Herbert Edman : First Lieutenant from New York, World War II Casualty (honorstates.org)

FE: O-868105Herbert Edman 1Lt NY 27-1-1945 B-29 #42-63423 A-SQ-28

1Lt Herbert Edman (1915-1945) - Find a Grave Memorial

Born Herbert Edman on 24 April 1915 at Queens, New York City, New York.

Class of 1933 High School New York.

After 4 years of college majoring in electrical engineering, he was employed by the Norma Multikolor Corporation on West 32nd Street.

Herbie enlisted (ASN: 32514558) as a Private in the Army Air Corps on 29 September 1942 at Fort Jay on Governors Island in New York Harbor. He was selected for aviation cadet training, completing pre-flight ground school, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant (ASN: O868105) 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 combat crew training and was assigned to Aircrew A-28 at Pratt Army Air Field, Kansas.

Per special order #236-2, in September 1944, he out-processed through Herington Field and deployed from Mather Field, California (with re-fueling stops at Hawaii and Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands) to the western Pacific Theatre of Operations (PTO), and was assigned to 20th Air Force, XXI Bomber Command, 73rd Bomb Wing, 497th Bombardment Group (VH), 870th Bomber Squadron stationed at Isely field on Saipan in the Mariana Islands.

MACR 11620

On 27 January 1945, he flew as the Flight Engineer aboard a Boeing B-29-15-BA (Bell Atlanta) Super Fortress nicknamed “Were Wolf” tail code A-Square-28 (serial #42-63423).

A-SQ-28 was one of 74 aircraft launched in a multi-group formation to bombard the Nakajima aircraft plant and Musashino aircraft engine factory near Tokyo, Japan. After a flight of approximately six hours and some 1,200 nautical miles, his aircraft reached their check-point above Mount Fuji on the main island of Honshu, and began their bomb-run northeast towards the Tokyo area.

While on the bomb-run, enemy fighter opposition was described as unparalleled in intensity, with 984 passes against the formation. His B-29 aircraft was attacked by an Imperial Japanese Navy twin-engine Nakajima J1N1-S Gekko fighter aircraft (given the Allied reporting name of "Irving"). The ‘Were Wolfe’ was hit in the bomb bay, causing it to explode and break into two pieces. It crashed in the Fujinomiya City area.

Capt. Hahn, Lt. Redinger, and Lt. Edman were captured and subsequently held as POWs in a wooden-tile roofed jail at Shibuya, in the western suburb of Tokyo. They were among 61 other B-29 POWs who died during a large-scale B-29 aircraft fire-bombing raid, which occurred during the night of 25-26 May 1945.

NOTE: When General LeMay took command of XXI Bomber Command, he changed the tactics from high-altitude fragmentation bombing to low-altitude incendiary bombings. During the night of 25-26 May 1945, a total of 464 B-29 bombers took off for a continuation of Operation MEETINGHOUSE to fire-bomb Tokyo.