Lots of Military News in Sutton in early December 1943

The war must have seemed very close for Sutton folks with this issue of The Sutton News on December 2, 1943. There were three major stories about Sutton men and a couple of lesser ones thrown in.

Edward Reiber showed up in the news reel at the Lyric Theater as he helped shipmates in an incident that killed 197. Wikipedia entry for USS Savannah has details of the incident. And if you've the stomach for it, there are youtube videos of the rescue, the dead and the wounded. 

Click Aspegren had this harrowing experience after a Messina bombing run. Another account is in the 99th Bomb Wing Newsletter from November 9, 1943 It's on the right side of the 4th page. The newsletter states that Major Aspegren was on the B-17 raid of Rome shown in this youtube video.

We saw a note from Lt. Lilliedoll a few weeks earlier when he was on R&R in Australia. His father had a drug store in Sutton.

This Sutton lad spent a year in North Africa before being assigned to Harvard Air Base.

There were months of training before getting to the war. Each crew member had specialized training before meeting for aircrew training as was done at bases in this area: Harvard, Fairmont, Bruning, Kearney, etc. Crew members often stayed together through aircrew training and to their base in the war zone. McKeeman was a Navy airman. Their training was similar to the Air Corps.