Memorial

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1st Lt Melvin E. Thayer was a flame cutter before he joined the Regular Army in Providence, Rhode Island, on 21 September 1942.

Statement from 1st Lt Theodore W. Sedvert:
"I was flying White three position on an armed recon. mission on the 23rd of February 1945. Our target for the mission was an A.F.V. depot southeast of the town of Aschaffenburg, Germany. We started our dive-bombing run at twelve thousand feet from the south of the target and bombed from south to north. About halfway down the dive-bombing run with two 1st Lt Melvin E. Thayer, right bomb apparently exploded on the bomb shackle or immediately after the release. I saw an explosion accompanied by black smoke at the airplane, which obscured the airplane momentarily. When the smoke had cleared away, I saw that the right wing was sheared off just inboard of the right bomb shackle and had disintegrated. The left wing was shredded, the aileron, the wing tip, and flap being gone, and a great many holes in the remaining part of the wing. The canopy was also missing, and from as much as I was able to determine, the cockpit was empty. The ship snapped, rolled, and spun from six or seven thousand feet to the ground, where it exploded. Neither I or anyone else saw a chute. The remaining bomb exploded about three hundred yards northeast of the target."