My father hung this framed photograph of General Crumm and him in his office, displayed alongside the portraits of presidents and other dignitaries. It had been taken just months before General Crumm was killed in the Vietnam war.
I remember how sad my parents were when he died. My mother referred to the tragedy of “Bill” Crumm’s death many times during the course of my life. My stoic father wouldn’t talk about it. But his archives containing photographs, letters, and newspaper articles preserving some of the details about his esteemed WWII pilot’s life reflect Dad’s deep respect for him.
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William “Bill” Joseph Crumm was born in New York City in 1919 and attended the University of Virginia before entering the flying cadet program in 1941. He was twenty-two-years-old when my father first met him at MacDill Army Air Force Base in May 1942. The WWII Air Campaign was still in its infancy then. The two men were assigned to the newly formed 91st Bomb Group of the newly formed Eighth Air Force. They would share many firsts together while serving in this first group of the first wing of the first division of the evolving US Army Air Force (USAAF).
My father was assigned to Crumm’s crew of the 324th Squadron as a waist gunner. On the B-17F they named Jack the Ripper, their crew participated in the 91st Group’s first mission over enemy-occupied France on November 7, 1942. They flew alongside the Memphis Belle, which began the first of its twenty-five missions that day.
These were dangerous times in the European Theater of Operations when the bomber crews flew without long-range fighter escorts. During my father’s third mission, Jack the Ripper was hit and he and fellow waist gunner, Sgt. C.D. Wright, were wounded. As the air campaign progressed, the crews suffered great losses as men were wounded, killed, or lost in action. Crumm and his men were witness. Three of the 91st Group’s four squadron commanding officers were lost within the first two months of combat, including the 324th’s revered CO Major Harold Smelser.
As the casualty rate of the combat crews escalated (later determined to be the highest of the American forces during WWII), the War Department requested that an experienced crew return to the Zone of Interior. Crumm, recognized as a stellar pilot and leader, and his crew were selected and flew back to the US in February 1943. They were the first intact crew of the Eighth Air Force to return home.
Crumm and his men met with General Arnold and the War Department in the Pentagon War Room, answering many questions about daylight strategic bombing. It was during one of these meetings that Crumm encouraged General Arnold to set the number of missions required for the airman to complete a tour of duty. On behalf of his comrades, the young captain stated:
“…I have never seen a bunch of fellows more anxious to fight and do their part – but it is a funny feeling when you sit out there and see your squadron dwindling down and down and down. It just looks as if you are going to stay until you get shot down…. If a definite number of missions or months to fly was set, (they) …would have something to work for. I think this is one of the most important things, and I know that the fellows that are still over there — the ones that were left behind —would be awfully glad if something was done about it.”
Afterwards, the crew met with some of the Air Force engineers and recommended multiple aircraft and equipment modifications to better serve the airmen. In Orlando, Florida, they met with the Air Force School of Applied Tactics to co-author the airmens’ combat manual entitled “Bombing the Nazis.”
They then participated in a morale boosting tour and flew across the country to visit multiple aircraft factories, participated in numerous ceremonies and news interviews, and spoke to numerous combat crews in training. “But it wasn’t all work,” wrote JTR’s navigator, Lt. Bill Leasure, “we were wined and dined by multiple Hollywood celebrities including Carol Landis, Gary Cooper, Ann Sheridan, and Dennis Morgan, to name a few.” It was during this time that the handsome Captain Bill Crumm married Miss Ella Jane Tenney in Tucson, Arizona. Over the years, they would raise six children together.
After the tour’s completion, the crew members were re-assigned individual duties. Crumm was promoted and eventually transferred to the Pacific Theater while my father completed aviation cadet training. After the war ended, Crumm was given key assignments across the globe and advanced through the ranks during his military career in the USAAF—later the USAF when the U.S. Air Force became an independent branch of the military in 1947.
My father and the general maintained intermittent correspondence during their careers. Among my father’s archives are several letters from General Crumm. One was a letter of recommendation for my father to be accepted into officer training school. Another written to my father on December 5, 1963, eloquently stated, “We are all very proud, but certainly not surprised, by your instant and brave conduct.”
The two men’s professional paths crossed again when my father was assigned to protect Vice President Humphrey in 1966 and, later, President Johnson in 1967 in Guam. General Crumm had been stationed there in 1965 commanding the 3rd Air Division–the B52 unit charged with carrying out air strikes in Vietnam.
By July 1967, Crumm, a major general by then, had completed two years in Guam and was scheduled to return to the United States after his last mission. He was to be promoted to the director of aerospace programs. But, en route to a target in South Vietnam on July 7, 1967, he was in a mid-air collision with another B-52 bomber over the South China Sea. Seven men from the two planes survived, but General Crumm and five other men were lost, their bodies never recovered.
In a sad final first, Major General Crumm, the forty-eight-year-old beloved family man and respected leader of men who spent over half of his life in the service of our country, was the first American general to be killed in the Vietnam War.
My father never forgot him.
Nor will I.
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Biography of USAF Major General William Crumm, United States Air Force. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
39th Bomb Group Biography Major General Crumm , Retrieved 24 May 2018.
“Jack the Ripper’,” The First Crew Home, in The Ragged Irregular, 91st Bomb Group Association Newsletter”, The Ragged Irregular, 91st Bomb Group Association. April 1969. p.6. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
Leasure, Bill. “Saga of the Crew of Jack the Ripper,” (editor Jim Hill) The Voice of the Mighty Eighth, no. 2 (May 1992): 29-33.
War Department Record of March 19, 1943 Meeting, Title: Current Intelligence Section, A-Z; Interview with a B-17 Crew from 324th SQ., 91st Group.
“General, Area Captain Lost in B52 Collision,” The Evening Star, Washington, DC, July 7, 1967.
This is a wonderful tribute to a national wartime hero. Thank you for sharing an important part of history with a grateful nation,especially on this Memorial Day. One also learns of the origins of the air campaign over Europe and how the USAF evolved. One is reminded of the sacrifices paid by our young men who regretfully did not return home.
One of my best friends flew out of Guam as a navigator on B-52s during the Vietnam era. It is stunning that General Crumm, having survived so many missions, tragically lost his life in a midair collision with one of our own planes. As a nation, we owe our freedom to these fallen heroes.
It is very tragic. And he was so close to completing his command there. Thank you for reading about General Crumm today.
Dr. Youngblood, this is a great site, very professional and well done! Losing a good friend such as Major General Crumm I am sure was tough on the family and your Mom and Dad. I am appreciative of you sharing this personal story.
Thank you for reading about General Crumm on this day when we pay tribute to all of our fallen soldiers.
Your article was a well-written, moving tribute to not only Gen. Crumm but to your father. As stalwarts of The Greatest Generation they represented the very best of who we are. I look forward to your future writing contributions.
Thank you so much for your kind words about General Crumm and my father. They did reflect that great kindred spirit of Patriotism in our country at that time.
During the heydays of underground-Atlanta nightlife, in the early Seventies, Dad & I used to rendezvous with Tenney and Bill’s daughter, Pam, who was a student at the Fashion Institute of Atlanta. I was in undergraduate school at Tulane University then and was either on my way back to New Orleans from DC or back to DC from New Orleans. I remember dinner out on the town with Pam, one of the most beautiful, charming, and intelligent young women I ever had the pleasure of breaking bread with.
Another movie star from the crew’s War Bond Tour deserves note here, namely Dana Andrews, who was the source of my middle name. Lest we forget, God rest Carol Landis’ soul. She was known as “the Ping Girl.” Sadly, she committed suicide the day Mom & Dad married.
And let’s remember another of the “Jack the Ripper” crew. I am his namesake–their Co-pilot, Mark Gilman. I LOVED him and his wife Dottie, and remember a very fun party, when I was in my early twenties, at our Vienna, VA home. I was the bartender. Our sister Joy Wayne’s name is also Army Air Corps derived: While Dad was completing aviation cadet training in Nebraska, one of our parents’ favorite friends was named Joy. She was what we describe today as “drop-dead gorgeous” with a most congenial personality, too. Mom used to remind us that she gave Joy the same middle name as Dad–even though she was a girl–because she was afraid Dad wouldn’t make it out of WWII alive.
I like the way Frank Badalson describes your blog, Rebecca: “Dr. Youngblood, this is a great site, very professional and well done! ” Thanks for all you are doing to preserve memories of some stellar protectors of peace and prosperity; not to mention good parenting skills. The world’s “greatest generation?” While I don’t disagree with that assessment, I might suggest that if they weren’t, their competition was led by George and Martha Washington, Benjamin and Deborah Franklin, John & Abigail Adams, Thomas & Martha Jefferson (AND Sally Hemmings,) . . . and countrymen and women, who took on the British crown, and won. The writers and formulators for the pinnacle of political theory, democracy, and freedom. God save the United States of America.
Wow Mark!
Your political science major is showing!
Some of this I knew (that namesake Joy was “beautiful inside and out,” and I also knew and adored the Gilmans…) but I never knew that Mom gave our sister Joy Dad’s middle name due to her concern he would be killed in the war.
Write on, brother!
Thanks, Bright-one, Becca. Wait a minute, Doctor. I’m sure you practiced medicine, in Georgia, under your married name, Dr. Vaughn, (MD), Dermatologist. With all due respect to Frank Badalson, mind you.
Really enjoyed your article on my father & history with your dad.
Your Dad held a special place in our family.
…and yours in ours! Your father is one of my heroes!
Wow! This is incredible! My husband, Rick White, is Bill’s daughter’s (Barbara) son. We have a daughter named Barbara. I would love to connect with either you or Ron, or both. Thank you for writing this as it is very intriguing.
Thank you, Amy~
Sir, My Dad and our Family were on Guam exactly the same time as General Crumm and as I remember were slated to return to the States on the same aircraft. Of Course, that changed. I remember a young lad called Butch Crumm. I was 12 in ’67. He would have been close to that age. I went to Washington and saw the General’s name on the Wall.
Thanks for this. It was so interesting to read about the accomplishments of the grandfather I never knew. (I’m Barbara Crumm’s (White) son and she passed when I was a little boy) I do wish that I’d had the opportunity to speak with him but this really means a lot. Great job!
Dear Rick,
I am sorry both for your loss of your mother when you were so young, and that you didn’t get to know your grandfather. I did not have the opportunity to meet him personally, but some of my siblings did. Regardless, I was taught of his importance, and he was legendary in our family. I am very happy to be able to share what I know about this great man in hopes that his story lives on.
Best, Rebecca
Pamela Crumm Dietz has been my loyal and wonderful friend for over 40 years. We, both being flight attendants for a major airline have many shared memories. Pam is so very humble and embodies the description of genteel. She is and has been a Godsend to me. When we first met, she told me one night at
my parents’ home that her father had died in the war. I did not know that he was a general until we were at Arlington Cemetery many years later. When I was astonished at his rank, Pam replied the following: “He was just my father”.
Thank you for tribute.
Thank you for your comment. It saddens me that she lost her father at such an early age. His death was such a tragedy.
Often wondered what became of Pam. She went to Bellevue Jr High same time I did, she was an acquaintance through mutual friends on Guam, and when her family moved back to the Virginia, as we did, after her father was killed. Remember him coming by our home a couple times to check in on us when we first arrived. Our fathers were stationed several places at the same time over the years. Thank you for the article, Gen. Crumm was an awesome gentleman and happy to know she ended up with such a good friend. I’m still in touch with many of our old Guam friends.
I was assigned to the 22nd bomb wing. The wing was tdy to Andersen AFB. The night gen. Crumm took off I was riding the launch truck, as a bomb/nav tech. The aircraft had a bomb/nav problem. Because the gen. was flying, I
was able to fly and fix the malfunction. The malfunction was no beacon xtal current. We were very sad, hearing the accident.
Thank you for sharing this memory.
The Crumm family, like ours, traveled across the country in a station wagon, lots of kids, and a great dad. When I came home from the beach, mom’s face said it all. They were to attend the going away party but decorations were coming down. Dad was at March, Offutt and on Guam at the same time and General Crumm came by many times, sometimes in “civies” just to see how my folks were doing. I went to see Pam and her family off the day they left the island. They touched us all.
Thank you so much for sharing these memories.
My Dad was stationed at Andersen AFB 65-67. Dad was a crew chief on the B-52 and the KC-135. IMHO the Best Jet engine mech in the USAF. As an enlisted mans son, we didn’t mingle much with Generals. But after reading more about the General, I don’t think rank would have mattared that much to him.
So many brave men (and women) died nameless to history. Major General Crumm was one of many whose loss to America continues to evoke both pride and sadness. We must stop and remember all who were lost and those who lost and still love them.
Well said. Thank you.
Ms. Vaughn,
I am truly excited to have come across your father’s book and all of the comments listed on this page during my research of General Crumm. My husband’s uncle James O’Donnell also served on Jack the Ripper with your father and Major General Crumm! My husband grew up listening to his Uncle Jim stories about his experiences in the war. Mike held onto every word and story which he will share with anyone who asks. His Uncle did share with him about the book Bombing the Nazi’s and we were actually able to surprise him by getting him an original!
The reason for my email to you today is that Mike’s parents passed away recently and amongst their belongings was a photo album with numerous original 8 x 10 pictures of the Jack the Ripper crew which include General Crumm and your father (as indicated by someone writing in ink above their pictures). I figured that many of the beautiful women surrounded by the crew were celebrities’, but I have not had any luck with identifying them. If you could assist me with that, I would greatly appreciate that. In addition to the photos of the crew in different settings, there is one photograph of a man in a nice suit appearing to give a speech with the service men sitting behind him on a portable stage. The stage is in front of a building with “Good Year” flags draping down in front of the windows. Two more to quickly mention, one of General Crumm standing on a raised area delivering words with the crew behind him. I also have another photo at the same location of whom I believe may be your father delivering some words, with the crew behind him and maybe a few dignitaries to the side. Both using one of those big silver block microphones!
We have a few more pictures than what I have stated along with a drawing of the interior of the plane and where each crew member would sit.
If you are interested in seeing any of these photo’s I would be honored to send you a copy or the original if you wanted.
We are sincerely grateful for Capt. W.J. Crumm, S/Sgt. R.W. Youngblood and S/Sgt. J.B. O’Donnell (names and ranks as written on the above mentioned drawing) as well as the rest of the Jack the Ripper crew and for all who have served our country past and present.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for your email! I am excited to connect with your family! I have wondered what became of S/Sgt O’Donnell!
We also have these photos. They were given to the crew who went on the promotional tour.
I will connect with you via my home email and we can expound! Thanks again!
We were scheduled to leave Andersen on the same flight as General Crumm as I .understood it. But that was a LONG TIME AGO! News of his death was a shock. My Dad was a jet mechanic on ’52’s. I was an acquintance of Butch Crumm. Not friends Dad was a SSGT not an Officer.