FLIER IS KILLED AS B-24 CRASHES Staff Sgt. John A. Phillips, 22, Norwood, Serving in England
(Special To The Times)
(March 17, 1922-November 24, 1944)
Norwood, Dec. 11--Staff Sgt. John A. Phillips, 22, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Phillips, North Main Street, Norwood, was killed in the crash of a B-24 Liberator bomber on Nov. 24 in England, his parents have been notified by a war department telegram. No other details of the tragedy were received.
On Saturday, the parents received a letter from Leonard J. McMananon, chaplain serving in England, which stated that their son's body and those of the others of the bomber crew who met death, were buried with full military rites in England on Nov. 28.
Sergeant Phillips, nose gunner aboard the Eighth Air Force B-24, was born in Norfolk on March 17, 1922. The family moved to Norwood while John was still a child. He was graduated from Norwood High School in 1941. He entered military service on Oct. 10, 1942, and received basic training at Camp Robinson, Ark.
On Dec. 10, 1942, he was sent to the Aleutian Islands where he was stationed until Oct. 10, 1943. Returning to this country, he was sent to Laredo, Tex., to gunnery school.
Last July he visited his parents on furlough and upon returning to duty, he went to England, where he had since been stationed.
Surviving are his parents; one brother, Cpl Joseph Phillips, now stationed in Australia, and six sisters, Mrs. Lester (Anne) Gagnon, Norwood; Mrs. William (Julia) Yolton, Waddington; Mrs. Leo (Eleanor) Farnsworth, Potsdam; Mrs. Thomas (Alice) Gagnon, Perr, Fla., Mrs. Vernon (Mary) Young, Lawrence, Kan., and Miss Hilda Phillips, residing at home.
(SLCHA Scrapbook; Watertown Daily Times)
**************************************************** Soldier to Have Memorial Rites
Norwood, Dec. 29--Memorial services for Staff Sgt. John A. Phillips, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Phillips, North Main Street, this village, who was killed in the crash of a B-24 in England, will be held at St. Andrew's Catholic church Saturday at 9 a.m. Rev. James E. Joy, pastor of the church, will officiate. Members of the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, honorably discharged servicemen and those home on furlough will attend in a body.
Sergeant Phillips, nose gunner aboard an Eighth Air Force B-24, was born in Norfolk, March 17, 1922. The family moved to Norwood while John was still a child. He was graduated from Norwood High School in 1941. He entered military service Oct. 10, 1942, and received basic training at Camp Robinson, Ark.
On Dec. 10, 1942, he was sent to the Aleutian Islands where he was stationed until Oct. 10, 1943. Returning to this country, he was sent to Laredo, Texas, to gunnery school.
Last July he visited his parents on furlough and upon returning to duty, he went to England, where he had since been stationed.
Surviving are his parents, one brother, Cpl. Joseph Phillips, now stationed in Australia, and six sisters, Mrs. Lester (Anne) Gagnon, Norwood; Mrs. William (Julia) Yelton, Waddington; Mrs. Leo (Eleanor) Farnsworth, Potsdam; Mrs. Thomas (Alice) Gagnon, Perry, Fla.; Mrs. Vernon (Mary) Young, Lawrence, Kan.; and Miss Hilda Phillips, at home.
(SLCHA Scrapbook; Newspaper Unknown)
********************************************************************** World War II Remembered Fifty Years Ago: War News From The Files Of The Watertown Daily Times
(The following was an excerpt from an article published under the above headline, on Thursday, December 15, 1994, page 14 of the Watertown Daily Times).
On Nov. 7, 1945, a plaque was dedicated in Norwich, England, to the crew of that crashed plane because "the pilot of the bomber, as his last act, avoided crashing on this and surrounding cottages, thus preventing the possible loss of civilian lives."
His brother, Joseph A. Phillips, graduated from Norwood High School and entered the Army in March 1943. After serving in Australia and Japan, he was discharged in January 1946. The following month, he was killed in a one-car accident on the Massena-Hogansburg Road.
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(The following is taken from Robert J. Larue's St. Lawrence County Almanac, 2nd Edition Vignettes, for the date November 24).
November 24
The "Lady Jane" Crash
On this day--November 24th in 1944--a dense fog enshrouded the small city of Norwich, in the county of Norfolk, England. The "Lady Jane" , a Consolidated B24H Liberator aircraft of the U.S. 753rd Bomb Squadron was circling at very low altitude. The pilot, 2nd Lieutenant Ralph Dooley of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was having difficulty landing the craft.
Among the eight others aboard was 22-year-old Staff Sergeant John Phillips, a nose gunner born in Norfolk, N.Y., on March 17, 1922. The Phillips family had moved to Norwood when John was still a child. He graduated from the Norwood High School in 1941 and entered the military the following year.
On that fateful day in November 1944, the first landing attempt was unsuccessful, so Dooley pulled up the plane and circled again. During the second descent, due to the dense fog, the plane clipped the top from a church steeple and tore off one of the plane's wings. The crew elected to stay with the aircraft to take it away from a row of cottages in a very populated section of Heigham Street, thus choosing to sacrifice themselves to save numerous people on the ground. A British newspaper reported, "...somehow the pilot had found a piece of waste ground in a densely-populated area and brought the crippled plane down without causing a single casualty to civilians." However, the crew was not so fortunate. All nine were killed.
On the outside brick wall of one of the cottages and at the St. Barnabas Church, the British placed memorial plaques listing the nine Americans including Norwood-Norfolk's John Phillips, who lost their lives aboard the ill-fated flight of the "Lady Jane."
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From the official accident report (#45-11-24-576): On 24 November 1944 at 1730 hours, A/C B-24 (H), 42-45133 was returning from a practice mission and in the process of making an instrument landing approach to AAF Station 123. The weather was 3900 yards visibility, with a 400 to 600 foot ceiling, 10/10ths coverage and the wind NW at 12-14 MPH.
The aircraft hit the steeple of St. Phillips Church on Hamm Road (Norwich, England), damaging the right wing and right tail assembly and continued 1000 yards, apparently in normal flight at which time the right wing dropped and the ship crashed and burned. Wreckage shows that landing gear was retracted.
Mr. A. Hindry and Mr. George Baxter, employees of Baker Street Corporation and eye witnesses of the accident declared the aircraft descended at a steep angle and in an abnormal flying attitude.
The result was a total loss of the aircraft and all personnel. Damage to civilian property was negligible. There were no civilians injured.
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(Note: Sgt. Phillips body was later on brought home from England, and interred in Visitation Cemetery, Norfolk, NY).
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