Thomas Charles Diamond
MilitaryAlexandria, Louisiana was the site of the Alexandria Army Air Base (later renamed England Air Force Base), which functioned for B-17 aircrew training.
Harold Motz's notes on the back of the photo identify the crew members:
Left to Right: First Row:
Pilot--Lt. R.J. "Bob" Westrope;
CoPilot--Lt. W.M. "Kelly" Callahan;
Nav.--Lt. ? (a joke; it's actually Harold "Scotty" Motz);
Bombardier--Lt. W.V. "Bill" Lawrence.
Second Row:
Engineer--Sgt. H.M. "Muscles" Woods;
Radio Operator--Sgt. E.E. Wells.
Gunners: Right Waist--Sgt. O. Flores;
Lower Ball--Cpl. O.H. Moreland;
Top Turret--Sgt. T. Diamond;
Tail--Cpl. J. A. Pfeiffer
Timothy Motz, from the estate of Harold Motz, 2016
Thomas Diamond served as a top turret gunner in the Westrope crew with the 708th Bomb Squadron of the 447th Bomb Group, flying bombing missions out of Rattlesden, England.
The 8th Air Force reduced bomber crews from 10 to 9 at the end of July, 1944, eliminating one waist gunner. Shortly after that, Diamond’s name no longer appears among the Westrope crew members in the loading lists for bombing missions. Another Thomas Diamond is listed as belonging to the 487th Bomb Group and it is possible that Thomas Diamond was transferred from the 447th to the 487th, but it isn’t known whether the two Thomas Diamonds are actually one and the same person.
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Timothy Motz from https://aad.archives.gov/aad/record-detail.jsp?dt=893&mtch=13&cat=WR26&…
Timothy Motz; from a mission list kept by Harold Motz, compared with Doyle Shields, "History of the 447th Bomb Group"
Likely birth and death dates and locations added by Timothy Motz:
http://findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Diamond&GSfn=Thomas&G…;
Address in Hanging Rock, Ohio listed in "Pictorial History of the 447th Bombardment Group" (1945)
Drawn from the records of the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, Savannah, Georgia / Unit History Roster, Enlisted Men, as of 01 August 1945