Hello from Bill Orphan, a tailgunner with the 401st and an ex-POW.


Posted:
By: John Rood
On: 02/09/2002
My dear friend Bill Orphan is not yet "online" and thus is not yet a visitor here.  But I just tonight discovered your excellent website and thought I'd leave you all a note on his behalf.

Maybe some of you know Bill and his wife Jeanne through 401st or ex-P.O.W. group reunions?

Bill served in the 401st as a tail gunner and survived a hasty bail-out of his shot-up B-17F shortly before it exploded somewhere over hostile territory in early 1944.  (I believe most or even all of his crewmates did as well?)

He then made it through a protracted stay with his German "hosts" at StalagLuft XVII, and at war's end became a firefighter and raised a family back home in the USA.

  
And, he's still doing fine, all these years later!

I am honored to know Bill and his wonderful wife Jean.  They are great friends here in the Greater Boston area.  I would be delighted to hear from any of you.

John Rood


Re: Hello from Bill Orphan, a tailgunner with the 401st and an ex-POW.


Posted:
By: Donald Byers
On: 02/10/2002
This is a good way to get him to join the Group from this site.  And hope he might make the next reunion which is in October.

Don Byers
Remember Sgt Donald C. Byers KIA 24 Aug 1944