A little excitement in history

JeppUpdater

Well-Known Member
Probably two years ago I was walking around a gun show in Dallas and saw a guy selling a plastic bag full of "pilot stuff" for $20. Just looking at the age of it I said what the hell and picked it up. Took it home - totally forgot about it.
I was digging through some stuff this evening and stumbled across it in a box and went through it. It's the flight training records of a Lt. John J. Kirby who went through pilot training in early 1943. He transitioned from the PT-17 Stearman to the AT-9 Jeep to the B-24 best I can tell. I've got notes from his ground schools on meteorology, flight planning, aircraft systems, bombing patterns, etc. Documents from a few different training schools.
The coolest thing I found through all of the material was in one of his notebooks. Amongst nice 40's cursive writing you'd occasionally find a bold note he had added in such as "work on this on next flight" or "don't trust Mr. Cross so much!".
And then there was this one that reminded me of how we all felt the first time we took to the skies by ourselves:


cToWX2m.jpg



I imagine Lt. Kirby went on to command his B-24 in Europe. Though I've no connection to him, I'm going to keep looking for what I can based on his name and what I believe is his 'serial number' on a couple of the books. I hope he made it through the war and back stateside safely. Any suggestions for tracking info down on him are greatly appreciated!
 
Last edited:
Outstanding use of $20! What a great story. Please keep us updated if you find anything else on his career.
 
This is a rare find that you have. I don't know if this is the same person, but here is what I found with some data bases that I have used in the past:

MISSION 92 -- April 13, 1944. Schweinfurt, Germany.
The following combat crew is Missing in Action:

535th Squadron
2nd Lt. Mullane, James F.
1st Lt. Sherwood, Thomas P.
2nd Lt. O'Phelan, Patrick D.
T/Sgt. Kettlety, Robert E.
T/Sgt. Stahlke, Edward A.
S/Sgt. Tarczynski, Thaddeus J.
S/Sgt. Sparrow, Lewis F.
S/Sgt. Troxler, Frank G.

533rd Squadron
2nd Lt. Kirby, John J.


http://www.381stbg.org/lc3.php


381st Bombardment Group Mission #92 – Schweinfurt, Germany (4/13/44)

532nd BS diary entry: The ball-bearing factory at Schweinfurt, again was the target for this group, our pilots being: Lts Bowen, Klinkseik, Thomas, Thompson, Ezzell, Bradner, Blog and McCrory. The factory had been put back in production after early bomb attacks severely damaged it. Bombing results were reported as good.

533rd BS diary entry: Schweinfurt, still the center of the ball-bearing production of the German war machine, today underwent its fourth attack of the war from Fortresses, which pounded factories in several parts of the city with tons of high explosives and incendiary bombs.

Leader of the 381st's two formations of 32 bombers was Major Charles L. Halsey, 535th commander, who flew in "Georgia Rebel II" with 1st Lt Charles A. Enos as his pilot. Upon reaching Schweinfurt, 12 ships headed by Capt Carl Franek, 553rd operations officer, split off from the main group and headed for a separate factory target, eight ships from this squadron taking part.

Observers in Capt Franek's group said bombs were in a tight pattern, all landing in the target area. Several gunners reported fires started by their bombs on a large factory building. Both the groups were attacked once by two enemy fighters, which in both instances made one pass through the formations without returning.
The rest of the pilots were: Lts Tarr (with Capt Franek), Schindler Wezowicz, Helm, Bailey, Lancaster, Townsend and Garrett.

534th BS diary entry: Lts. Williams, Myers, Kuhl, Ackerman, Rayburn and Henry took off early today to bomb the ball bearing works at Schweinfurt, Germany. Bombs were away over the center of the target and many crews ported hits. Some crews were unable to observe results because of smoke from previous bombs on target. Enemy a/c did not oppose. Intense and accurate flak was encountered. There was some battle damage to ships. There were no casualties and no claims. 1st Lt. George D. O’Sullivan and S/Sgt. Edward J. Gartland finished up today. Both men hold the Air Medal with three clusters and the DFC.

535th BS diary entry: Major Halsey and Lt Enos led the 1st Combat wing to Schweinfurt, to bomb the same old ball-bearing plant. Other pilots were: Lts Hallecy, Putek, Bartlett, Liddle, Ringgenberg and Mullane (missing in action). Lt Urban aborted with one wing tank leaking gas heavily.

Flak was moderate in the target area, and the ships reported being heavily hit. Bombing was believed to be good, with visibility VACU in the target area. About 60-100 enemy aircraft were seen attacking other Fort formations in the target area, but our group met only two quick passes from strays.

MIA crew: 2nd Lt James F. Mullane, 1st Lt T. Paxton Sherwood, 2nd Lts Patrick D. O'Phelan, John J. Kirby; T/Sgt Edward A. Stahlke, Robert E. Kettlety, S/Sgts Thaddeus Tarczynski, Lewis F. Sparrow and Frank G. Troxler.

Lt Stickel, squadron navigator, finished up today.

8th AF diary entry: Mission 301: 626 bombers and 871 fighters are dispatched to hit targets in Germany; the bombers claim 22-13-34 Luftwaffe aircraft and the fighters claim 42-8-10 in the air and 35-0-21 on the ground; 38 bombers and 9 fighters are lost; the bombers also drop 5.2 million leaflets on Germany; this mission is flown in conjunction with a raid on Hungary by 500+ Fifteenth Air Force bombers and a Ninth Air Force B-26 raid in S The Netherlands; details are:

1. 154 of 172 B-17s hit the industrial area at Schweinfurt and 1 hits a target of opportunity; 14 B-17s are lost, 1 damaged beyond repair and 127 damaged; casualties are 11 WIA and 139 MIA.

2. 207 of 243 B-17s bomb aviation industry targets at Augsburg and 20 hit the city of Augsburg; 18 B-17s are lost, 2 damaged beyond repair and 178 damaged; casualties are 3 KIA, 16 WIA and 170 MIA.

3. 211 B-24s are dispatched to hit Lechfeld Airfield; 93 hit the primary, 60 bomb aviation industry targets at Oberpfaffenhofen; 29 hit Lauffern and 2 hit targets of opportunity; 6 B-24s are lost and 45 damaged; casualties are 1 KIA, 3 WIA and 60 MIA.Escort is provided by 134 P-38s, 504 Eighth and Ninth Air Force P-47s and 233 Eighth and Ninth Air Force P-51s; 3 P-38s are lost and 1 damaged beyond repair; 2 P-47s are lost; and 4 P-51s are lost and 1 damaged beyond repair; a total of 11 fighters are damaged; casualties are 2 WIA and 8 MIA. Mission 302: 4 of 5 B-17s dispatched drop 800,000 leaflets on Amsterdam, The Hague and Eindhoven, The Netherlands at 2235-2252 hours without loss.

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE (SHAEF): General of the Army Dwight D Eisenhower formally assumes direction of air operations out of the UK at 0000 hours (though he began informal exercise of this authority in late Mar 44). This assumption of authority gives Eisenhower direction over the Allied Expeditionary Air Force (AEAF), Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command, and US Strategic Air Forces in Europe (USSTAF) (the Fifteenth Air Force retains some degree of independence) along with the US 1st Army Group, British 21 Army Group, and Allied Naval Forces.

http://forum.armyairforces.com/381st-Bombardment-Group-Missions-and-News-Coverage-m232309-p12.aspx

If this is him, or whoever he turns out to be, it might really be remarkable to find his children if he had any or grandchildren or other relatives to give these materials to.
 
Last edited:
A Life Aloft thanks for that! Gave me a big head start. I certainly hope that's not him listed MIA but nonetheless it's a start.

Tomorrow evening I'm going to go through and try and build a timeline as best I can. The material is very complete through basic flight training but pretty sparse on advanced training with just a few mentions of the B-24 toward the end. I've got some flight planning diagrams with cities on them so I think I can reconstruct where he trained to at least get an idea of his progression.

With any luck I can eventually find a relative to pass it along to. I've done a lot of research on both of my grandfather's paths through WWII so I'd hope they'd be looking for the same for their father/grandfather.
 
Okay, it gets a little deeper hang on.......kinda giving me chills if this is indeed your airman and his son looking for more info on his Dad from just 5 years ago:


From: Joseph A. Kirby
Address 2164 rd 170
City, State, Zip reading, ks 66868

posted: 05/22/09

Name of POW Lt John J Kirby (Jack )

POW camp Stalag Luft 1

Comments:
My father was shot down april 13, 1944 arrived at stalag luft 1 shortly there after. Passed away December 1974. would be interested in hearing from those that knew him there. Thank you so much...Joe

There is an email link on the page I linked below:

http://gbstalag.signourguestbook.com/guestbook/gbstalag?trail=950
 
Last edited:
That may well be him. The timeline fits. Training through 1943 (I've got stuff running from February '43 to at least June '43). Deployed overseas, took part in bombing through '44 until shotdown, MIA, then POW.

I'm sending an email to them to see if they can connect the dots with what I've got.
 
That may well be him. The timeline fits. Training through 1943 (I've got stuff running from February '43 to at least June '43). Deployed overseas, took part in bombing through '44 until shotdown, MIA, then POW.

I'm sending an email to them to see if they can connect the dots with what I've got.

If you don't get a response (people change their email addys over time), try writing him. He is still listed (from another search I just did) at the physical address above. You might even try calling him.
 
Last edited:
It's weird because I really am seriously having the work schedule from hell this month with only 2 days off all month, so I am rarely here or just here for 3 or 4 minutes, yet the thread title caught my eye for some reason, much like the D-Day thread over the weekend. And because I am very interested in WWII and especially the airmen, planes and air battles and have some resources for those and some resources for other things, it was fairly easy for me to find the info. I just hope I have the right person, especially for his son's sake. If not, I can do another search when I get another break/time.
 
Last edited:
PM me if you want more info. My wife has done a ton of research on B24 crews and missions. Has a researcher card at the national archives and can get you all kinds of stuff.
 
Very cool. When I go to airline collectible shows, I always look for stuff like this. I've found some really one-of-a-kind things that people toss into a bag of stuff for $15-30 just like the one you mentioned. Thanks for posting that.
 
I thought it was interesting that he seems to point out (like I myself noticed on my first solo) how much lighter the plane feels when the instructor hops out.
 
First of all this is amazing. It'd be great if we could have it scanned and put together in a PDF book! Very interested to read, my grandfather was shot down in a B24 during WWII and I actually found some info on him through a different thread on this site.

Not to jump off topic but @ChasenSFO where can I find more info on this airline collectible at LAX?
 
Back
Top