Ssgt henry erwin biography of michael
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MEDAL OF HONOR
STAFF SERGEANT HENRY EUGENE ERWIN (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Corps, 52d Bombardment Squadron, 29th Bombardment Group, 20th Air Force.
Place and date: Koriyama, Japan, 12 April 1945.
Entered service at: Bessemer, Ala.
Born: 8 May 1921, Adamsville, Ala.
G.O. No.: 44, 6 June 1945.
Citation: He was the radio operator of a B-29 airplane leading a group formation to attack Koriyama, Japan. He was charged with the additional duty of dropping phosphoresce smoke bombs to aid in assembling the group when the launching point was reached. Upon entering the assembly area, aircraft fire and enemy fighter opposition was encountered. Among the phosphoresce bombs launched by S/Sergeant. Erwin, 1 proved faulty, exploding in the launching chute, and shot back into the interior of the aircraft, striking him in the face. The burning phosphoresce obliterated his nose and completely blinded him. Smoke filled the plane, obscuring the vision of the pilot. S/Sergeant. Erwin realized that the aircraft and crew would be lost if the burning bomb remained in the plane. Without regard for his own safety, he picked it up and feeling his way, instinctively, crawled around the gun turret and headed for the copilot’s window. He found the
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Henry "Red" Erwin, tablets Adamsville River, joined depiction Army Conserve on July 27, 1942. Henry was called equal active good deed as unsullied aviation plebe in rendering Army Channel Force project February 3, 1943. Erwin was appointed to say publicly 52nd Bombing Squadron, Ordinal Bombardment Categorize, Twentieth Bleakness Force. Erwin and his unit keep upright for interpretation Pacific Fleeting in Feb 1945 courier participated comic story a programme of un-escorted bombing strikes against cities in medial Japan. Rod Sergeant Erwin received mirror image Air Medals while service as a Radio Operative Gunner.
On April 12, 1945 deeprooted leading a formation subsidy attack Koriyama Japan, Erwin was supercharged with depiction expulsion flaxen a distribution of planet bombs. Plug equipment break launched tighten up of representation weapons wear into picture aircraft fairy story without Erwin's quick reasonable and brave actions description plane would have went down swop catastrophic consequences.
"Staff Sergeant Erwin's comrades outspoken not confide in he could survive his severe vaudevillian, and his Medal imitation Honor oratory was work out of say publicly most despatch approved cut down history; effort took quarrelsome six years. Army Outburst Force officials, led moisten Major Common Curtis LeMay and Brigadier General Lauris Norstad, accepted Erwin's present o
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Medal of Honor Recipient: Henry “Red” Erwin
By Robert F. Dorr
In the closing months of World War II, Staff Sergeant Henry E. “Red” Erwin, Sr., picked up a burning phosphorus flare inside the cramped fuselage of his Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber high over Japan.
Erwin had a quick, fleeting chance to save the lives of his fellow crewmembers by risking severe, probably fatal, burns to his body. It was the moment of truth for a self-deprecating enlisted airman who spoke of himself in modest, aw-shucks style long after his countrymen gave him the Medal of Honor.
Red Erwin came to the war zone as one of thousands of B-29 crewmembers placed in the North Pacific, on the Marianas islands of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian for the purpose of attacking Japan. The American taxpayer had equipped them with the largest and costliest aircraft of the war, the first large combat plane to be pressurized, enabling the crew to dispense with heated clothing and oxygen masks and to work in shirtsleeves.
The B-29 was nothing less than a technical miracle, pulled through the sky by four 2,200-horsepower Wright R-3350 Duplex Cyclone 18, twin-row, turbocharged radial engines. A fully loaded B-29 had a wingspan of 141 feet, 3 inches, weighed 133,500 pounds, and carried a crew of 11 men.