1Lt Charles C. Contos (unknown-1945) - Find A Grave Memorial

Charles C. Contos residing in Cook County, Illinois enlisted as a Private (ASN: 36306565) in the Army Air Corps on 2 Dec 1941 at Camp Grant, Illinois. He was selected for aviation cadet training, completed pre-flight ground school, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant (ASN: O-868100) in the USAAF.

Per 22nd Air Base Headquarters, Special Orders #66, dated 6 March 1944, he graduated with Class #25-44 from Flight Engineer School (FES) at Lowry Field near Denver, Colorado and was attached to 17th Bombardment Operational Training Wing at Clovis Army Air Base, New Mexico. Subsequently, he underwent B-29 aircraft operational training and was assigned to Aircrew A-2 at Pratt Army Air Field, Kansas.

In September 1944, he deployed from Mather Field, California (with re-fueling stops at Hawaii and Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands) to the central pacific theatre of operations and was assigned to 20th Air Force, XXI Bomber Command, 73rd Bomb Wing, 497th Bombardment Group (VH), 869th Bomb Squadron stationed at Isley field on Saipan in the Mariana Islands.

On 14 January 1945, he flew as the Flight Engineer aboard a Boeing B-29 Superfortress nicknamed “Pacific Union” tail code A-square-2 (serial #42-24595).

It was one of 73 aircraft launched in a multi-group formation to bombard the Mitsubishi aircraft plant near Nagoya, Japan. Note: The early B-29 bombers were plagued by frequent mechanical issues, including engine-overheat that would result in engine fires. The engines would be under maximum stress on take-off and while climbing to cruising altitude, fully loaded with fuel and bombs.

Not long after take-off, northwest of the Mariana Islands, Pacific Union’s #3 engine caught fire. APC Pilot, Captain Cox jettisoned the bombs in preparation for a return to base, but fragments from the bombs struck the aircraft damaging it.

Capt. Cox attempted to "ditch" in the ocean just west of Pagan Island approximately 200 miles north of Saipan, but the center section of A-SQ-2 exploded just before she struck the water. Cox and five crewmen were killed. The other four crew members were rescued by the Navy, about a third of the way up from the Mariana Islands to Iwo Jima.

The lost crewmembers’ names are inscribed on tablets in the Courts of the Missing in National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Honolulu.

Charles C Contos