William Sammon

by Jack Sammon
(Pittston , Pa)

He was my uncle and my friend . I was told that he was shot down , but he told me what really happened .
They had one of the newest planes in the squadron. However the squadron CO wanted to go on the mission and appropriated the AC . They were given a plane that previously had a lot of mechanical issues .
The mission was to Ploesti in June of 1944 . They lost an engine on the run up to the target ,but were able to keep up . On the way back , they lost another engine , but on the opposite side . They were still able to keep up . The engineer applied War emergency power to the remaining engines . This resulted in the loss of another engine . They had to bail out over Albania ..My uncle was the tail gunner ,so he was last out of the bomb bay .
They had a photographer with them on his first flight . When Uncle Bill got to the bomb bay , there was the photographer frozen . . Uncle Bill gave him a boot in the butt , and fortunately, he opened his shoot . All became POW’s except the Co-Pilot who made it back to Italy .