Ray Lawrence Gleason was born on December 1, 1919 in Lilly, Michigan. His parents Ernest and Mable were also born in Michigan. His father worked as a farm manager. Ray had one older brother, one older sister, two younger brothers, and five younger sisters. In 1940, Ray was living at home with his parents in Saline, Michigan and attending college at Michigan State Normal College in nearby Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Ray enlisted in the US Army Air Corps the day after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and served as a Staff Sergeant in the 345th Bomb Squadron of the 98th Bombardment Group (Heavy). The 98th BG was equipped with Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bombers, and was deployed to the Middle East in July 1942 as part of the Ninth Air Force. It supported the British army in its westward advance from Egypt into Libya and Tunisia, and bombed shipping and harbor installations in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Crete, and Greece to cut enemy supply lines to Africa and to prepare for the Allied invasion of Italy.

On 1 August 1943, SSgt Gleason was a gunner aboard B-24D 42-40102 “Old Baldy” taking part in Operation Tidal Wave. Romania had been a huge fuel supplier to the Nazi war machine, so the Allies decided that a major effort to deny this fuel should take place with hopes it would shorten the war. Operation Tidal Wave dispatched 178 B-24 bombers from airfields near Benghazi, Libya to attack the oil fields and refineries at Ploesti, north of Bucharest, Romania, which were among the most heavily defended targets in Europe.

The mission plan called for the B-24s to go in at low altitude to avoid German radar. “Old Baldy” was in the fourth wave attacking it’s assigned target, the Asta Romana refinery. As the aircraft approached the target it was hit by flak and caught fire but the pilot was able to climb high enough to release his bomb load. Knowing that his aircraft was severely damaged, the pilot steered it into the same enemy gun battery that had shot them down, killing all ten crewmembers. The mission was one of the costliest for the USAAF in the European Theater, with 53 aircraft and 660 air crew lost.

Ray Lawrence Gleason is memorialized in Oakhill Cemetery in Saline, Michigan.

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/Michigan/Washtenaw.

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

Ray L Gleason