CONFIDENTIAL

H E A D Q U A R T E R S

720^TH BOMBARDMENT SQUADRON  (H)  AAF

OFFICE OF THE SQUADRON COMMANDER

A.P.O.  520,  U.S.  ARMY

                                                                                    27  FEBRUARY  1944

STATEMENT SURROUNDING DISAPPEARANCE OF MISSING PERSONNEL

            ON 25 FEBRUARY 1944, FIRST LIEUTENANT MONROE SACHS, 0-796441, AC, WAS THE CO-PILOT ON A B-24-H TYPE AIRCRAFT, (NO. 42-64443), ON A COMBAT MISSION TO BOMB THE AIRCRAFT FACTORY AT REGENSBURG, GERMANY.

            THE FOLLOWING IS A STATEMENT CONCERNING THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LIEUTENANT SACHS AND AIRCRAFT.

            "ON 25 FEBRUARY 1944, OUR GROUP WAS ON A MISSION TO BOMB THE AIRCRAFT FACTORY AT REGENSBURG, GERMANY.  After Leaving the target arEa, our formation was attacked by enemy FIGHTERS, THE AIRCRAFT  (NO. 42-64443), IN WHICH LIEUTENANT SACHS WAS THE CO-PILOT HAD ONE ENGINE FEATHERED, HOWEVER THE PLANE MANAGED TO KEEP UP WITH THE FORMATION.  aFTER THE ATTACK LIEUTENANT GIRAUDO SUCCEEDED IN RESTARTING THE FEATHEREED ENGINE, HOWEVER THE PLANE WAS APPARENTLY DAMAGED SINCE IT KEPT SLIPPING TO THE LEFT, SOON AFTERWARD TEN (10) PARACHUTES WERE COUNTED LEAVING THE PLANE.  MY CREW SAW THE SHIP GLIDE INTO A MOUNTAIN AND EXPLODE.  THE COORDINATES WHERE I LAST SAW THE PLANE WAS 45⁰00'N-15⁰50'E, THE TIME WAS 1445 AND THE ALTITUDE WAS APPROXIMATELY 18,000 FEET."

                                                                                                            /S/  JOHN E. MALARKEY JR.

                                                                                                            /T/  JOHN E. MALARKEY JR.

                                                                                                                   2^ND LT.,  AIR CORPS,

                                                                                                                   NAVIGATOR.

"  ACCORDING TO MY OBSERVATION OF LIEUTENANT GIRAUDOS' AIRCRAFT, I CERTIFY THAT THE ABOVE STATEMENT IS TRUE.  IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DETERMINE THE FATE OF LIEUTENANT SACHS AFTER LEAVING THE PLANE EXCEPT THAT TEN  (10)  CHUTES WERE OBSERVED FULLY OPENED. "

                                                                                                            /S/  ALBERT S. TEED,

                                                                                                            /T/  ALBERT S. TEED,

                                                                                                                   2^ND LT.,  AIR CORPS,

                                                                                                                   BOMBARDIER.

A CERTIFIED TRUE COPY:

                                                                        JOHN H. WELLS JR.

                                                                        1^ST LT.,  AIR CORPS

                                                                        ADJUTANT  

HEADQUARTERS 1516 SERVICE UNIT

Cleveland Recruiting District

Room 107 Old Post office Building

Cleveland 14, Ohio

RS 341                                                                                                           9  September 1944 

                                                                                                                              MS:mec

Subject: Approval of Recruiting Talk

To: CG,  5^th SvC, Fort Hayes, Columbus 18, Ohio

            Attn: Public Relations Officer

            1. The following is a talk which I would like to have approved in order that it can be used in talking with various organizations.  It is to be used in line with our program of public relations and prospecting for WAC recruits.

            2, The first part of this talk is a brief resume and description of my experiences in pre-flight school, primary, basic, and advanced flying schools, and then a brief description of heavy bombardment phase training.  All this leads up to overseas duty, and at that pint a talk is as follows:

            We flew our first mission January 9^th against installations in North Italy. Successive missions were against similar targets, and for the most part those few weeks were comparatively easy.  Our targets at that time were mostly marshalling yards, communication centers, supply dumps, and personnel Headquarters.

            We didn't know it at the time, but we were acting as support for the eventual establishment of the Anzio beachhead.  Several weeks later I was fortunate enough tot see the opening of the Anzion beachhead from the air.  We had gone on a mission that day up into northern Italy, completed our bombing, and on the way back saw tremendous numbers of vessels shuttling back and forth at Anzio.  At that point we also heard a BBC broadcast, and they told us of the establishment of a beachhead, but were not allowed to disclose the name of the place.  We, of course, leaned the name merely by looking at our maps.

            After the beachhead was established, we started in on what was called "Big Leagues".  Primarily they included targets in Germany, Rumania, Austria, and Hungary.  I was only able to make five missions in the Big Leagues, for on my fourteenth mission I was shot down and bailed out over occupied territory.  I lived with the guerillas for a period of about six weeks, and during that time I was able to see guerillas at work.  Fortunately, I could speak some German and naturally leaned much from the people about what was going on.

            In fact, one night I spoke with two guerrilla women. They were heavily armed – each of them had four grenades on a belt which she wore around her waist, and a pistol on her hip.  I spoke with them that night about what they had been doing, and the next day much to my regret I learned that they had been killed in combat while storming enemy positions with the men.

            That leads me up to my reason for being here today.  We are not asking women to go out and shoulder guns nor to throw grenades, nor to fight in front line trenches, but we do want to get women to do the jobs in the Army so the men can go out and throw the grenades, shoulder the rifles, and fight, and possibly die so that we can win this war.   Omit  HRJ

            3.  The rest of the talk refers completely to securing prospects for WAC recruiting.

MONROE SACHS

CAPTAIN,  AC

Liaison Officer

            We do need you to fill many jobs, some of which were formerly held by men now overseas in combat areas.   List some of the jobs now open to WAC both here and overseas.

ARMY SERVICE FORCES

Public Relations Office – 1516^th SCU Cleveland WAC Rctg Dist.

Rm 346 Old Arcade Bldg., 401 Euclid Ave.,

Cleveland 14, Ohio

TIME – 12:00 – 12:15

DATE – 25 March 45

OK FOR POLICY – JCM

By Sgt. James C. McDonough

CONTINUITY….

OPEN COLD:

ANN:  THANKS TO THE WACS!

MUSIC: Theme up, sustain, fade BG

ANN:  My name is Sachs, Captain Monroe Sachs of the U. S. Army Air Force…and I've got a story for you today…a pretty interesting story…but there's one catch to it…I'm telling my story this morning for the women of the radio audience…it's all about Marshall Tito, his Partisans, and a short ride in a B-24..over Jugoslavia…but I'm getting ahead of myself…It all started back in the winder of 1943.  Boy what a graduating class we had.  After 13 months of flight training that big day had arrived…and 211 of us got those silver wings…with a 2^nd Lieutenant commission thrown in for good measure.

MUSIC:  AIR CORPS SONG UP, FADE BG, SUSTAIN:

ANN:  So we got ten days leave, during which we all swore we'd forgotten how to handle the big boats…Then a few more months of training and then things started to pop...yes, P.O.E.  We had to pilot our B-24's over the big pond.  Funny the way our original squadron broke up….Some of the gang went to the west coast, to hop off into the Pacific.

            My gang flew out of the east coast P.O.E.  That was December 7^th, 1943... just two years after Pearl Harbor.  I kinda felt as if I was getting a slow start...but I was out to make with the flying machine over any target the flight commander designated. Yeah my whole crew was pretty brave on that departing-the-states day.  Somehow though the date December 7^th held within its sound an atmosphere of ominous portent…impeding doom or something like that.  The whole gang felt it...as if our big boat were destined for adventures far beyond our dreams of easy targets and milk runs.  But that cold December day was a happy one nevertheless.  Eleven of us climbed…..

SOUND:  Motor tune-up, take off

            Aboard our B-24, cruised around the field for a warm-up, and took off….into the oblivion that held for us nothing but new sights, adventure, and war…We were all a little scared…excited…speculating on our chances of meeting enemy fighter planes over the continent.  We stopped off in South America for a few days, another short briefing, more orders, than on to Africa, where we got a short taste of GI live there….wasn't so nice, believe me.  Then we flew on to Tunis, and finally to the end of our line…Italy.  Our base in Italy wasn't exactly related to LaGuardia Field in scope and beauty, but it was our home base, and we learned to love the sight of it from the sky….especially after a successful mission was completed.  I'll never forget our twelfth mission from that American Air Force field somewhere in Italy.  It was a nice warm day, surprisingly, and we took off for our target over Germany.  It turned out to be another milk run, but on the way back focke-wolf fighters got on our tail…and my radio operator got flak in the shoulder.  He was messed up pretty badly… We flew in as fast as possible and the medics took him to the base hospital...It was funny but that kid…Bill Johnson was his name….he seemed to leave us with a different feeling.  We got a replacement Radio Operator of course…but Johnson's getting shot meant something to the superstitious gang on our big boat.  Our next mission was our thirteenth…and that date, like the black cat and waking under a ladder…made us think of cracking up….getting shot down in enemy territory…We were all jittery…but at the briefing for our 13^th mission, I gathered together what nerve I had and started to give the boys a pep talk…about the easy run this was going to be…we were to fly from our base in Italy to Regensburg, Germany, let go with a few blockbusters, and head home…sooooo….once again we tuned up…..

SOUND: MOTOR WARM UP…TAKE OFF

            And took off for our thirteenth mission.  I'll never forget that mission….I can remember everything that happened.

MUSIC:  AIR CORPS THEM UP, FADE BG, SUSTAIN

SOUND:  AIRPLANE MOTOR IN FLIGHT

ANN: (FILTER MIKE)  Pilot to crew…pilot to crew…our target is Regensburg, Germany…let's be on your toes…Pilot to gunners…check your guns…expect heavy fighter interception...Pilot to Navigator…keep tab on our course…let's get through Yugoslavia fast.  This is no milk run.

MUSIC:  UP….FADE BG, SUSTAIN

ANN:  (FILTER MIKE)  Pilot to bombardier…there it is Tommy…let go with those busters…bombs away…..

MUSIC: UP, FADE BG, SUSTAIN

ANN:  (FILTER) That does it gang.  Let's head home…..pilot to tail gunner…keep your eyes peeled boy….enemy fighters ought to be right around here somewhere …Yep…..here they come….ZEROS at six o'clock…and there's a mob of them…..get em boy…..

SOUND:  BATTLE NOISES UP, SUSTAIN, FADE BG

ANN:  (FILTER MIKE) Pilot to crew…left wing's pretty shot up…and we can't make it….Pilot to radio…contact home...report our position and tell 'em we're abandoning ship….Pilot to crew….Bail out…and good luck gang…we're over Yugoslavia, and that means German patrols allover the place…watch your step gang…see you on the ground…make it fast.

MUSIC:  UP FAST…BUILD TO CRESCENDO, FADE OUT

ANN:              So we bailed out….over Yugoslavia. But only then…when I hit the ground…did my real adventure start.  I landed on a jagged piece of land somewhere in the interior of Yugoslavia.  I buried my parachute, looked around for the gang….found my co-pilot, bombardier, and three gunners.  That was six of us, safe for a while…leaving five still unaccounted for.  We started waking…and we kept walking…for 200 miles over Yugoslavia land.  We didn't have too good an idea where we were, though we knew we weren't in healthy territory because German patrols were peeking around hedges looking for us…  We managed to hold our liberty for three days.  At about three o'clock in the afternoon of the fourth day we were halted in our tracks by what we thought sure was a German infantryman.  He marched us up a narrow ravine to a mountain top.  About every fifteen feet we spotted an armed guard crouched in a niche.  We were praying hard by this time.  Finally we came upon a large lodge-like house.  The guard halted us and took our revolvers from us.  Then he marched us before his leader….we all stood there, afraid to think of who this monstrous chief might be.   A high official of the German Gestapo??  No, couldn't be that….he wasn't wearing the uniform of a German officer.  We stood there for fully five minutes, looking at this husky, smiling leader.  Who was he…then suddenly like a bolt of lightening it hit me….Yugoslavia….home of the Partisans…This must be…yes it is…TITO.

MUSIC:  UP, FADE BG AND OUT

ANN:  Marshall Tito and his Yugoslavian Partisans. We stood aghast as I barley whispered his name…still not sure I was right. He motioned us to chairs and we grouped around him.  He spoke in clear, concise English, offered us large, flaky cigars and his native drink "Rakia".  We settled down to a discussion of the war.  The husky partisan chief was like a character out of a legend to us.  He spoke slowly, deliberately, measuring his words and questioning us on our equipment, our planes, the base from which we'd taken off….he was the perfect host…seemed to know exactly what a bunch of tired-out Yank flyers would want after being shot down in a foreign land.  We talked with him for about an hour when another guard broke in on us, followed by a squad of Partisan women, who popped to attention in his presence, saluted with their rifles, and awaited his orders.  He gave them their orders and returned to our conversation.  I didn't pay much attention after that.  I was thinking of those women, actually fighting with their men…actually going in and wiping out machine-gun nests…acting as snipers through long all-night vigils.  Those women didn't seem the type for that kind of work.  They were slight, pretty, reminded me of our own American women…and I thought to myself, throughout the 41 days that followed, what American women would do if they were forced to fight side by side with their men.  I wondered….and all that time Tito and is Partisan group sheltered us, fed us, applied treatment to our wounds…for 41 days….until finally an American C-47 hospital ship came, picked us up and brought us back to the United States.  We learned later that the five absent members of our crew were picked up by a German patrol, and are even now prisoners of the Germans somewhere in Germany.  It was an exciting experience….one that few soldiers go through…but I'm glad I did….because now I have a thorough understanding of what some women are doing in this war…for the Allied effort. I returned to this country to find several woman's organizations actively participating in the war…not fighting along with their men…but doing the jobs that relieve fighting men for actual combat.  I was impressed immeasurably by the Women's Army Corps…The Medical WACS especially, whose job it is to go to all parts of this battle-torn world and care for their wounded men.  As a soldier and veteran of this war,  and an American Air Force pilot, I have seen the work the Women's Army Corps has done overseas – It is for this reason that I urge you women of Ohio, to raise your voices with me in the single cry – "Thanks to the WACS" -

MUSIC:  AIR COURPS SONG UP, FADE BG AND ….

NARR:  American and Allied forces are grinding out victories on far distant battlefields right now.  Brave fighting men are risking their lives to save their buddies; Doctors and Nurses are working long and hard hours, saving the lives of hundreds of our boys who would otherwise be left to die on some foreign field.  There is a critical shortage of nurses, but even a more serious shortage of Nurse's aides and Medical Technicians.

Our fighting men deserve the finest the nation can provide…and yet unless the Army Medical Corps is supplemented with 8000 Medical and surgical technicians within the next few months, there is great danger that our veterans will not receive the care and medical treatment they so richly deserve.  General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, is sponsoring a drive for the recruitment of 8000 Medical WACS, to be trained in army schools for the vital job of assisting our Army doctors and nurses in general hospitals throughout the nation.  Doctors and nurses by the hundreds are being sent overseas to staff hospitals near the battle, leaving a critical shortage of medically trained personnel in the sixty General Hospitals in this country.  General Marshall, with the active cooperation of Governor Frank Lausche of Ohio, promises Medial recruits from this area their choice of initial assignment of one of several General Hospitals in this country.  If you are between the ages of 20 and 49, have at least two years of High School and have no dependents under the age of 14, you may enlist in the Women's Army Corps today.  You will spend 4-1/2 weeks in basic training at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, take a six week course at an Army enlisted technician school and spend 30 days on the job at an Army hospital. Then you will be sent to the General Hospital of your choice, and be given a Technician 5^th grade rating…which is the equivalent of a Corporal rating.

Ohio women may choose to be stationed at Crile General Hospital near Cleveland or Fletcher General Hospital in Cambridge, Ohio.  If you crave sunshine and flowers, make your choice, Brooke General Hospital, Fort Sam Houston, Texas or Baker General Hospital, Martinsburg, W. VA.  Hospital sin Utah and Virginia are open to Ohio women wanting to help in this vital work.  There's no satisfaction of quite as great a lasting value as that derived from actually helping a wounded soldier on that convalescent road.  His has been a tough job, full of physical and spiritual pain, full of loneliness and depression.  He took over the job that belongs to all of us.  He fought for us…now it's your turn to show him that we appreciate the sacrifice he has made.  Ohio veterans have a right to demand the comfort and care that we can provide...Are Ohio women made of the same fine stuff as Ohio fighting men?  General Marshall thinks so….and Governor Lausche thinks so.

The job is vital….the need is urgent – the time is now….You needn't have previous experience in medical work.  The Army will train you.  Yours will be an important contribution to ultimate victory.   Yours will be a job that will be long remembered and appreciated by hundred, thousands of America's veterans.

            So don't wait….If you've done your bit, then now you must do your best.  General Marshall and the Army of the United States ask you to join them, be one of them, and share in the enormous rewards and satisfactions that go with total victory.  Call MAIN 8895 in Cleveland today, or go to1918 East 6^th St…right off Euclid Avenue at 6^th St., and enlist in the Women's Army Corps, choose the General Hospital in which you want to serve and answer the call of America's wounded veterans.

THAT NUMBER AGAIN: MAIN – 8895.  CALL NOW!