This post is in honor of my father's (LTC Kenneth E. Bow, U.S. Army (ret.)) cousin's (Bill Allensworth) brother, Sgt. Harold O. Allensworth, who died on 6 June 1944 during the invasion of Normandy.
Sgt. Allensworth enlisted in the Army Air Forces (USAAF) in August 1943. He trained as a gunner with the 838th Bomb Squadron/487th Bomb Group in the B-24 Liberator heavy bomber. Harold was deployed to Lavenham Air Base Station 137 in Suffolk, England, and arrived there in April 1944. Harold's airplane was named "Sweatin' it Out" and was commanded by Lt. Norman E. Gross (pilot). During Operation Overlord, their mission was to drop their ordnance over a "choke point" at Caen on the morning of 6 June 1944. "Sweatin' it Out" was not able to drop its payload over the target at Caen due to poor visibility caused by heavy cloud cover. After consuming more fuel, they decided to fly west toward the Jersey Islands and Guernesey away from the incoming invasion forces. At 8:42 am the Saffron Walden station received a distress call from "Sweatin it Out" that all four engines were out. The aircraft was 25 miles from Aldernay Island when it crashed into the English Channel. All 10 members of the crew perished. The names of the enlisted crew, including Harold O. Allensworth, are inscribed on the Wall of Missing at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville Sur Mer, France. The officers are on the Wall of Missing at the American Cemetery in Cambridge, England. I am Stephen Bow, and am a volunteer member of Bugles Across America and SAL with American Legion Post 256 in Loveland, Ohio. I have sounded Taps at the Normandy American Cemetery three times, twice in 2015 and once more in 2019 during our visit celebrating the 75th anniversary of D-Day. The video I posted from YouTube is the Taps I sounded for our ceremony honoring Sgt. Allensworth at the Wall of Missing in 2015.