US WWII USAAF POW Grouping, Caterpillar Pin, Navigator, 353rd Bomb Squadron
This item is listed for historical interest only. It was listed on our site previously but has been sold and is no longer available for purchase.
Sold for: $495.00

Original era manufacture. An interesting group to an officer show served as a navigator, flying in a B-17 of the 353rd Bomb Squadron, 15th Air Force, based in Italy during WWII.On the 25th of February 1944 his squadron was assigned the target of Regensburg Germany. A witness statement tells the story of 6 men of B-17 42-30095 on that mission."Fighters attacked two A/C out at our left, both of them went down burning. Three chutes appeared out of the last A/C knocked down. Fighters then came in our formation. The A/C flying 23 position went down first. Some chutes appeared. I don't know how many. An A/C in the high right squadron in front of us went down. I didn't see any men jump out. They might have bailed out after the A/C went below us. The fighters were attacking us from all sides by this time. No. 3 engine was hit and smoking quite a bit. Oxygen then went out on our left side, the propeller ran away on No.3 engine and we couldn't feather it. When the engine went out the pilot started down to a lower altitude and turned back toward Italy. When we started down from altitude No.3 engine was on fire a little. The fire went out in the dive. At the time when we started down from altitude the other 6 men from our crew started bailing out. The pilot's intercom system was shot out (in another witness report, the pilot tells of a 20mm hit in the flight deck). One fighter followed us down to about six thousand feet, flew on our left wing a while, looked us over, then went back up to the formation. We were now over the Alps. We didn't have any more trouble with fighters of flak all the way back". S/Sgt Raymond H. Joggerat Engineer-Gunner.The grouping includes  his sterling marked, clutch-back navigator wings, heavy silver crash bracelet, his GI issue dog-tag, German POW dog-tag from Stalag Luft 1, Air Cadet hat insignia, Caterpillar pin & ID card from the Irving Chute Company, black dial Ellison wristwatch with a leather band, an assortment of ribbons and identity cards from postwar USAF service, lastly several pages of Missing Aircrew Reports regarding the incident.