Professor Researching Book on WWII Aviator Visits JAC

  • Published
  • By Peter G. Park, Commander's Action Group
  • JACLink Staff
ROYAL AIR FORCE MOLESWORTH, England --  B-17G Flying Fortress Bombardier Flying Officer Richard M. Mason, U. S. Army Air Corps, was shot down September 8, 1944, near Metz, France. 

His aircraft was on a mission to Ludwigshafen, Germany.  Ludwigshafen was a key target in the months after the D-Day landings the previous June because of its chemical and oil refining industry supporting the Nazi war effort.

JAC Director of Analysis Navy Captain Will Kotheimer hosted Dr. John Hurt, Chairman of the History Department of the University of Delaware, during a recent visit to the JAC at RAF Molesworth. The visit was part of the research Dr. Hurt and his University of Delaware colleague, Professor Steven Sidebotham, are doing on the aviator who flew with the 351st Bomb Group from Polebrook Airfield a few miles from the JAC.

Dr. Hurt is working from a detailed diary kept by Flying Officer Mason who died in 2002. Visiting RAF Molesworth before walking the ruins of the field at Polebrook, Dr. Hurt was able to see the three remaining hangars of the 303rd Bomb Group which was at this base during the war and get a sense of the virtually identical airfield layout and operations of the two nearby bases. 

The professor received a briefing on the JAC and RAF Molesworth's history, and then toured the large collection of photographs and artwork from the wartime period on display at the JAC,

After his B-17 was shot down, Flying Officer Mason was captured. According to Dr. Hurt: "He broke his foot and his ankle on landing. After interrogation and hospitalization, he was sent to the POW camp known as Belaria, an offshoot of nearby Stalag Luft III (Sagan, Germany -- now in Poland). On Jan 28, 1945, he and his fellow inmates left on a difficult march towards a rail head, where they boarded crowded cattle cars for their final location, Moosburg, Germany, near Munich. He arrived there in early February 1945 to a squalid, over-crowded camp. But the forces of U. S. Army General George Patton liberated them in early May, and General Patton came by himself to visit the now ex-POWs." 

After his visit to the JAC, Dr. and Mrs. Joyce Hurt toured Polebrook Airfield with Captain and Mrs. Jeanette Kotheimer and took photos for the book.

Note:  The U.S. Army Air Corps used the rank of "Flying Officer" for a short time during World War II, the rank being similar the rank of Warrant Officer used in today's U.S. Army and Navy