Larry Townsend Crew John Miller 2nd from left - 100th BG Photo Archives Lawrence E. Townsend Lt. Townsend, a B-17 pilot, brought back his wings, lieutenant bar and an assortment of Nazi souvenirs pinned to his wool knit cap.  Townsend was captured after being shot down by flak during a bombing run over St. Lo on 25 July 44

 349th Sqdn. Crew, as above, joined the 100th Group on 9/3/44.

Lt Burkhart was from the crew of S. D. Eichen and replaced Lt Edward H. Fehrenkamp 25 Jul 1944. T/Sgt Glasser (from Lt Frank Harte Crew) took over as ROG on the Crew on May 7, 1944 Berlin mission and completed his tour with Townsend Crew. S/Sgt Robert H. Dunbar flew missions with Townsend Crew until April 12, 1944 then went with Lt G. S. Allen Crew. T/Sgt Glasser became an EVADEE and 2nd Lt Andrew J. Burkhart was a POW.

 Lt Fehrenkamp flies 9 missions with this crew and then is replaced with different CP's from 1 May 44 until 19 Jun 44. He returns to the Crew on 20 June 44 and continues flying missions with this crew until 14 June 44. He is replaced on the Crew by Lt Burkhart from the crew of S. D. Eichen. Lt Fehrenkamp flew his last mission with Lt Herres on Sept 11, 1944 mission to Ruhland. S/Sgt John A. Miller took over as WG when Walter Kolar became TTE.

During May and early June, the following co-pilots flew with the Lt Townsend Crew:

F/O P. V. Lammers May 1, 1944
Lt F. W. Craft- May 7, 1944
Lt H. A. Debbern May 8, 1944
Lt P. L. Mitchell May 12, 1944 & June 6, 7, 1944
Lt D. L. Roth May 13, 19, 20, 1944 & June 2, 1944

Missions for Lt Lawrence E. Townsend Crew:

 EYEWITNESS: A/C #416 was believed to have been hit by flak from St. Lo shortly after bombs away and before reaching the R. P. (Rally Point) . Fire broke out inside the A/C and #2 engine began to smoke. Crewmen began bailing out of the ship which appeared to be flying on APCE. Nine chutes were seen, this would account for the entire crew.

This was the 35th mission for this crew. S/Sgt Walter W. Kolar, evaded the Germans for a few days until the advancing Allied Forces reached his position. He then joined a tank crew and fought until wounded . His new found armored buddies took him to the aid station, where the medical personnel discovered S/Sgt Kolar was Army Air Force. They terminated his short but popular ground combat career and placed him in the hospital. He must have been one of the 100th's most intrepid warriors. .

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Hello,
I am a French historian in the Paris area.
From our sources, the B-17 "Lady Luck" 349th BS was crashed in the Paris area on the 25 July 44.
But from your sources, the plane was crashed near St Lô in Normandie, about 400 km…. Do you know anything about it. A eventual picture of the "Lady Luck"

Best Regards.
Bruno Renoult.
bruno. renoult@club-internet. fr

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SOME BRIEF NOTES ON T/SGT WALTER W. KOLAR TTE WITH LARRY TOWNSEND CREW

 Walter W. Kolar enlisted on September 29, 1942 at Camp New Cumberland Gap, PA after the Pearl Harbor event and decided to join the Air Corp. He did his basic training at Miami and attended a series of gunnery schools from May to June 1943 at Lowrey Field and from July to September at Laredo, Texas. In November 1943 he was at the 395th Combat Crew School in Ardmore, Okla. before joining the Larry Townsend crew

After a series of training flights in the United States, the crew of Larry Townsend embarked for England and the Eighth Air Force on March 7, 1944. The crew at that time was made up of the following:

 On the flight over the North Atlantic, from Goose Bay Labrador, the plane ran into a severe thunderstorm and was forced to climb to an altitude of 35, 000 feet. The entire crew was on oxygen during this time. At one point, without informing anybody, Mr. Fisher climbed out of his top turret position and proceeded to move toward the waist of the plane. He was half-way there when he collapsed from lack of oxygen.

He was noticed by both Mr. Lane and Mr. Kolar when he collapsed and they both moved to assist Mr. Fisher and get an extra oxygen mask on him. The pilot immediately began a step descent to get down to about 10,000 feet where oxygen would not be necessary. Both Mr. Kolar and Mr. Lane began CPR on Mr. Fisher and worked on him constantly until an emergency landing was made in Ireland at which time emergency medical personnel were waiting to take over the revitalization of Mr. Fisher. Unfortunately, all attempts were unsuccessful and Tracey Fisher became the first casualty of the Larry Townsend crew.

 On March 9, 1944, the crew flew into Thorpe Abbots, near Diss, and became officially attached to the 100 Bomb Group, 349th Squadron. Walter W. Kolar was made Engineer/Top Turret Gunner at that point. John A. Miller joined the crew as the second waist gunner. Thus, the make-up of the crew when it began flying missions was: 

After a week of practice missions the Larry Townsend crew undertook its very first mission into enemy territory, joining the 8th Air Force in bombing Berlin on March 22, 1944. According to the personal diary of Walter Kolar, the crew flew on 35 official missions and was subsequently shot down by enemy flak on the 25th of July, 1944 while providing ground support for ground troops in and around St. Lo, France. One of the early planes for the Townsend crew was “Miss Minookie”. During these missions, Kolar was credited with shooting down one and one-half German planes.

THE FATEFUL 35th…

On July 25, 1944, The crew had an early awakening, went to a briefing where they discovered that they would be participating in what was termed “A Milk Run”. The mission was to provide ground support for troops who would be advancing into and through St. Lo, France later that day.  

To the best of my recollection, we approached the IP (Initial Point) at an altitude of 21, 000 feet and shortly thereafter the bomb bay released its full load of bombs. It seemed that, within seconds following the release of the bombs, the plane, Lady Luck, was struck by flak with a full burst in the bomb bay and waist positions of the plane. There was an immediate great ball of fire that engulfed the entire area and the alarm was sounded that the ship was badly hit and a large fire raged throughout. Pilot Larry Townsend then gave the orders for all to bail out. He put the plane on automatic pilot and apparently it flew to the outskirts of Paris before it finally crashed.  

This was a nine member crew for the flight and all bailed out safely.  

Six of the nine members were captured by the German forces and wound up in prison camps for the duration. Navigator Arnold Holmes became an evadee and several days later joined American ground forces. Radio man Louis Glasser likewise became an evadee and joined with American forces on July 29, 1944. 

Walter W. Kolar, made a free fall to almost 1,000 feet before attempting to open his parachute. Imagine his surprise when he pulled on the red handle and it hung loose in his right hand with no chute coming out! He then frantically began tearing the covering of the chute and actually throwing out the silken folds of the parachute which gradually began to take hold when he was already approaching close to the ground. He came crashing down through an apple tree which arrested much of his momentum along with the now-opened parachute. He quickly gathered the parachute and scrambled into a rather large hedgerow at the edge of the orchard. At time, he could see German soldiers scouting the area, obviously looking for the downed airman. Kolar hid in the hedgerow all day. He buried the parachute. When hunger set in he ventured out in the evening and picked a few green apples he gobbled up as a delicacy.

 After spending a cool night in the hedgerow Kolar felt he had to do something; he just couldn’t sit in the hedgerow. About seven AM the next morning he heard the sounds of an approaching wagon. Looking out, he saw a young woman leading a horse and a cart on which an old man sat holding the reins. Making a quick decision, he felt he could overpower the woman if need be, and do the same with the old man if that became necessary. At the precise moment when the wagon approached his hiding place, Kolar jumped out of the hedgerow, in front of the young woman and holding his hands high in the air declared in his high school French, “Je suis Americain! Je suis Americain!”

 The young woman immediately understood the situation. She ran up to Kolar and in part English and part French was able to convey that he was very welcome. She indicated that he should return to his hedgerow hiding place and that she would return later that day, in the evening, True to her word, as dusk fell, she and the old man appeared at the hedgerow and brought food in a briefcase in the form of a loaf of bread, a bottle of red wine, and a large hunk of salami. Needless to say, the food was delicious!

The old man then showed him some old clothes that he brought and indicated that Kolar should change from his flying gear and into some civilian garb. He also brought a warm blanket. They took his flying suit and promised to burn it and get rid of it. They then told Kolar that they would be back the next morning with some papers and some miscellaneous paraphernalia. At this time they indicated that they were part of the French underground resistance movement and expressed their deep appreciation for the support of the Americans. The name of the young woman was Simone Gillette, a school teacher. The old man was Christel Julien.

True to their word, the young woman and the old man returned the next morning and delivered some official-looking papers that identified the carrier of these papers that he was a person with the name of Rene Noel, twenty two years old, becoming a deaf mute as a result of some terrible bombing by the Americans in the vicinity of St. Lo, which apparently knocked out his ear drums. The old man gave him a wheelbarrow containing a spade, a rake and a hoe, to push around during the day. He also brought a warm blanket. Kolar was stopped once by a German officer, but when he showed him his new papers, the officer simply grunted and gave them back to him and dismissed him with a wave of his hand, indicating, be gone! Kolar spent most of the morning pushing the wheelbarrow around the outskirts of St. Lo.

 This was on July 27, 1944… and a look back…

 What the 100th Bomb Group did was to provide ground support for troops on the 24th and 25th of July 1944. Operation Cobra was to get started on the 24th of July. After a one day postponement because of bad weather, Cobra got underway on the morning of July 25th. Both the U. S. 2nd Armored Division and the 1st Infantry Division, under the command of General Omar Bradley, joined together for the attack.

They reached one of Cobra’s first objectives on the morning of the 26th, a road junction north of Le Mesnil-Herman. The VIII Corps entered the battle, led by the 8th and 90th Infantry divisions. They rolled into St. Lo by noon on July 27th, having cleared organized German resistance, and were advancing rapidly.  

This was when Kolar met the American troops, took out his dog tags which he had hidden in the heels of one of his shoes, and identified himself as an American. A gunner on one of the tanks pointed a 50 caliber machine gun at him until he identified himself as an American (he was dressed in ragged old civilian clothes given to him by the old man). He was invited to join the troops and rode in an open Jeep as the entire convoy moved forward in a rapid thrust to the East.  

Things became a bit hazy from this point on. Kolar remembers riding in the jeep for a couple of hours, witnessing several small skirmishes. At some point in the late afternoon, the word came around that a large number of German prisoners had been taken and volunteers were needed to take them back into the American held territory. Kolar volunteered, feeling he didn’t want to continue into Germany with the tank corps. He already had a bunch of flak wounds from the direct hit on the plane and felt he should be seeking some medical attention.  

Still riding in the open jeep and with a convoy of trucks loaded with German prisoners, the group embarked upon the return trip back to American lines. Someplace along the way the convoy was ambushed by a group of Germans. Kolar was shot in the chest. The driver of the jeep was shot in the throat. Both tumbled out of the jeep and into a small gutter alongside the road. Kolar remembers trying to tie a handkerchief around the man’s neck to help stop the bleeding. Then nothing…blackness… 

The next thing he seems to remember is a medic working over him and a priest giving him the last rites. Then again…nothing… 

He next remembers waking up in the American hospital where he spent the next couple of weeks, recuperating.  

In the meantime his mother had received a telegram informing her that her son was missing in action. Two weeks later she received a telegram advising her that her son was missing in action and presumed dead. One of the first things Kolar thought of was to inform his mother, and his fiancée, that he was O. K. , injured but recuperating in an American hospital in France. For a couple years after the war ended, his Alma Mater, Duquesne University, listed his name on a monument on campus as one of those alumni who gave his life for his country.  

It was back to England, to Thorpe Abbots, and a series of debriefings. Kolar was offered a lieutenant’s commission if he would become a lecturer on escape and evasion methods. . He declined, feeling he had had enough of the war. He was sent back to the states for a month’s leave, after which he was assigned as a gunnery instructor at Westover Field. During his one month’s leave, he married his sweetheart, Jennie Peternac, and they spent most of the month at Atlantic City where Kolar was assigned prior to Westover Field, and where he spent the remainder of the war until being honorably discharged at the Separation Center, Fort Devens, Mass. On August 22, 1945.  

During his tour of duty, Walter W. Kolar earned the following awards: Distinguished Flying Cross w/ OLC, Purple Heart, Air Medal w/9 OLC , . Presidential Citation w/OLC

 -end-