090 - Sixteen and Six

While fourteen of the sixteen crews had relatively little trouble finding their way back to safety, the airmen of crews sixteen and six suffered much worse fates on their long and perilous journeys through the Japanese-occupied jungles of China.

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Crew Sixteen made a crash landing just off the China coast. As soon as the plane landed, Japanese scouts were hot on their tail, searching for the men responsible for bombing an oil refinery in the heart of Tokyo. Within an hour, the pilot was captured. By noon, the remaining four members of Crew Sixteen was captured and taken as prisoners of war (POWs). Even though all of Crew Sixteen remained in captivity throughout the War, all five of those men also returned home safely.

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However, the fate of Crew Six was not as good. It may have been a sign of bad luck when a sailor got caught in their B-25’s propeller blade during takeoff and lost an arm.

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Crew Six lost two soldiers during a crash landing in the Ocean and the remaining three were also taken prisoner. Two of those three POWs of Crew Six died while in captivity. Only Lieutenant Nielsen, the plane’s Navigator, (fourth from left) returned home alive.

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