Glagola Crew – Assigned 755th Squadron – June 7, 1944

Lt John Glagola and crew arrived at Horsham St Faith on the day after D-Day, June 7, 1944. They underwent a brief period of in-theater indoctrination prior to flying their first mission on June 11th.

The crew would complete 25 combat missions that summer, prior to the 458th being taken off of combat flying in order to ferry gasoline to Patton’s army in France. Glagola participated in six of these Truckin’ missions in September 1944.

The crew resumed their missions on October 12th, fully one month after flying their last credited sortie. Their final mission was on Christmas Day, when the 458th was assigned the railroad tracks and yards at Pronsfeld, Germany.

The crew was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in January 1945 and transferred to the 70th Replacement Depot for reassignment.

Bombardier John Rice may have been moved to a lead crew at some point in his tour. He was promoted to Captain in January 1945 and went on Rest Home leave in mid-February. He did not leave Horsham until March 1945, long after Glagola and the rest of the crew had been reassigned.

On the other end of the spectrum, Lt. Kenwyn Steckel, the crew’s co-pilot appears to have completed his combat tour in September 1944, when he was awarded the DFC. He was transferred to a replacement depot in October 1944, fully two months before the rest of the crew had completed their combat flying.

Lt Prentiss Dong

S/Sgt William Pammer

S/Sgt Peter Vanderkemp

Lt’s Glagola and Prentis congratulate each other on their DFC’s

(Photos: FOLD3)

S/Sgt Calvin Davis

Certificate of Valor and Medical Release for Calvin Davis. 

The latter document has some hand-written notes about an incident on an undated combat mission.

Click for larger image

“NBR two engine took a flak hit and developed an oil leak – as Lt Glagola was feathering the prop, the flight engineer (substitute) shut off the fuel to the NBR one engine by mistake, causing the plane to go into a 90° vertical bank. It took the pilot and co-pilot both on the rudder controls to right the ship which was rapidly losing altitude and going into a spin. The bomb load (8000 lbs) was salvoed and finally the aircraft was brought under control after losing several thousand feet. We proceeded back to our home base – fired red flares for fighter protection (two P-51s escorted us to the Channel) and an uneventful landing was made at Horsham St. Faith.”