Memorial

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Richard Brown graduated form Central High School with the Class of 1932. He attended Oneonta State College.

He enlisted on 15 January 1942 at Albany, New York.

The aircraft was badly damaged from enemy fighters. All crew members bailed out about 10 minutes away from the target area into the North Sea. They came all down in the vicinity of Alte Mellum island, but into the water. S/Sgt Klug and Lt Walker were the only survivors. When S/Sgt Klug regained consciousness he was a POW in a German hospital on Helgoland. Two days after his capture he had to identify five bodies of aircrewmen which the Germans had recovered from the North Sea; 2nd Lt Rawls, S/Sgt Gritsonis, Sgt Falls, S/Sgt Marques and Sgt Hammond.

Statement from Lt Robert J. Walker, navigator:
"We were coming home from Wilhelmshaven when the ship was badly shot up by German fighters. Shortly after several attacks on us, the ship was shot up so badly that we all had to bail out, in spite of the fact that we were out a bit over the North Sea. We all came down in the vicinity of Alte Mellum island, but into the water. Sgt. Klug and I were the first two picked up by a ship headed for Helgoland - and we were the only survivors. Apparently all others drowned, or died from exposure in that frigid water before rescuers found them."

His brother T/Sgt Daniel J. Brown was a crew chief in the A.A.F. Ferry Command and died on 24 March 1944 in a plane crash in Italy. He is buried at Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy.