Ford B-24H-30-FO Liberator 42-95379 (451st BG, 725th BS, "Extra Joker") shot down by Fw 190's over Turnitz, Austria Aug 23, 1944. 10 KIA. MACR 7956
Liberator B-24H-30-FO "Extra Joker", Serial number 42-95379, was part of the 725th Bomb Squadron 451st Bomb Group. The aircraft participated in the raid against the airfield of Markersdorf an der Pielach, west the Austrian capital of Vienna, and was attacked by German Focke Wulf Fw 190A-8/R2 of IV.(Sturm)/JG 3 under the lead of Hpt. Wilhelm Moritz over the Austrian city of Türnitz. Within minutes Fw 190's downed a few Liberators. Extra Joker receives several hits in engine #1 and probably the fuselage as well. All 10 crew members were killed in action.
Photographer Sergeant Leo Stautsenberger usually flew with the crew of 'Extra Joker' as their cameraman. On that fateful day, they asked him to fly with another plane to take pictures of the 'Joker' in flight. Because of this coincidence, Leo was still alive, and made a series of pictures of the loss.
"The young men photographed by a plane dubbed "Thunder Mug" are handsome enough to be the cast of a World War II movie, but they're the real thing: part of the 451st Bombardment Group, Fifteenth Air Force, U.S. Army Air Corps, on July 18, 1944. The compact nose gunner, shortest of the group, is dubbed "The Ole Boy" in neat pen letters on the back of the print. But Elmer Anderson, Orlando High class of 1942, was only 19, the youngest of seven children. In boyhood, he swam in Lake Como; at OHS, he played football and, after graduation, worked as a meat cutter at Publix before his military service began in April 1943. During training in the West, he had a studio photo taken for his mother, Rena Anderson. "I hope by now you have my picture," he wrote her in May 1943. He couldn't say where he was. To make sure he hadn't inadvertently revealed too much, a censor neatly excised two words from the letter before his mom received it. Elmer Anderson hadn't seen his studio portrait, he wrote. He would do that when he got back home. Sadly, he would be one of the 400,000 servicemen and women who didn't return from World War II. He and his crewmates had about a month to live when their "Thunder Mug" photo was taken.
Truth long delayed
It would take Anderson's family decades to learn how and when he had died. Only recently did Anderson's great-nephew, Larry Ertel of Orlando, piece together the story of what happened Aug. 23, 1944, in the skies above Austria.
Clues resided in a box of letters, photos and clippings that Ertel's grandmother Rena had saved. After her death, his Aunt Mabel kept the box, which passed to his mother, Viola Ertel, and then to him.
In it, he found the telegram his grandmother received Sept. 3, 1944, bearing the news that her son "has been reported missing in action since 23 August over Austria."
Elmer Anderson was considered "missing in action for almost a year," Ertel says, with a "Finding of Death" status eventually reported to the family. But Rena Anderson never gave up hope that her son "had survived and was a prisoner of war who had blended in with the people of Austria." She sought information about the crew of "Thunder Mug."
But that was not his great-uncle's plane, Ertel discovered through recent online research. The crewmates just had their picture taken with it. They died aboard the "Extra Joker," on a mission recorded in extraordinary photos of that B-24 bursting into flames after German fighters attacked it Aug. 23, 1944.
The Joker's destruction happened in seconds and was photographed by the Joker's cameraman, who that day was asked to fly in an other plane to capture images of the Joker in flight.
To compound the confusion, Sgt. Elmer Anderson and the others who died aboard the Extra Joker on Aug. 23, 1944, were not its regular crew. Their usual B-24 Liberator was the Sassy Lassy, but on Aug. 23, the pilots of that plane and the Joker had agreed to swap B-24s because of a difference in the bombsights.
Legacy of freedom
After the war, Elmer's brother, George Anderson, and George's brother-in-law Wilford "Bill" Ertel (Larry Ertel's dad) opened Royal Sundries, long a fixture in downtown Orlando.
Now, at least, family members knows exactly how Elmer Anderson, the handsome nose gunner, met his death in the service of his country.
In the box Larry Ertel inherited, he found an elegant certificate signed by President Harry Truman. "In grateful memory of Elmer Anderson," it reads. "He stands in the unbroken line of patriots who have dared to die that freedom might live, and grow, and increase its blessings. Freedom lives, and through it, he lives in a way that humbles the undertakings of most men."
The lost crew members were:
A/C lost in mid air explosion after E/A strafing. Entire crew lost KIA.
1st Lt Kenneth A Whiting - pilot (KIA) Salt Lake City, Utah
1st Lt Alvin W Moore - copilot (KIA) McMinnville, Oregon
2nd Lt Francis J Bednarek - navigator (KIA) Ashley, Pennsylvania
2nd Lt Edward S Waneski - bombardier (KIA) Brooklyn, New York
Sgt Peter Breda - top turret gunner (KIA) Lima, Ohio
Sgt Harry V Bates - ball turret gunner (KIA) Reinholds, Pennsylvania
Sgt Joseph Garbacz - right waist gunner (KIA) Detroit, Michigan
S/Sgt Milton R Nitsch - left waist gunner (KIA) Sheboygan, Wisconsin
Sgt Elmer J Anderson - nose turret gunner (KIA) Los Angeles, California
Sgt Oscar W Bateman - tail turret gunner (KIA) Baton Rouge, Louisiana
These men paid the ultimate price for freedom. Their sacrifice shall not be forgotten!