World War II Chronicle: June 29, 1943
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The front page discusses a squadron that hasn’t lost a plane or crew member for 11 months. After a lot of digging I was able to determine this is the 301st Bomb Group’s 419th Squadron. I couldn’t find much on either officer mentioned in the article besides the fact that Capt. Robert J. Duval and Lt. Donald Swenson both earned several Air Medals. The article does briefly discuss when Swenson’s B-17 was shot down over the English Channel. Fortunately for his crew, they had practiced ditching procedures the previous day. They hit the water hard and the 15-20 foot seas sunk the Flying Fortress in less than two minutes (story on bomber crew egress training on page 11). Master Sgt. Glenn Doerr snuck onto the plane as an unauthorized passenger and helped rescue the crew. All were quickly picked up by British search and rescue crews — who originally thought they soaked fliers were German — in the Air Sea Rescue Service’s first recovery of an American crew…
Pictured on page three are two St. Louis ballplayers: Cardinals captain, Jimmy Brown, has passed his physical and will spend the war at Memphis Army Air Field coaching baseball and basketball. Browns shortstop Vern Stephens’ knee injury keeps him from military service, and he is about to appear in his first of eight All-Star games…
George Fielding Eliot column on page eight… Sports on page 12.
Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 29 June 1943. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1943-06-29/ed-1/