Introduction

This blog will cover on going research into the events that lead to the loss of United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator Bomber B-24-42-7522 (522) "Southern Comfort" on April 11th, 1944.

Research in this matter dates back to 2003.

Current work involves the location of Prisoner of War (POW) photographs of the only three survivors of the crew, Command Pilot 1LT John D. Money, S/Sgt Wallace E. Kirschner and S/Sgt Donald L. Young.

Recent correspondence with employees at the National Archives (II) has not been fruitful. Typical of the correspondence is the following email (received 05 May 2006):

Dear Sir (Redacted Text, Ed.):

I am afraid we do not have any photos of specific WWII POW's. We have general views of some POW camps being liberated, but there is little or no caption information. Those that do have captions do not list any of the POW's.

I did check our Army Air Corps personality index for the names below, but there were no listings for any of them. If you know the camps they were in, you may submit a request for a search for up to three specific items/subjects per month. Currently our searches require two to six weeks to answer. Be sure to include your complete mailing address on all requests.

Thank you,

(Redacted Text, Ed.)

National Archives

Still Picture Reference