Posted by Earl Rogers Looking Back... By Chuck Gardner A Haunting Memory One incident that occurred while we were overseas that I cannot get off my mind was 6/22/44 PBJ took off from Green on combat mission and was not heard from again. Pilot 1st. Lt. Vernon B. Kistner, co-pilot 2nd Lt. Richard B. Lucy, navigator/bombardier S/Sgt. Clifford S. Buckley, Jr., radioman Sgt. Winston G. Walk, gunners S/Sgt. Jewel T. Hawkins and Corp. Edwin J. McDowell and passenger 2nd Lt. Thornwell Rogers of Air Intelligence. I would like to hear from Chuck Gardner or anyone else who remembers the incident. Link: http://www.flyingtherim.com
on 10/6/2004, 11:11 pm
67.122.228.33
I recently googled the name Thornwell Rogers and landed on the VMB-423 web site where I scrolled through the oral histories of Book 1 Part 1 to find the following entries:
the expression that was the face of intelligence officer Lt. Thornwell Rogers as his
plane taxied out of the revetment, headed for the runway. He was in the co-pilot seat
(why, I do not know) and the look on his face was that this will be my last hop. And it
was. He was on the plane of Lt. Kistner, Lt. Lucy and their crew. They took off right
before dark and when the ETA of the flight came and it wasn't back the minutes began
to turn to hours - it was a long night. Of course, we know the rest of the story.
6/24 Dumbo picked up flight jacket of 2nd Lt. Lucy 9 mi. N. of Duke of York Island.
Thornwell was my dad's kid brother. I was sixteen in 1944 when the family received the MIA telegram. Over time we learned all of the above facts, but after recently reading James Bradley's book Flyboys, detailing the atrocities committed against Navy and Marine aircrews captured on Chichi Jima, I began to wonder if we had heard the "rest of the story." Could Lt Kistner's crew have been captured by the Japanese?
My dad practically raised his two kid brothers and grieved for many years after Thorny's death. The other brother, Bryson, was a marine combat veteran who survived the fighting on Iwo Jima.
Thornwell's widow a robust lady of 85 still remember.
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