Veterans column: Lt. Wayne Crowl dies when B-24 explodes over France during World War II
On the afternoon of Jan. 21, 1944, 1st Lt. Wayne Crowl’s B-24 was over its’ target in France, but the German antiaircraft fire and fighter planes were making it hard on the American bombers.
According to top turret gunner Tech Sgt. Archie Barlow:
“The target area was cloud-covered when we arrived and we were on our third run trying to get a good visual drop from about 12,000 feet. It was then the third wave of German fighter planes appeared. The crew heard Crowl on the interphone alerting them that he saw 12 enemy fighters at 11:00 starting their attack. They must have raked us with several 20-mm hits. One exploded directly on the nose killing the bombardier (Crowl) and navigator (Richard Kasten) and turning their compartment into an instant inferno. We think the co-pilot, Lt. Curtis, was killed by that very same blast. Another round must have gone off either on, or very near, the top turret I was manning, blowing off the plexiglass dome and sending shrapnel into my left chest and arm. I grabbed the seat release cable and dropped to the flight deck. The right wall above the radio station was on fire and Rosenblatt, the radio operator, was putting on his chute. He yelled that we had other fires in the waist area and had been ordered to bail out by the pilot. A quick glance forward showed the pilot, Howington, fighting the controls and was apparently unharmed. I snapped on my chute, opened the door to the nose wheel compartment, and dropped down to be hit by heat and flames blowing back from the nose area. I stepped out on the catwalk, thankfully noting that the bomb bay doors were open and the bombs had been jettisoned. Just then Rosenblatt dropped down from the flight deck. I took one final glance into the cockpit. The pilot was looking back and motioning with one hand for us to jump.”
Veterans column: Lt. Wayne Crowl writes to brother days before boarding B-24 to France
The eight surviving members of the crew bailed out through the bomb bay door or the rear hatch. All landed safely on the ground except for the pilot, who was killed in the fall when his parachute caught fire.
The survivors were in German-occupied France. Two of them were captured by the Germans and spent the rest of the war as POWs. The five others were rescued by the French Resistance and smuggled through enemy lines to Spain and freedom.
At the crash site, a young French girl picked up a watch belonging to the pilot, Hartwell Howington, and vowed to return it to his family. After the war ended in 1945, she tracked down Howington’s brother and returned the watch with a letter explaining what she saw that day. German soldiers were examining the wreckage when she found the watch on the ground and hid it from them. She saw the bodies of two burned airmen on the ground and the Germans put their remains in one casket. These were Crowl and Kasten. The remains of Howington were placed in a separate coffin. They were all buried in a local cemetery.
Veterans column: Lt. Wayne Crowl of Lock writes home to family in Mount Vernon in WWII
The girl wrote, “I knew his grave very well where I went often to bring flowers and pray for him and his family. Now I am very sad because his grave is not there. American authorities have taken away all the bodies and transported them to another district in order to make a military cemetery.”
1st Lt. Wayne Crowl was originally listed as missing in action, but in August 1949, his body was returned to Licking County for burial at Lock Cemetery. For 72 years, Crowl’s family thought his story was over until September 2021, when a representative from the Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency contacted Crowl’s niece, Joyce Evans, of Johnstown, and requested her DNA.
Doug Stout is the Licking County Library local history coordinator. You may contact him at 740.349.5571 or dstout@lickingcountylibrary.org.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Veterans column: Lt. Wayne Crowl dies when B-24 explodes over France
