Early in the morning on 26 July 1943, the Eighth Air Force’s 95th Bomb Group put 22 B17Fs into the sky over their base at Horham in East Anglia. 1st LT Ollie Robichaud was at the controls of 42-5893, side code ET-F. His crew had named their plane “Sad Sack” but had not had time to paint the name or any nose art on the aircraft. They were on their 8th mission, during a time when ¾ of the Eighth’s bomber crews could expect to be lost before they reached the end of their 25-mission tour of combat duty. The target for the day was the Continental rubber factory in Hanover. My uncle, SSGT James Bloxom, was in Sad Sack’s ball turret. He was two months past his 19th birthday. He’s sitting front and center in the crew photo. Just after crossing the coast on the continent side the 95th’s formation was attacked by German fighters. Sad Sack was hit and dropped out of formation; Ollie tried briefly to join with another group’s combat box for protection, but the plane was too badly damaged and they fell farther behind. The German fighters swarmed the plane, wounding several of the crew and knocking out two of its four engines before Robichaud gave the bail-out signal. James scrambled out of the ball and donned his parachute. Sad Sack’s No. 3 engine was running wild and caused a turbulent propblast over the starboard-side escape hatch. TSGT Graham Smith, the radio operator, was thrown into the plane’s horizontal stabilizer when he jumped and was killed; when James jumped just behind him, the wild blast sent him tumbling and when he pulled his ripcord the opening shock of the parachute twisted him and fractured one of his vertebrae. He was quickly picked up by German soldiers and was partially paralyzed for the next few weeks as he and the rest of the crew’s survivors were moved from camp. James spent most of the rest of the War in Stalag XVII-B in Austria. Back in the States James’ mother, Mimmie Bloxom, received the telegram informing her that her youngest son was missing in action just over a month after she had gotten the message that her eldest son, H.L., had died in a Japanese POW camp. It would be another month before she would learn that James was a prisoner. James died in January 2000. His 8th and final mission in Sad Sack’s ball turret was 70 years ago today.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 05:03:53 +0000
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