Memorial

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The following comments were filed by Maj H.M. Light, "The airplane that I was on did not get any major flak damage and the pilot, Lt John H. Diehl, spotted Lt Oliphant, pilot of A/C 41-23794, and slowed up for him, as well as another ship piloted by Capt Thomas Cramer who, a few minutes later, managed to crash-land his plane on the British beach. Lt Oliphant was slowly losing altitude when coming off the target. Then all of a sudden, several FW 190s came out of the sun and started in on us. The sun blinded and hindered our gunners from firing. I operated my nose gun and only got about 3 bursts at them. My navigator, Lt George Kelley, only got off about the same number of shots with his side nose gun. The Jerries did a good job because they had us completely bewildered. On the first pass they got one of Cramer's engines; on the second pass they got another of his engines and set fire to one of Oliphant's. Then, on subsequent passes, the enemy fighters got a third engine on Cramer's and another on Oliphant's. At about halfway between France and England, while still over the Channel, I noticed the engines afire on the left side of Oliphant's aircraft, and I also saw the nose of that ship filled with swirling flames. Then it looked like the fire swept back to the cockpit. Next thing I saw was the ship going down towards the sea. I did not see the plane strike the water but our tail gunner, Sgt Milford Spears stated over the interphone that the plane exploded as it hit the water. I did not see any chutes."