Richard Wright
Military | Lieutenant | Pilot | 95th Bomb Group
Military
A Minor League Baseball player, he entered military service on October 15, 1942 to train as a bomber pilot. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in November, 1943, and received further training as a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress pilot. In December 1943, he was assigned to the 335th Bomb Squadron of the 95th Bomb Group, Eighth Air Force, and deployed to Horham Airfield in Suffolk, England. On November 5, 1944, he was co-pilot on a B-17G (43-38814) heading to Ludwigshafen, Germany. The bomber successfully dropped its payload on the target but was badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire. The pilot, Second Lieutenant Richard H. Wright, Jr., gave the order for his crew to bail out and Wolfson was seen safely descending by parachute. But that was the last his crewmates ever saw of him. [MACR 10308]. The pilot, together with the bombardier who had not bailed out, nursed the crippled bomber back to France, where it managed a belly landing near Nancy. The rest of the crew had parachuted to safety - albeit captivity - near the Pfalzer Wald forest about eight miles southwest of Kaiserslautern, and met with a hostile reception from local civilians before being turned over to German authorities. Wolfson, of Jewish extraction, handed himself in to local civilians and was picked up by members of the Criminal Police from Kaiserslautern. On the journey to Kaiserslautern, in a wooded area on the outskirts of the city, he was murdered by his captors. Presumably because they had discovered he was Jewish. [www.flugzeugabstuerze-saarland.de] It was not until after the war ended that the fate of Stan Wolfson was discovered.
See more at: http://www.baseballsgreatestsacrifice.com/biographies/wolfson_stanford.h...
Eighth Air Force Bomber Command became the Eighth Air Force on February 1944, it oversaw bombardment of strategic targets in Europe until 1945.
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Group
The 95th Bomb Group was the only Eighth Air Force Group to be awarded three Distinguished Unit Citations. The first, shared by all four Bomb Wing Groups, was for the bombing of an aircraft factory under intense enemy fire at Regensburg on 17 August...
Squadron
B-17 Flying Fortress
Delivered Lincoln 25/9/44; Grenier 7/10/44; Assigned 336BS/95BG [ET-S] Horham 11/10/44 NO NO NANNETTE; battle damaged Ludwigshafen 5/11/44 with Rich Wright, Bombardier: I.H. Levin [2RTD]; Navigator: Bill Olsom, Flight engineer/top turret gunner: Vince...
Event | Location | Date |
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Born | St. Louis, MO, USA | 23 February 1922 |
Son of George E and Mollye [Fry] Wolfson. |
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Enlisted | St. Louis, MO, USA | 15 October 1942 |
Completed flight training | Georgia, USA | November 1943 |
Commissioned 2nd Lieutenant Nov-43. |
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Based | Horham | December 1943 – 5 November 1944 |
Assigned to 335BS, 95BG, 8AF USAAF. |
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Baled out | Saarbrücken, Germany | 5 November 1944 |
Failed to Return (FTR) Ludwigshafen, Germany. A/C hit by flak, baled out successfully. Handed himself into local civilians and was picked up by members of the Criminal Police from Kaiserslautern. |
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Died | Near Kaiserslautern, Germany | 6 November 1944 |
On November 5, 1944, he was co-pilot on a B-17G (43-38814) heading to Ludwigshafen, Germany. The bomber successfully dropped its payload on the target but was badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire. The pilot, Second Lieutenant Richard H. Wright, Jr., gave the order for his crew to bail out and Wolfson was seen safely descending by parachute. But that was the last his crewmates ever saw of him. [MACR 10308]. The pilot, together with the bombardier who had not bailed out, nursed the crippled bomber back to France, where it managed a belly landing near Nancy. The rest of the crew had parachuted to safety - albeit captivity - near the Pfalzer Wald forest about eight miles southwest of Kaiserslautern, and met with a hostile reception from local civilians before being turned over to German authorities. Wolfson, of Jewish extraction, handed himself in to local civilians and was picked up by members of the Criminal Police from Kaiserslautern. |
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Buried | 67657 Kaiserslautern, Germany | 7 November 1944 |
Interred Kaiserslautern cemetery |
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Buried | 7570 Olive Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA | 27 February 1949 |
Re-Interred |
Date | Contributor | Update |
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23 August 2018 19:11:21 | Al_Skiff | Changes to middlename, service number, highest rank, biography, awards, events, unit associations and place associations |
Sources | ||
https://www.fold3.com/record/84658507-stanford-g-wolfson |
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Date | Contributor | Update |
18 March 2015 13:34:18 | general ira snapsorter | Changes to biography, awards, events and aircraft associations |
Sources | ||
Updated personal, biographical details and media by courtesy of Gary Bedingfield at http://www.baseballsgreatestsacrifice.com/biographies |
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Date | Contributor | Update |
27 September 2014 18:25:16 | AAM | AAM ingest |
Sources | ||
Combat Sup / Drawn from the records of the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, Savannah, Georgia |