Samuel Byrd Bennett was born on December 20, 1918 in Bald Creek, North Carolina. His parents William and Nell were also born in North Carolina. His father was a physician. He had two older sisters, two older brothers, and two younger sisters. Samuel was a graduate of Mars Hill College and also attended North Carolina State College. At the time of his enlistment, he was employed in Baltimore as a shipfitter.

Samuel enlisted March 28, 1942 in the US Army Air Forces aviation cadet program and attended pre-flight school at Maxwell Field, Alabama. He was trained as a B-17 Flying Fortress bombardier at Roswell Army Air Field and received his commission as a Second Lieutenant in June 1943.

In March or April 1944 2nd Lt. Bennett was part of a replacement B-17 crew assigned to the 613th Bomb Squadron, 401st Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force, based at Deenethorpe, England. The crew’s first mission was on 1 May 1944 and they completed seven more missions over the next three weeks. On 28 May 1944 during the crew’s ninth mission, 2Lt Bennett's aircraft was hit by flak or cannon fire from an enemy aircraft causing a fire in the radio room, and then exploded, tearing the aircraft in half. Five members of the crew were able to bail out and became POWs. 2Lt Bennett and four others were not so lucky and did not survive the explosion. Pieces of the aircraft were strewn across the countryside in the vicinity of Dessau, Germany, the intended target.

Samuel Byrd Bennett was initially buried in Susigke Cemetery in Germany and after the war was reinterred in Holcombe Cemetery, Burnsville, North Carolina. Both of Samuel’s brothers served in the US Army and survived the war.

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story. SBTSProject/North Carolina/Yancey.

If you noticed anything erroneous in this profile or have additional information to contribute to it, please contact me at bob.al@storiesbehindthestars.org.

Sam B Bennett