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| Staff Sergeant John O'Mara was a tail gunner in the 401st Bombardment Group. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/97183149/john-william-o_mara http://401bg.org/Main/History/Aircraft/ |
John O'Mara never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
He was born on November 21, 1919 in Mount Vernon, Kentucky. His parents Tom and Lena were also both born in Kentucky. His father worked as a garage machinist and later as a garage foreman. Still later he worked as an old age assistance field worker. John had two older brothers, one older sister, one younger brother, and one younger sister. By 1940 John had completed four years of high school. He was still living at home and worked as a delivery man for a cleaning and pressing shop.
He volunteered for the Army Air Corps in October 1940. He reached the rank of staff sergeant in the 613th Bombardment Squadron, 401st Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force, which was equipped with B-17 Flying Fortresses. He was trained to be a tail gunner. The 401st BG arrived in England in November 1943 and was based out of Deenethorpe, England.
Sgt. O'Mara flew a total of seven missions. His final mission was on March 2, 1944 when the 401st BG was assigned to bomb an engineering plant in Frankfurt, Germany. Sgt. O'Mara was the tail gunner in B-17 42-31467 nicknamed Sac Hound. Sac Hound was the only plane among the 36 bombers that failed to return to base. It was shot down by enemy fighters over Belgium. While three of the crew survived and escaped with the help of the Belgium resistance, Sgt. O'Mara was first listed as missing but was eventually found to have been killed in action.
His grave is at Elmwood Cemetery in Mount Vernon, Kentucky.
Last year on this date I profiled Distinguished Service Cross hero Julian Keith, 7th Infantry Division, who fought at Attu. You can read about Julian 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
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