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1st Lt Jesse D. Franks Jr. enlisted on 13 January 1942 from Jackson, Mississippi. He was an outstanding football star and president of the student body at Mississippi College in 1941.

After receiving his basic trianing at Maxwell Field, Alabama, and Tampa, Florida, Lt Franks was sent to Alamogorodo, New Mexico, where he received his commission only a short time before being sent overseas. Before going to Mississippi College, where he participated actively in football and other sports, and was one of the campus leaders, Franks attended high school at Columbus and was a member of that city's great national championship football team that defeated Billy DeCorrevent's Chicago prep squad for the championship in Memphis in 1936.

Prior to his enlistment in the Air Corps, Lt Franks was a student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at Louisville, Ky., but gave up his ministerial studies at mid-term of his first year to voluntarily enter the service of his country.
A/C 42-40612 was downed by Flak over the target.
From the Individual Casualty Questionnaire, source 1st Lt Raymond P Warner:
Jesse D Franks Jr bailed out at approximately 50 feet altitude, two miles Northwest of target area. He was injured and left the aircraft through the nose wheel door. According to the navigator of the crew flying right behind them, his chute failed to open.