were exhumed and moved, by the American services of identification, to the military temporary cemetery of Luynes (Rhône's valley).

Now, the crew rests in US cemetery Zachary Taylor, Louisville, Kentucky.

The wreck of B-24 "Dallas Lady", until 1991 (year of its recovery) was single due to the quantity and the quality of the wrecks still in place and largely disseminated in an imposing fall.

Following the research made in collaboration with J. K Mattison in the USA, A. Ramoin, A. Fine, R. Cohen, S. Poliakovic, then, thereafter, with A. Poggi, president of veteran of AFN. of Beausoleil, that the most imposing memorial of the Maritim's Alps department was raised.

In this day of September 14, 1991 most families of this crew found thanks to Liliane Kell were joined together at the bottom of the peak of Corne de Bouc, for one of most important inaugural ceremony (mediatization, number of people and elected officials present), who was given us to assist!