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| Lt. Joseph Turley is shown here with the rest of the crew of the B-17 The Venus. http://www.americanairmuseum.com/media/21961 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/141237378/joseph-h-turley |
Joseph H. Turley never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
He was born on October 11, 1918 in California. His parents Harry and Clara May were born in Canada and California, respectively. His father worked as an accountant. Joseph had an older sister. By 1940 Joseph had completed four years of high school.
After one year of college and working as an airplane mechanic, he enlisted in the army on March 5, 1941. He volunteered for the Army Air Forces and eventually became a pilot and first lieutenant in the 508th Bombardment Squadron, 351st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force which was equipped with B-17 Flying Fortresses. The 351st BG arrived in England in May 1943.
The mission for October 9, 1943 was to bomb the Anklam aircraft factory. It was Lt. Turley's 23rd mission. At that point in the war, 25 missions was all that was required before returning home. There was P-47 fighter protection for part of the flight, but not all the way to the target, which was their longest flight to date. Lt. Turley's plane, The Venus, completed its bomb run and made it back to the Baltic Sea coast where it was attacked by ME 109s. It exploded in midair and crashed into the sea. Only two of the crew survived.
His cenotaph grave is at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Last year on this date I profiled Howard Miller, 45th Infantry Division. You can read about Howard here.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
R.I.P. Lt. Turley.
ReplyDeleteThank you uncle Joe for your sacrifice. I still have a picture of you in your uniform holding me when l was two years old. I only wish we would have had the chance to know each other. RIP
ReplyDeleteRon, this story you found was written back in 2018 when this was a one-man blog pastime. It has evolved into a non-profit initiative to write the stories of all 400,000+ US WWII fallen. Instead of having these stories located in an obscure blog, they are being saved to a common database that will be accessed by a smartphone app where the user will scan the name of the fallen from any gravestone or memorial and get an immediate link to read the story. Would you like to have your uncle's story added there? To learn more visit www.storiesbehindthestars.org or contact me at don@storiesbehindthestars.org. Don Milne
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