Memorial

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Sgt Zeigler graduated from Manchester High School and enlisted in the Air Corps less than a month after Pearl Harbor.

The airplane was shot down by enemy fighters over Bernburg in attempt to take out an aircraft manufacturing plant. Four of the men were killed while manning their posts. Some of the men were able to jump before the ship exploded. Others, like Frank Haag, were blown out. George Haag watched his brother's plane go down.
The wreckage landed outside the town of Gröningen, Germany, which is about 12 kilometers northeast of Halberstadt. The bodies recovered were buried locally at Gröningen. After the war, their remains were taken to the American Cemetery in the Netherlands. The local Germans in the town of Gröningen built a memorial to honor all victims of WWII in their area, which includes the names of the fallen men of the Haag Crew.
When leading missions, always found it best, after definitely establishing I.P, and target, to ride on nose wheel doors, giving Bombardier complete freedom of the little space in nose. We had always flown B-24J, whose nose wheel doors open downwards and I had forgotten this, otherwise would never have been on them. After bombs were reported away, I heard the pilot say rudder control was lost and though much firing didn´t think anything serious. Interphone was shot out soon after and about two minutes past target noticed that the nose gunner, who always was so careful about shooting in short bursts and handled his turret very smoothly, must have been hit, for the turret suddenly and violently slewed around to the right, and the ammunition tracks leading to the turret from the am. boxes in nav. compartment, were running wild, leading me to believe that Kerr, the nose gunner must be in trouble. Started to get up from nose wheel doors when noticed bombardier looked out one window and then the other, ripped flak suit off and snapped on his parachute. Still didn´t think too much was the matter, but took flak suit off in order to move more quickly into the nose to help the nose gunner. Something prompted me to reach for my chute, which was on the catwalk to my right and had just started to get from my knees to climb into the nose when bombardier hit emergency release and out I went with chute in my hand. So had no chance to investigate nose gunner and presume he was either badly wounded or killed outright-in any case unable to bail out by himself. Bombardier later stated he saw plane was completely on fire in the wing sections and fearing an immediate explosion, thought only of getting out fast. He claims to have knocked on nose turret doors before bailing out. Consequently I was in no position to find out anything of the other crew members, except by heresay. After falling managed to hook the left side of chest chute and, after pulling rip chord with no result, ripped open my hand, coming down with only left side fastened. Still believe nothing serious had happened and believed the crew would, in a few hours, be back in England. Next day found that the ship exploded in mid-air. As to the question concerning where we were in the formation when we left it-from what I hear there was none, all 12 shot down. Paul Zeigler was found by the Germans inside the wreckage. He was buried by the German authorities.