Killed in Action: The Story of B-24 Tail Gunner Robert Holly

By David Kohler

A Merriam Press World War II Biography. Like millions of young men, Robert Holly went away to war and was lost, never to be found. This is the story of a young American airman whose life was tragically ended on June 20, 1944 when the B-24 Liberator of which he was a crew member, collided with another and crashed into the sea near Kiel, Germany. Staff Sgt. Holly was a tail gunner serving with the 389th Bomb Group, Eighth Air Force, based at Hethel, Norfolk, during World War II. Only the pilot and co-pilot survived the crash. All the remaining 8 crew members, including Robert, were killed in the crash, and are commemorated on the Wall of the Missing at the Cambridge American Cemetery, Madingley. This is the compelling story of his short life and tragic death as seen through his own eyes, and the eyes of others close to him, told through their letters, and detailed in numerous documents. This book is a memorial, not only to Holly, but to the millions of others who were killed and disappeared without a trace. 22 photos.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781458351531

Book preview

Killed In Action: The Story of B-24 Tail Gunner Robert Holly

by David Kohler

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Hoosick Falls, New York

2022

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eBook Edition 2022

ISBN 978-1-4583-5153-1

First print edition published in 2017

Copyright © 2017 by David Kohler

All rights reserved.

Additional material copyright of named contributors.

The views expressed are solely those of the author(s).

This work was designed, produced, and published in

the United States of America by

Merriam Press, 489 South Street, Hoosick Falls NY 12090

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Dedication

To Robert Holly and all those other young men and women, who went away to war, became missing in action, and whose earthly remains were never found.

Requiem Aeternaem

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Acknowledgments

There are many people to whom I am deeply indebted, and without whom, I would not have been able to write this book. First of all are my family, and most importantly, my wife Rogene. She believed in me and gave me the quiet encouragement that kept me going and the freedom to travel to England where I could conduct some of my research and to experience firsthand the place where much of this story took place. I received much encouragement and help from the people I met in Norwich, England. They keep the story of the brave airmen alive and memorialize those who did not survive. Among them is Paul Wilson who shepherded me around to some of the air bases that dot the Norfolk countryside and who kindly allowed me to use material from his book about the 389th Bomb Group. Also, Fred Squires who works long hours on the restoration of the Hethel Air Base and who was kind enough to take me out to the base and introduce me to many of the people who help keep alive the memories of those times and of the people who fought to preserve our freedom. Pat Everson has spent a lifetime collecting the stories of the men of the 448th Bomb Group. She has been kind enough to encourage me and furnish me with photos from her collection.

Special thanks goes to the staff of the 2nd Air division Memorial Library. Their staff was most kind and assisted me in any way possible. They made their conference room available to me, furnished me with helpful advice, and led me to all the resources that they thought would be helpful to me.

Leeann Good, a great niece of Robert Holly, kindly furnished me with background material about Robert Holly and his family. Without her, there is no way this book could have been written. As the previous custodian of the letters and documents, which comprise the heart of this book, she gave me her unequivocal permission to use them in any way I saw fit. The result is this book. I owe her a special debt of gratitude.

Thanks to the staff at Lowell, Indiana High School who allowed me to examine and take photos of the 1941 year book. Finally, thanks to all my friends who were patient enough to listen to my ideas and read or listened to portions of my manuscript as it took form. A special thanks goes to my friend Sherrie Clay who took the time to read through the manuscript with me and who offered many constructive and helpful suggestions.

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Introduction

This book is the factual account of a young man, Robert Holly, who entered the army at age twenty, transferred to the air corps, and was killed at age twenty-two when his plane crashed into the North Sea. There are three main sections of this book.

The first section deals with Robert Holly’s life from the time he was born in May 1922 until his untimely death in combat June 20, 1944. It is told by the documents that chronicle his life. The majority of these documents are letters that he wrote home to his family. Included are other documents such as his baptismal certificate, some of his grade cards, portions of the high school yearbook and his Lowell High School graduation program. In addition, there are some firsthand accounts of a fellow airman who had been stationed at the same air base in England

His letters are quoted throughout the first portion of this book. In doing so, there are not any editorial marks or other changes to the quoted texts, therefore the reader will not find any spelling or grammatical corrections in the quoted passages. In taking this approach, the writer hopes to convey some of the personality and human quality of Robert and to avoid making his letters look like an English assignment gone slightly wrong.

During the time he was in the service, Robert Holly wrote 116 letters home, that we are aware of.

They survived in a shoe box, along with many other documents saved by someone he loved—probably his mother—and later passed on to someone else. This is by no means all of the letters he wrote. Many of his letters refer to others he had written to various people, including family members and fellow comrades in arms. Unfortunately, it is not known if any of these survive.

The contents of many of his letters are cumulative in nature. Although I have carefully read all the letters numerous times, they will not all be quoted in the body of this book if they do not add anything of substance to the story. Most will be referred to, however, if they help flesh out the picture of Robert Holly as a person or help identify other people mentioned in the letters. Some of the content of his letters is in response to statements or questions from his family members. It is not hard to speculate what relationship Robert had to most of the people named in the letters, because they were fellow family members, and one can deduce from the context or from other documents (such as census records) their relationship. Given the passage of time, some questions related to various relationships and occurrences will probably never be answered definitively. The official accident reports of the two B-24 Liberator bombers, which collided over Germany, give a fairly comprehensive account of what happened when his plane went down. They describe in detail the facts and circumstances of the crash as witnessed or experienced by those who were there. One must remember, however, that they are official records and as such are intended to give the facts but not necessarily the emotions or inner thoughts of the people. They do bring home to the reader the horror of war in the air.

Included in the book is a diary entry written by a crew member from the 44th Bomber Group who participated in that same bombing mission. It relates the personal experiences of a fellow airman and gives an example of young men thrust into a life and death conflict high above the earth. They had only their skill and personal courage to protect them from the deadly anti-aircraft fire and assaults of enemy aircraft. They had no choice but to maintain their formation, fend off assaults from enemy fighters, and fly on toward their assigned objective. The contents of these reports provide a narrative of the events that took his life and the lives of several of his comrades. At no time in this book does the author invent any non-authentic dialogue that might have taken place between the various participants. It is up to the reader to suppose or to draw his own conclusions as to what was said or happened. There are descriptions and explanations made by other persons who were there and who experienced the same kind of things as Robert and his mates did. Those descriptions will be attributed to the persons who actually made them. They are a much more honest and telling description of the events than any made up dialogue could possibly be Using Robert’s letters alone would not give an accurate picture of all the facts, circumstances, or the true feelings he may have had. In part this is true because of the burdens of censorship that were imposed on the combatants who wrote the letters. Also, his letters were not intended to be a journal of his experiences; they were his letters home to family members. They are literate but not a literary work.

It is axiomatic that if Robert had lived, he would have been able to relate the full extent of how he felt and would have been able to provide a truer picture of what it was like to be in combat as the tail gunner in a B-24 Liberator. As a matter of necessity, these things will be supplied largely by the writings of some of those airmen who were luckier than Robert Holly. They lived to tell the tale, and their writings can help the reader understand what happened and what the war was really like.

The second section deals with the aftermath of his death. The documents and letters that were written after Robert’s death continue to tell his story. These include those from the War Department to Edna Holly, Robert’s mother, in reply to her requests for information about her son. There are also letters from the family members of his fellow crew members, seeking information about their sons as well as a letter from the pilot of his ill-fated ship and from two of his comrades in arms, seeking news of their friend. Some of these letters testify to the deep and lasting bonds forged between fellow comrades in arms who were thrust into a great struggle not of their making. Some are quite moving as they tell the sad story of young lives ended too soon and of grieving parents, family, and friends left with nothing but a posthumously awarded medal with which to remember their loved one. Additional background information has been gained by speaking with one of his descendants, a great niece.

The third section of this book deals with the memorials and remembrances for those who served. Some survived and some did not. Robert Holly was one of those who perished. Some might say, Gone but not forgotten. Not so. He was largely forgotten—for years. What was left? A baptismal certificate, letters home, a high school yearbook, letters of condolence, a little brass plate on a memorial in the tiny town of Schneider, Indiana, where he lived for a few years. Had I not accidentally stumbled upon a shoe box full of letters, he would have remained a lost and forgotten soul.

England, where he was stationed during the short time he was in combat, has done much more than the U.S. to preserve the memories and memorialize those who traveled to that faraway place in order to fight for their country. The city of Norwich, where the Eighth Air Force made its home during the war, has an extensive memorial as part of its library. Four of the fourteen B-24 bases clustered around Norwich, four— including the one where Robert Holly was stationed— are in various states of restoration and contain much, including artifacts from that great struggle. They house a treasure trove of archival material and other resources and artifacts for those who wish to remember or learn more about that time and about those who served their country in a faraway place. Also in England, at Cambridge, there is an American Military Cemetery with a memorial wall on which the names of those killed in action and never found are engraved.

Throughout the book, important events that occurred both as part of military actions and events at home help supply the reader with a timeline and a context in which to place those events related to Robert Holly’s life into a proper historical perspective. Many of these events also remind the reader of the millions of people from all the warring countries who, like Robert Holly, disappeared without a trace.

As you read this book, take time to remember some of the other young men and women who went away to serve their country, never to return; if not from this war, from one of the succeeding wars. Take time to remember their skills, their likes, their dislikes, the color of their hair, the sorrow in their loved ones’ eyes, and the emptiness they left behind.

On one level, this small book is the biography of a young man who grew up in the middle of America, went away to fight in the Second World War and never came back. On another level, it tells a much larger story. It is the story of how we as a people act and react to the realities of war as told by people who were affected— family, loved ones, comrades in arms, and the people who made up the military bureaucracy that dealt with the families of the fallen.

On a greater level, it is a memorial to the untold thousands of people, both in and out of the military, who suffered the same fate as young Robert Holly. The vast majority of them will forever remain unknown. Memories of them will fade, and they will disappear as though they had never existed.

What does this book seek to do? It hopefully gives us a better understanding and sense of compassion for those who go to war. It seeks to give a human face to one victim who was for too long forgotten. It lets us know that he was a real person with likes, dislikes, virtues, and vices. In short, he was a real person, a young man blossoming into maturity and taken away much too soon.

Wars will still be fought. Young people will still die lonely and horrible deaths in faraway places. Like Robert, many bodies will never be found—blasted to pieces, lost at sea, or vaporized by the relentless machines of war.

We must ask the question of What can we, as individuals, do? The answer is simple but not easy to realize. We can stop glorifying wars and death in battle. We can work to respect and understand other people. We can seek to do justice. We can work to build a world in which none of our own sons and daughters are ever compelled to join those millions who became the forgotten ones.

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Preface

The Second World War is considered by most to be the preeminent event of the twentieth century. From 1939 through August of 1945, millions of combatants as well as innocent people had their lives snuffed out, many in cruel and inhumane fashion. Countless thousands of them died anonymous deaths in far countries, away from friends and families. It is impossible to imagine what great accomplishments and inventions have been lost to us, what great pieces of art will never be produced, what great symphonies will never be composed, what poems never written and songs never sung, what magnificent buildings will never be built as a result of this conflagration.

We should also think