Date:	Friday 21 July 1944
Time:	23:35
Type:	Douglas C-47-DL (DC-3)
Owner/operator:	United States Army Air Force - USAAF
Registration:	41-18388
MSN:	4426
Year of manufacture:	1942
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 4 / Occupants: 5
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed, written off
Category:	UI
Location:	near Vocin -   Croatia
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	Brindisi-Papola Casale Airport (BDS/LIBR)
Destination airport:

Narrative:
In the evening of 21 July 1944 the C-47-DL 41-18388 of 10th TCS, 60th TCG, USAAF, was approaching a landing ground in Croatia. The pilot, Lt. Morris R. Houser, saw a yellow light on the ground - the signal that the field was under attack. As he increased speed and began to climb, 20-mm shells from a German Ju 88 night fighter struck the left wing and engine and set them on fire. The pilot ordered his crew to bail out, but only the copilot, Lt Pinkney C Largent, was able to bail out before the airplane exploded in the air at 23.35 and spun into the ground 300 yards from drop zone (by 45 37 N 17 35 E, near Vocin), killing Houser and the three other crew. Largent was then rescued by partisans. They were shot down by Hptm Leopold Fellerer of Stab III./NJG 6, who claimed a DC-3 shot down at 2342 hrs at 1000 m in area coded 14 Ost N/OQ-29 (west of Brod) as his 37th victory. Crew: 2nd Lt Morris R Houser (pilot) KIA 2nd Lt Pinknet C Largent (co-pilot) rescued 2nd Lt Alfred W Gunthner (navigator) KIA S/Sgt James J Warren, Jr (flight engineer) KIA Sgt Dick J Tschantz (radio operator) KIA The four killed crew are now buried together in a common grave in Baltimore National Cemetery, Maryland, USA.

http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/Publications/fulltext/Fueling_the_Fires_of_Resistance.pdf
Luftwaffe claims files, by Tony Wood and Jim Perry
https://fr.findagrave.com/memorial/807243
https://fr.findagrave.com/memorial/732602
https://fr.findagrave.com/memorial/1296580
https://fr.findagrave.com/memorial/1264102
MACR 14290
The Douglas DC-1/DC-2/DC-3 - the first seventy years / J.M. Gradidge

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