I never met my uncle because he died at age 21 a year before I was born.
Bombardier
My uncle Doug, 2nd Lt. Douglas Milton Warren, was a bombardier in a Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress four-engine heavy bomber #42-37962 named "Betty Lou" when he was killed over Germany in World War II on Jan 11, 1944.
He was positioned at the very front of the aircraft in the nose section so he had a wide, panoramic view for targeting and operating the Norden bomb sight for accurate bombing runs.
Besides the important role of guiding the plan over the target and releasing the bombs, he also operated forward-facing defensive machine guns to help defend from head-on attacks.
Mission
On Jan 11, 1944, he was on a mission from Ridgewell Airfield in Essex, England to bomb major fighter aircraft factories in Oschersleben as part of a strategic Allied campaign to achieve air superiority before the planned D-Day invasion landing at Normandy, France several months later on June 6.
He was a member of the 532nd Bomb Squad of the 381st Bomb Group in the 8th Air Force (U.S. Army Air Forces), which had over 570 B-17's bomb industrial and military targets in Oschersleben, Halberstadt, and near Brunswick. They encountered fierce German opposition, estimated at 500 fighters, and 60 bombers were lost (including Doug's).
His plane was forced out of formation and they had to fight alone during a half-hour battle before being shot down with eight crew members killed in action over Gellenbeck, Osnabruck, Germany (west of Hanover). They were about 136 miles from their bombing target, a major aircraft manufacturing facility that produced Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters. Two parachuted to safety and were taken prisoner, later released after the war ended, and returned to the United States.
Masters of the Air
There is an excellent 9-part series Masters of the Air by Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks available for streaming on Apple TV+ about the men of the 100th Bomb Group, which was called the Bloody Hundredth because they lost so many bombers and men conducting bombing raids over Nazi Germany.
My uncle was in a similar 381st Bomb Group, both part of the U.S. 8th Air Force, and I think of him when watching the series and what he must have experienced. Watch this YouTube trailer (2:24).
Apple TV also produced a companion documentary (1h 2m) that includes interviews with the real pilots depicted in the series.
The series is based on the book Masters of the Air by Donald L. Miller (688 pages), which is available at Amazon.
Survivor letter
The mother of the navigator Phil R. Miller later wrote a detailed letter for my grandparents after receiving a visit from Sgt. Bernard Keene, the right waist gunner, who was one of two crew survivors.
She explained how my uncle (as bombardier) and the ball turret gunner were actually "borrowed" from another crew because the regular crew members were in the hospital.
The ball turret under the fusilage was shot off with the gunner in it, and the tail section blown off when a German Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf 109 exploded next to their plane. Finally, the Fortress exploded and broke in two.
The front end went into a spin, so no one could get out, but the tail part leveled off and floated down a little more slowly, so that the two waist gunners had time to bail out with a parachute before reaching the ground.
Later, they found my uncle's flying jacket with a large bullet hole through the identification picture carried in his breast pocket. So he was probably killed before the plane split and crashed.
Namesake
When I was born the following year, my father named me Douglas in honor and memory of his brother, with my middle name Paul being a shortened from my grandmother's maiden name Paull.
I was born 80 years ago in July 1945 right after World War II ended first in Europe with Germany's surrender on May 8 (after Hitler's suicide). A few weeks later, atomic bombs were dropped from the larger B-29 Superfortress bombers on Hiroshima (Aug 6) and Nagasaki (Aug 9), and finally the war was over in Asia after Japan's surrender on Sep 2.
Medals
My 10-year grandson Jake was staying over for the weekend about 11 years ago; he was working on a project related to Memorial Day in school. I told him about my Uncle Doug, and he was very impressed and proud when I actually showed him his Purple Heart and Air Medal (both engraved on the back with Douglas M. Warren). They were presented to my grandmother after the war, and then passed down to me by my father.
Burial
He is buried with my grandparents, John and Mabel Warren, in Riverside Cemetery, Ironwood, Michigan (Block 53 - Lot 13A).
