Photo of 95th BG Rongstad Crew Discovered after Years of Searching

Three 95th Vets pay tribute to the fallen crew in June 2010. Redlingfield, Suffolk. (Photo by Richard Flagg)

Monument to the crew, erected in 2010. (Photo by Richard Flagg)

The Rongstad Crew. Front Row: Left to Right: 2nd Lt. Kenneth B. Rongstad of Montana, 2nd Lt. Warren M. Strawn, 2nd Lt. Richard E. Diete, 2nd Lt. Joseph F. Spicer.

Back Row, Left to Right: S/Sgt. Gordon V. Sorensen, Sgt. Julius W. Torok, Sgt. Charles E. Phinney, Sgt. Louis M. Mirabel, Sgt. Aloysius L. Godek, S. Sgt. Agnew R. Eckert.

(Eckert was not on the crew at the time of the crash) S. Sgt. Gail A. Richmond is not in the photo)

Just received news from James Mutton in Suffolk that a crew photo of the ill-fated Rongstad crew has been donated by a neice of crewmen Warren Strawn. James has been looking for a photo of this crew for many years, as the crash of this crew was one of the things that drew him into his interest in the 95th Bomb Group and the air war in World War Two. Rongstad's B-17 crashed shortly after takeoff when it stalled in a banking turn. All the crew were killed in the accident. In June, a memorial was erected at the crash site. For more on the Rongstad crew, see the related stories on this blog by typing in "Rongstad" in the search box in upper left corner of blog.

Green Farm Accident Report, November 19, 1943

This goes with the post immediately preceding it. Read that one first.

The Green Farm Crash, Redlingfield, November 19, 1943

This quiet, leafy grove of trees behind the replacment farm house at Redlingfield, Suffolk, contains many relics of Rongstad's crashed B-17 Flying Fortress. (Rob Morris Photo)

The same grove on the fateful day. (Army photo)

The farmhouse burns down. The Army Air Force paid the farmers to erect a new one, and it is still there. (Army photo)

The thatched farmhouse roof goes up in flames. (Army Photo)

The replacement farmhouse, June 2008. (Rob Morris photo)
Old shed across the lane from Green Farm, survived intact. (Rob Morris photo)

Wreckage from the Green Farm crash, possibly the ball turret. (Army photo)

This blogger site has gotten increasingly hard to use lately. First, I can't figure out how to move the photos around. Second, I can't copy-and-paste from other sites of my writing, so this is going to be short and sweet.

Twisted, charred wreckage of the Rongstad B-17. (Army Photo)

On November 19, 1943 a B-17 of the 95th Bomb Group piloted by Montanan Kenneth Rongstad took off from its base at Horham. Rongstad, an experienced pilot, banked too close to the ground, stalled, and crashed into a farm in nearby Redlingfield. All members of the crew were killed either in the initial crash or in the detonations of the 500-pound bombs on board.

I just got word that the English in the area are considering erecting a monument to the crash victims, so I thought I'd post some photos to help out the cause.

I visited the crash site in June 2008 and took the color photos above. The black and white photos are from the official Army Air Force reports, 95th archives.

Swedish Internees: Photos of a Forced Landing, May 19, 1944

The heavily-damaged 95th Bomb Group B-17 'Smiling Sandy Sanchez' rests in a ploughed field in Sweden after a wheels-up crash landing on May 19, 1944. The crew spent the rest of the war as Swedish internees.

Another angle of the plane crash. All on board survived.

The W.S. Waltham crew pose for a photo in Sweden. Fournier is in the front row, second from left, shirtless with camera. (Photos courtesy of James Fournier)

Photos from James Fournier, Bombardier on the W.S. Waltham Crew, 95th Bomb Group, 334th Squadron. The crew, flying the B-17 'Smiling Sandy Sanchez' was shot up on May 19, 1944, plunging twenty-four thousand feet in a flat spin before pulling out at three thousand feet, and eventually crashing in a ploughed field in Sweden. The crew spent the rest of the war as Swedish internees. (Photos courtesy of James Fournier, whom I interviewed at the Tucson Reunion of the 95th in 2008). Fournier's story will appear in the upcoming 95th Unit History which I recently completed.

Irish Diver Finds Lee Kessler's B-17 'Meltin' Pot'

This writing job never ceases to surprise and fascinate me. A few months ago, I got an email from a fellow writer in Northern Ireland named Jack Scoltock. Jack is a well-known author of children's books in the UK and also a diver. He emailed me to let me know he was finishing up a book about his dives to a sunken B-17 bomber named 'The Meltin' Pot', which sank in the Lough Foyle on the way to England in 1942.

Seamus Carey researched and found the plane.

I was friends with one of the crewmen, a gentleman named Lee Kessler, whom I wrote about in my book Untold Valor. Lee had the dubious distinction of having survived four plane crashes in his Air Corps career. One was stateside during his training as an aerial gunner and it killed the pilot. The second was the dangerous ocean ditching of 'The Meltin' Pot' off the Irish Coast. All aboard survived but spent hours in the frigid waters. The third crash totaled the crew's replacement B-17 after a mission, and the fourth resulted in Lee becoming a POW in Germany. It was during his time as a POW that Lee survived the infamous forced winter march and witnessed a war crime that he turned into an internationally acclaimed piece of Holocaust art.

Jack is putting the finishing touches on a book about the underwater discovery of the Meltin' Pot. I for one am excited to read it. The book is due out in June.

When I visited Lee Kessler at this home in Canton, Ohio some years back, he told me that the plane had been discovered, and he was hoping to fly over to Ireland to meet with the divers who'd found it. Sadly, Lee passed away only a few months after we talked, and never got a chance to see the plane that had carried him and the rest of the crew safely across the Atlantic, only to ditch in the sea.

Jack wrote me: "Did you know that Charles Pappy Grimes, who was on Lee's original crew of Meltin' Pot, played saxophone or relief saxophone for Tommy Dorsey before he was called up. That's why there are 120 Tommy Dorsey records and a record player on board the Meltin' Pot. Yet to be salvaged."

The tentative cover of the book is shown here, and I'm also giving Jack's personal website in case anyone wants to order a book or has a question about the recovery of the aircraft.

Here is the weblink for Jack's writing website: http://www.jackscoltock.com/





The photo above, which I took in Lee's home, shows Lee holding the cover of his wartime scrapbook. If you look closely, you can see a painting of the ditching of the Meltin' Pot near the middle. The book's cover is decorated by paintings depicting Lee's many experiences in the war. It was held shut by a captured German belt and buckle. The belt is blue and white and runs across the bottom of the book, and the buckle is circular and silver at the right of the book.

WW II Airman's Body Found 63 Years After Mountain Crash

A glacier in Kings Canyon National Park, where the remains of a man believed to be a missing World War II airman, is seen. The second set of human remains were found in a high alpine region of Kings Canyon National Park on Wednesday, no more than 100 feet from where climbers spotted the ice-entombed body of Leo Mustonen in October 2005. National Park Service photo via Associated Press

Credit: Steven Rubenstein, SF Chronicle (CA) Staff Writer
Monday, August 20, 2007


The frozen remains of a missing World War II airman have been discovered on a remote glacier in Kings Canyon National Park, not far from the spot where the body of his apparent crewmate was discovered in 2005, it was announced on Monday.
A hiker discovered the remains on Wednesday at an elevation of 12,300 feet near Mount Darwin inside the park. The remains, which were accompanied by a World War II era uniform and parachute, were being taken on Monday to the the Fresno County coroner's office.
Because of the cold temperature at the recovery site on the Mendel Glacier, the remains included skin, hair and soft tissue, according to Army Major Brian DeSantis of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii. The command will work to identify the body once the coroner releases it to the military.

"This body was found 100 feet from where the last one was found,'' DeSantis said. "We're hopeful it's from the same incident.''

On Oct. 16, 2005, an ice climber found the body of a man later identified as Leo Mustonen, 22, one of four fliers aboard an Army Air Corps AT-7 plane that took off from Mather Air Force Base on Nov. 18, 1942, on a routine training mission and was never heard from again. The plane was believed to have crashed in a blizzard.

After Mustonen's body was found, searchers scoured the area, looking for other remains, but were hampered by the thick snowpack.

This summer, however, the snowpack at the site was about one-third of normal, DeSantis said.
"Basically, the snow and ice receded enough for the remains to become exposed,'' he said.
DeSantis said a military forensic anthropologist is on his way to Fresno to assist authorities in identifying the remains.

A parachute is seen wedged between rocks on a glacier in Kings Canyon National Park. Hikers discovered the remains of a man believed to be a missing World War II airman on Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007, not far from the spot where a missing aviation cadet's body was found two years ago. National Park Service photo via Associated Press