1LT Jesse Lee Carpenter, Jr. was a Pilot with the 12th Air Force; 57th Bombardment Wing; 310th Bombardment Group; 379th Bombardment Squadron; stationed in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO).

His Hometown was Columbia, Maury County, Tennessee. He was attending Milsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi; when he entered the Service.

On 23 January 1943, Lt. Carpenter, Jr. Married Miss Mary Glenn Osborne, in Columbia, Maury County, Tennessee, before going overseas.

Friday, 27 August 1943
379th BS War Diary: Of all these missions, one will always be remembered by our Squadron as its most disastrous raid. This was the raid on the Benevento Marshalling Yards on August 27th. On making their landfall at the Italian coast, the formation of 36 bombers was attacked by 40-50 German and Italian fighters which in a running fight for twenty minutes, shot down three of the bombers, all from the 379th. The gallantry displayed by the crew in one of these bombers, namely, Capt. Kenneth M. Johnson’s crew, was indeed a credit to themselves and our Squadron. After receiving hits which set both engines of their plane afire, they continued on in a glide maintaining their gunfire on the persistent fighters, until they reached their target where they dropped their bombs before crashing.

379th BS: Extracts from Missing Air Crew Report # 639:
Shot down by enemy fighter action on bomb run to target.

A/C B-25; Serial No. 42-32414; MACR-639; shot down
THE CREW:
P Carpenter, Jesse L., 1Lt - KIA
CP Schnack, John H., 2Lt - MIA, DED
N None
B Park, Jackson W., S/Sgt - KIA
E None
R Kuhn, Henry N., Jr., S/Sgt - MIA, KNB
G Miller, Laddie T., S/Sgt - KIA
F None

Jesse L Carpenter