Dear List-subscribers, We are fortunate to learn much more this week about Whitney Fulton Poythress, Jr., who died in combat in World War II. Some of you may recall that on 14 Jan 2004 Elaine ran across the first info about him on Ancestry.com as follows, and she asked if any of us knew who he was: "World War II and Korean Conflict Veterans Interred Overseas Name: Whitney F. Poythress Jr. Inducted From: North Carolina Rank: Second Lieutenant Combat Organization: 568th Bomber Squadron 390th Bomber Death Date: Dec.11, 1943 Monument: The Netherlands Last Known Status: Missing U.S. Awards: Purple Heart Medal, Air Medal, Additional Army Awards" This weekend, Elaine and I heard from Terry Row, whose father (Perry V. Row) was the B-17 Pilot with whom Whitney F. Poythress, Jr. trained and served as Co-pilot. They and their B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, named the “Phyllis Marie,” after Perry's wife, were stationed for a tour of duty (then 25 missions) at Framlingham Army Air Field, near Ipswich, England, from Sept. 1943, through Feb. 1944. They were with the 8th Air Force, 390th Bombardment Group (H), 568th Squadron. Terry is researching in order to write a book, entitled “Phyllis Marie,” for Clifton Edwin Publishing, and ran across Elaine's above posting. Terry gave us a lot of info for our Poythress Research website, including a fuzzy photo of the crew in front the "Phyllis Marie" and an official military portrait of Whitney F. Poythress, Jr., who was known as Billy. I'll be sending the info and the photos to our webmaster, Al TIms, requesting he post it. In the meantime, if any of you want the photos, please email me and I'll be glad to email them to you. Below I have combined Terry's info with more that Elaine and I have found. Much of his included information from his parents, Phyllis Row, living, and Perry V. Row, who died in 1997. (Unless I note that Elaine or I found the info, it came from Terry.) WHITNEY FULTON POYTHRESS, JR. was born June 11, 1922, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He graduated from Chapel Hill High School and attended the University of North Carolina in the ROTC program. His address before the war was 113 Kenan Drive; Chapel Hill, NC. His father, Whitney Fulton Poythress, went by the nickname “Bill,” for reason unknown to Terry, and Whitney Jr. was known as “Billy,” as early as grammar school. Terry did not know Billy's mother's name. Elaine found Billy's mother listed as "Lillie" with W.F. Poythress, Sr., in the 1930 Census in Chapel Hill, Orange County, NC. See Elaine's Poythress Census info at our Poythress Research website www.poythress.net). In 1930, W.F. Jr. was the only child in the W.F. Poythress household. I found in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) at RootsWeb that Lillie M. Poythress (born 13 Sep 1902) died 4 March 1991; her Social Security number was issued in NC. Her husband, Whitney Poythress, Sr., is listed in the SSDI as Whitney Poythress; born 12 Dec 1900; died May 1982; last residence in zip 27514, which is Chapel Hill, Orange Co, NC; his Social Security number was also issued in NC. The SSDI is found at http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi Further, thru the earlier Censuses, Elaine found more of Billy's family line: Whitney Poythress, Sr. was found in the 1910 Census (age 9) and the 1920 Census (age 19) in the same area (Chapel Hill, Orange Co, NC), in home of his parents, Simeon E. and Ola Poythress (So these would be the paternal grandparents of Billy aka Whitney Poythress, Jr). In the 1900 Census, those grandparents Simeon & Ola Poythress were in the same county, with no children yet. In the 1880 Census, Elaine found Simeon Poythress (age 12, born in NC) in Chatham County, NC (Baldwin Twp), in the home of his parents George W. and Permelia Poythress (So these would be the paternal great-grandparents of Billy aka Whitney Poythress, Jr). George W. Poythress was listed as age 43 and born in VA. In the 1870 Census, Elaine also found Simeon in Person County, NC (Flat River Twp); Simeon was listed as age 2 and born in NC, in the home of his parents, George W. & Permelia Poythress. George W. Poythress was listed as age 31, born in VA. Most likely this George W. Poythress (great-grandfather of "Billy" Whitney Fulton Poythress, Jr.) was a son of David Poythress of Mecklenburg Co, VA (who was born in January of 1800). In the 1850 Mecklenburg Co, VA Census, David's son George W. was shown as age 9. This "George W." child is the only George Poythress having a middle initial of "W" who we find in the Virginia Censuses. (There was one other Poythress child in Virginia named George, who was son of the huckster Benjamin Poythress, but we know from descendents in that line that his name was George Alexander Poythress, not George W.) Terry knew that "Billy" Whitney Fulton Poythress, Jr. had no brothers, but had two younger sisters, who were perhaps 10 or 11 years younger. One sister's name was Patsy; the other sister's name was unknown. Billy married Francis (Fran) Montjoy, the daughter of the Manager of the local A & P grocery store in Chapel Hill. Billy worked for Mr. Montjoy. He and Fran knew each other all through grammar school and high school before marrying, sometime around 1942, certainly before May of 1943, which is when Terry's parents met them both in Walla Walla, Washington. Billy and Fran Poythress had no children. Billy enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was trained at Maxwell and Gunter Fields in Alabama; Blytheville Field, Arkansas; Ephrata Army Air Field at Walla Walla, Washington; and Redmond Army Air Field at Redmond, Oregon before going overseas for combat duty. Terry's father, then 2nd Lt. Perry V. Row, was assigned to Ephrata Army Air Field near Walla Walla, Washington on April 22, 1943 for B-17 Pilot Training School. On May 11, he selected the first 5 members of his 10-man crew, and on May 16, 1943, he was assigned a Co-Pilot: 2nd Lt. Whitney F. Poythress, Jr. -- "Billy." They became good friends. Billy & Fran, and Perry & Phyllis, along with 4 other officers & their wives, lived together in Oregon in a condemned hospital building with 6 rooms, one kitchen, and one bathroom. That crew flew together on all training missions at Ephrata and Redmond, Oregon, and on all combat missions out of Framlingham Air Field, near Ipswich, England, except for Billy's final mission. They were a tight bunch, a family. Perry Row referred to Billy as being like a brother to him. Phyllis Row remembers Billy and Fran often buying little gifts for Billy's little sisters. After the crew’s first combat mission, Perry was promoted to 1st. Lt. Whenever crew 7 flew in “Phyllis Marie,” they seemed to be charmed. The only injury among the ten men through sixteen missions came when they were flying a different aircraft, when one man was wounded in the arm. The only serious damage to aircraft they flew came when they flew in substitute aircraft, while “Phyllis Marie” was in the Maintenance Yard. On several occasions, they received heavy flak. On Dec. 11, 1943, for that crew's 17th mission (a mission to the port area of Emden, Germany), the “Phyllis Marie” was chosen as the Deputy Lead airplane, second in command for the entire squadron. As a result, the Co-Pilot, Billy Poythress, was not assigned to the flight, because his seat was given to the Deputy Command Pilot, one of the 390th Bombardment Group's senior officers, Major Good. Not wanting to be left back from the mission, Billy wrangled his way on board the Lead airplane, named “Six Nights in Telergma,” piloted by veteran Pilot Hiram Skogmo. For that mission, Billy was assigned as the Tail Gunner and Observer. It was his duty as Observer to watch the formation of the entire squadron (18 planes) and direct traffic, instructing pilots to move their airplanes in closer or out further, as necessary. When Billy, facing backwards, looked to his immediate left, he could see his regular plane, the “Phyllis Marie.” When Perry looked to his immediate left, he could see the Lead plane with Billy in the tail gunner position. After the squadron crossed the English Channel, at landfall over the Netherlands, six German fighter planes appeared directly in front of the squadron, coming in fast, firing rockets. They concentrated their fire on the lead ship, knocking it out of the air. The crew of the “Phyllis Marie” watched helplessly, as the plane went down in flames. They counted three parachutes leave the airplane, but not from Billy’s Tail Gunner position. Another 30 enemy aircraft joined the battle, and an additional 4 B-17s were knocked down in the battle. Lt. Row, as Deputy Lead, moved up into the Lead position, and led the squadron on the bombing raid. When his bombardier called “Bombs Away,” all the bombardiers in the squadron let loose their bombs. The 390th were later credited with destroying 11 fighters, probably destroying 3 others, and damaging 8. Because of poor weather, the bombing could not be assessed that day. The “Phyllis Marie” returned to base with no injury and no damage, as usual. Billy, then age 21, was listed as Missing In Action (MIA). One of the three parachutes that fell on Dec 11, 1943 from “Six Nights in Telergma,” carried a man who became a Prisoner Of War (POW), and after the war, he confirmed that the other 7 crew members that day went down with the ship. Thus sometime after 1947, Billy’s listing was officially changed to Killed In Action (KIA). As noted in Elaine's original posting, copied above, his name is inscribed on a tablet in one of our American Cemeteries in the Netherlands. Those cemeteries are administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission. Perry V. Row and the rest of the original crew completed their 25 missions with several different Co-Pilots filling in. The only additional injuries to members of crew 7 came at a ground school lecture on armaments, when an incendiary bomb exploded and 4 crewmembers received minor injuries. Row, by then a Captain, was sitting in the front row, right in front of the bomb, but he escaped injury. After the 9 survivors of the original crew rotated home in February of 1944, another crew took over the “Phyllis Marie.” On their first mission in the airplane, March 8, 1944, the plane was badly damaged. Most of that new crew parachuted to safety, but because one crewmember was wounded and couldn’t get out, the Pilot landed safely behind enemy lines in Germany. Those crewmembers finished the war as POWs. The “Phyllis Marie” was captured intact and added to the German KG-200 Air Force (captured foreign aircraft) and used by the Germans as a decoy, attacking American formations and causing confusion until the end of the war. Billy's mother did not shared Phyllis Row's letters with her daughters, but when she died, Patsy and her sister found the letters, tied up with ribbon. In the early 1990s, shortly after their mother died, Billy's sister Patsy and her husband located and visited Perry and Phyllis Row in California. Regarding the photos Terry Row sent: One is the official portrait of Lt. Whitney Fulton (Billy) Poythress, Jr. (Bpn note: I note from the original info that Elaine found that he may still have been a 2nd Lt. when he died, though Terry's info with his portrait said 1st Lt. I have no info re if/when Billy was promoted from 2nd Lt. to 1st Lt.) For the other photo, Terry noted the names of the crewmembers as follows, and he added "If this crew ever posed for a formal photograph (officers, standing behind the enlisted men, kneeling), I have never seen it. I think this photograph, with officers and enlisted men scattered randomly, is a reflection of what a tight family this crew was." Front row (L-R, kneeling): 1st Lt. James Fitzsimmons - Bombardier, T/Sgt. Erice Bennett - Engineer/Top Turret. Back row: (L-R): S/Sgt. Louis Kiss - Tail Gunner, 1st Lt. Lester Boettcher - Navigator, S/Sgt. Robert McCormick - Waist Gunner, S/Sgt. Arthur Dix - Ball Turret, T/Sgt. Mathias Biehl - Radio Operator, 1st Lt. Whitney Poythress - Co-Pilot, S/Sgt. Walter Byrne - Waist Gunner, 1st Lt. Perry Row - Pilot. Behind the crew is a good shot of the "Phyllis Marie" - a B-17F. It was accepted by USAAF 14 Jul 43. Denver Mod Center 17 Jul 43. Scott Field 10 Aug 43. 8th AF 24 Aug 43. Assigned to Lt. Row and crew 12 Sep 43. Assigned to Lt. Quackenbush 4 Mar 44. MIA Berlin 8 Mar 44. Landed intact at Werben, Germany. Assigned by Luftwaffe to KG200. All crew POW.