The 324th Fighter Group of the Twelfth Air Force was stationed at Tavaux Airfield at Dole, France.

On 22 December 1944, 2nd Lt. Edmund Wright II was a pilot with the 316th Bomb Squadron.

On this day he was flying the P-47D-25RE Thunderbolt 42-26566 nicknamed “Hell’s Belles” on an armed reconnaissance mission to find trains and boxcars. Wright and another Thunderbolt pilot encountered some German ME 190’s and engaged in a dog fight. Wright lost control of his aircraft, it rolled over on its back and slowly lost altitude and fell into a spin. At about 15:30 hours and only 1,500 feet above ground, Wright bailed out and was observed to land in a thickly wooded area near Hubersthofen, Germany. He was captured some 200 meters from where the plane crashed about 1.5 kilometers from Hubersthfen, Germany. He was wounded and sent to the prisoner of war hospital near Rottweil, Germany. He later was transferred to a transit camp at Dulag Luft – Wetzlar, then Stalag 5B, Villingen Baden and finally Stalag 7A, Moosburg.

After he failed to return to base, the group filed Missing Air Crew Report 11609 which detailed the circumstances surrounding the crash.

Crash of P-47 42-26566 MACR 11609