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604. Milton's July Loss 7-11-1944 WWII

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Updated: Mar 19, 2022

USAAC Lt. Samuel Thomas Gibson was born in Frisco City, Monroe County, Alabama on June 18, 1920, the son of Stonewall Jackson Gibson (1863-1927) and Dora Alice Lee (1879-1945). Sam was the grandson of Private Thomas Pearce Gibson (1823-1891) of the 4th South Carolina Confederate Cavalry. He enlisted in Company "E" in Marlboro County and in 1864 his regiment was attached to Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. There, they were involved in intense fighting while protecting Lee's flanks. Some of their heaviest fights was at Haw's Shop and Matadequin Creek, Virginia. Another was Trevilian Station where Thomas was captured by Union forces (History of Marlboro County by J. A. W. Thomas). From May to June of 1864 alone, the regiment would lose over 280 casualties. In 1865, they were transferred to the Army of Tennessee during the Carolina Campaign and finally surrendered at Bentonville, NC with less than 200 men.


As for Sam's immediate family, his father was a "stack inspector" in New Orleans in 1900 and afterwards spent his life as a Methodist preacher. By 1920, the family was in Jones Mill, Monroe County, Alabama and seven years later he passed away in his sleep. By 1930, Dora had moved to Santa Rosa County, Florida with five of her ten children where she was supported by her son Roy Glenn and her daughter Elizabeth Flouars Gibson (1911-2006) (Smith/Anderson). By 1940, Glenn had become a county supervisor of registration and her daughter Mary Carolyn (1914-1941) a teacher, just like her sister Elizabeth.


In the meantime, Sam entered Milton High School in 1934 and immediately became an athletic star on the school's football, basketball, and baseball team. He would graduate in 1937 and received a baseball scholarship to Southern Georgia College. During his baseball career with them he achieved "no strike outs" at bat during his first two seasons. After two years of college, he left to take up work as a "gangman (laborer)" on a geophysics crew for the Humble Oil Company in Houston, Texas.


After the war began, Sam went out to Fort Barrancas and enlisted in the US Army Corps. In addition to his patriotism, he had also grown up on the stories of his older brother Cecil who was a corporal with a supply company of the 117th Field Artillery of the 31st Infantry Division in WWI. Cecil sailed to France on October 14, 1918, aboard the Italian liner "Duca Degli Abruzzi." However, the armistice was signed on November 11th so its doubtful he ever got to enter combat.

Sam received his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant on January 14, 1943, and by January of 1944 was en route to Peterson Airfield at the Army Air Base in Colorado Springs. There, he would be assigned to a crew and together they would begin their final training. Upon completion, they were sent overseas in May 1944 to the 755 Bombardment Squadron of the 458th Heavy Bombardment Group. His squadron was stationed at Horsham St. Faith, a small village in Norfolk, England on the coast of the North Sea. From May 27th to July 8th, Sam and his boys flew twenty missions. Then came #21 on July 11, 1944, when they were sent to bomb the railroad marshalling yard in the German city of Munich. Sam and his crew loaded up that morning and took off in their borrowed B-24 that sported the name of "Lorelei." Shortly after takeoff, Sam entered a cloud bank and he and his crew were never seen or heard from again. An extensive search was conducted from England all the way to the target area in Munich, but no trace was ever found of the plane or the members of the crew. They also reviewed captured German records that yielded no further information. While no details of an actual crash available, the investigators came to the logical conclusion than the plane went down in the North Sea not long after takeoff. Given this information, his date of death was listed as July 11, 1944.




























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