Airmans Remains Identified 78 Years After Death - History Story

 

By Dave Kiffer

For the Daily News

The remains of a former Alaskan resident with ties to Ketchikan who died in World War II have been identified, nearly eight decades after his death.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced on Jan. 13, 2021 that Alfred "Freddy" Turgeon's remains had been positively identified through DNA testing. He will be buried near his sister, Lorraine (Cutler) Bass, in Shoreline, Washington, later this year.

Turgeon was a crewmember on the B-24 bomber "Vulgar Virgin" which was shot down over Ploiesti, Romania in "Operation Tidal Wave" on Aug. 1, 1943. Nine of the 10 crewmembers, including Turgeon, died.

"Operation Tidal Wave" - an attempt to shut down nine oil refineries north of Bucharest, Romania and cripple the Axis war efforts - is one of the most famous, and tragic, bombing raids of World War II. 

In 1943, the Ploiesti refineries were generating 30 percent of the oil used in the Axis European war efforts.  After a smaller raid in June of 1943, the Germans significantly beefed up the anti-aircraft defenses around the refineries.

The daylight, low-altitude raid on Aug 1, 1943 involved more than 175 B-24 bombers from bases in North Africa and Southern Italy. Nearly a third were shot down and more than 500 crewmen were either killed or captured. A post war report summed it up as "one of the bloodiest and most heroic missions of all time" but the result was "no curtailment of product output."

Five fliers were awarded the Medal of Honor in the raid - the most for an air raid in World War II - and 56 other fliers - including Technical Sgt. Alfred Turgeon - received the Distinguish Flying Cross.

Several months later, the Ketchikan Chronicle reported that Turgeon's mother,  Mrs. V.H. Cutler,, received the downed airman's medals in a ceremony at the Annette Island airbase.

The story, from Jan 3, 1944, reported that she had received the medals in a New Year's Day ceremony conducted by base commander Lieutenant Colonel Oral G. Layman. In addition to the Distinguished Flying Cross with one bronze oak leaf cluster, she was also presented with Air Medal with three bonze oak leaf clusters.

The DFC came for "distinguished and meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight against the enemy in the middle east theater" and "Sgt. Turgeon's alertness and efficiency in doing his job, even under fire and in great danger."

The Air Medal was awarded, the Chronicle noted, for Sgt. Turgeon's taking part in five operational sorties of more than 7 1/2 hours each.

"For decades, he was just a picture on our Grandma's dresser," his nephew David Bass said recently from his home in Indianapolis, Indiana. "Her 'lost boy' from the War."

Bass filled in some of the details of Turgeon's brief life (he was 23 when he died).

He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1919 to Alfred and Ruth Turgeon. The couple divorced not long after and Ruth Turgeon remarried, to Vic Cutler who was in the US Coast Guard. The Cutlers had two daughters, Lorraine Cutler Bass (David's mother) and Joan Cutler Tucker Mackie. 

"Vic served all over the East Coast - in the Carolinas chasing rum runners, the Great Lakes on icebreakers, NYC harbor, the (Coast Guard) Academy in New London," Bass said. "Vic became a Coast Guard officer in the 1930s and got transferred to Cordova, Alaska for several years. It was there where Fred grew up and went to high school. He considered himself an Alaskan from then on."

Bass said the family was transferred back east in the late 1930s. In the summer of 1941, Fred enlisted in the US Army Air Corps (the forerunner of the US Air Force).

"Right before he left for training, the family got reposted to the Ketchikan in 1941," Bass said. "Grandpa Vic was then a Lieutenant Commander and directed the Coast Guard shore patrol throughout the War. So, Fred's official military home address became Ketchikan. He never lived in Ketchikan. He only stopped there on steamship trips north and south."

Meanwhile, other members of the family stayed in Ketchikan and continue to live here.

"My mom and Joan both went to Kayhi and married local guys and started families," Bass said. "After the war, our grandparents retired to California. After my dad’s death, my mom & I joined them there."

Turgeon was the radio operator and the waist gunner on the B- 24 "Vulgar Virgin." 

After enlisting, Turgeon had trained in Barksdale, Louisiana and Wendover, Utah, was assigned to the 9th Air Force and then deployed with the 98th Bomb Group (Heavy) and the 344th Bomber Squadron in North Africa in late 1942. His group was called "The Pyramiders" according to Air Corps records and the "Vulgar Virgin" flew multiple combat missions out of North Africa.

The "Vulgar Virgin" was a well-known bomber in the fleet and earlier in the summer, it and its crew were featured in a short film produced by the Air Corps called "Liberators over Africa." That film can be found on a current DVD that also features several other short Air Corps films and is called "Liberators At War."

The Consolidated B-24 Liberator was one of the workhorses of the Allied bombing campaigns in Europe. More than 18,000 of the four-engine bombers were built making them the most common heavy bombers in the US air fleets in both the European and Pacific theaters of the war. It actually had a bigger payload, faster speed and greater range than the larger B-17. 

But the crews of the B-24s did note that it only had a single exit, back by near the plane's tail, making exit difficult, especially in an emergency. As a result, the B-24 was nicknamed "The Flying Coffin."

There was a crew of 10 on the "Vulgar Virgin" when it took off from an air base in Benghazi, Libya on Aug. 1, 1943. Almost immediately the complicated attack plan went awry when at least a quarter of the 175 bombers deployed got off course and then were unable to regroup because they were maintaining strict radio silence over the multiple-hour flight across the Mediterranean.

In the confusion, some of the squadrons ended up attacking the wrong refineries and - as a result - when the "Vulgar Virgin's" squadron arrived at its target, the Astra Romano refinery, it was already partially on fire which enveloped the area in thick smoke. To make matters worse, the anti-aircraft batteries were already in operation. With the bombers coming as little as 50 feet off the ground, ostensibly to avoid radar contact, many were sitting ducks for the air defenses.

The "Vulgar Virgin" was one of the first bombers into the fray, at the lead of the E Section of the 98th's formation. 

A report on the battle at the American Air Museum website contains the following.

"The Vulgar Virgin took a direct hit in the nose section by flak over the target and burst into flames," the report notes. "The pilot pulled out of formation and ordered a bail out. It is believed they were still too low for the chutes to open and only the pilot, Capt. Wallace Taylor, one of the four who got out of the plane, survived." 

The official post war Air Corps report was even more succinct.

"When the 98th bomb Group, led by Col. (John) Kane, entered a wall of smoke and flames over the Astra Romano refinery complex, #41-24198, 'THE VULGAR VIRGIN', did not reappear coming out of the smoke, shot down and lost over their target.”

Col. Kane would be awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery for leading his bombers directly into the teeth of the battle, but the cost was high. Turgeon's 344th Squadron was particularly hard hit. Of the 47 bombers in the squadron, only 21 returned safely to Libya. 

The only survivor from the "Vulgar Virgin," Captain Taylor, was captured and held a prisoner of war until the end of the war. After the war, Taylor was interviewed by US military officials.

"I immediately called the nose and tail, over the interphone, but could not contact either one," Taylor told the interviewers. "I then gave the bail out order and rang the alarm bell. I saw the co-pilot, engineer, and assistant engineer bail out. I do not know what happened to the other members of the crew. I bailed out and landed in the vicinity of Ploiesti. I left the plane when those with me were out and it was impossible to stay longer in the flames and heat.”

Initially, Turgeon's unidentified remains were buried with dozens of others from the raid in a cemetery in Romania, but they were later moved to a US military cemetery in Belgium. As DNA techniques improved toward the end of the 20th Century, a greater effort was made to attempt to use samples from living relatives to identify remains, cut down the rolls of soldiers and sailors still "missing" from past wars and give closure to their families.

More than a decade ago, the remains of Irvin Thompson, a Kayhi grad who died on the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor, were identified in that manner and he was reburied with family members in California.

In 2017, officials began specifically focusing on the remains in Belgium from "Operation Tidal Wave" and the unidentified remains were shipped to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Using a variety of techniques, Turgeon's remains were positively identified. Bass says Turgeon's are the only remains from the "Vulgar Virgin" crew that have been identified thus far.

In addition to Mr. Bass, Turgeon is survived by his sister, Joan Cutler Tucker Mackie of Shoreline, Washington, nephews Phillip Tucker and Craig Tucker of Ketchikan, niece Kathy Tucker Newman of Seattle and numerous great nieces and nephews.