Technical Sergeant Billie E. Clapper (37211507) was the top turret gunner assigned to the Joe Noyes crew on Wednesday, September 15th 1943. Billie was born October 1st 1920, in Cleveland, Oklahoma. He was a former Boeing employee in Wichita.
I believe Billie was killed on his 17th combat mission, at age 22. It seems he shows up in the 95th Bomb Group (H) flight records as Billie E. Clapper and William E. Clapper.
The census reports that I’ve found say that Billie was born to Willis Allen Clapper (1896-1971) and his wife Blanche Clapper (née Evans, 1897-1970), of Winfield, Kansas, however Willis was originally from Ohio. Willis appears to have worked for Gulf Oil, and lived for a period of time in Cleveland, Oklahoma.
Billie had two sisters: June A. Wade (1923-2016), and Eleanor Clapper Howard. June graduated from high school in Cleveland, before returning to Winfield. June apparently has grandchildren in Winfield and Arkansas City, Kansas, and Enid, Oklahoma.
On November 25th 1942, while based at Geiger Field, Billie married eighteen year old Norma Jeanne Buchan, who was born on June 12th 1924 in Apperson, Oklahoma. Billie and Norma Jeanne’s marriage certificate was filed in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
After the war, in 1945, Norma Jeanne married S.C. Womacks (1920-2009). She passed away in 2002.
May 1943
Based on my searches of flight crew records, Billie’s first combat mission in the skies over Europe was on May 29th, 1943, to Rennes, France, with 1LT Sell W. South of Birmingham, Alabama, piloting the B-17 (serial number 42-29800), named Me and My Gal.
Interestingly enough, Me and My Gal flew only four missions with the 95th Bomb Group (H) before it was transferred to the 305th Bomb Group (H), 422nd Bomb Squadron.
Soon after that it was transferred again to the 384th Bomb Group (H), 546th Bomb Squadron, located at Grafton Underwood.
Me and My Gal failed to return home on October 14th, 1943, when it was lost during the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission. According to Missing Air Crew Report 840, it crashed at Simmershofen, 19 miles SE of Würzburg.
The pilot was William R. Harry, and the co-pilot was Ivan L. Rice, whose parachute opened while he was still in the aircraft.
June 1943
On June 28th, 1943, Billie flew a mission to St. Nazaire, France, again with First Lieutenant South, in B-17 (serial number 42-30284), known as The Myrtle. Billie was assigned the role of waist gunner with Ed Clements, who a few months later became a Prisoner of War in Germany.
What happened to the South crew that day, would be described in an article published by The Portsmouth Herald…
Close Call
“Wounded Gunners Save Crew of Crippled Plane.”
The article begins with:
How two wounded sergeants aboard a severely damaged B-17 Flying Fortress of the United States Army Eighth Air Force stood by their guns and beat off a swarm of German fighter planes until the crippled bomber, on its way back to England from an attack on the German submarine pens at St. Nazaire, France, could make a successful landing at sea, was disclosed today by the war department.
The B-17 piloted by First Lieutenant South ditched in the sea near England, and although the rubber life rafts had been damaged by shell fire, they were patched up and held together for hours until rescue boats arrived.
The Myrtle, had apparently made its bomb run and started heading back to England when flak struck its control cables. First Lieutenant South gave orders to lighten the load so that the aircraft could make it as close to England as possible.
First Lieutenant John W. Hargrove of Talco, Texas, was the co-pilot on this particular mission, and he was quoted as saying:
As we were busy tossing overboard everything we could get our hands on, the Focke-Wulfs swooped down on us… Actually the first we knew of them was when their tracers started whizzing past the bomber.
1LT John W. Hargrove
The article by The Portsmouth Herald concludes with the following:
Technical Sergeant Edward W. Maslowski fended off the Focke-Wulfs until he collapsed, and Sergeant Clements, although he was severely wounded in one arm, kept a stream of bullets on the attacking planes while Technical Sergeant Harold B. Koukol of Berwyn, Illinois, came to his aid and applied a tourniquet.
July 1943
On July 10th, 1943, Billie was the right waist gunner on a mission to Le Bourget, France, flying in a B-17 named Patches, serial number 42-30120, piloted (yet again) by Sell South, with whom he had certainly developed a solid friendship with by now.
The first time it appears Billie Clapper actually flew a mission with Joe Noyes was on July 28th, 1943, to Oschersleben, Germany. On that day they flew in B-17 (42-30182) also known as Blondie II – seen in this retro poster designed by Squadron Posters.
Billie would fly five more missions with Joe Noyes, to Bonn, Merville-Lille Vendeville, Regensburg, Lille Meulan, and Paris (Beaumont-sur-Oise).
I find it rather heartbreaking that after surviving the ditching of The Myrtle, and the infamous bombing raids over Kiel and Regensburg, Billie and the other men of the Joe Noyes crew failed to return from a “milk run” to Paris. Based on the letter to Joe’s mother, written by Harry Conley, their comrades in the 95th Bomb Group (H) had a difficult time absorbing this loss as well.
Furthermore, the events on the 15th of September are eerily similar to what happened to The Myrtle crew. It really makes you think. Did the same thing happen to the Joe Noyes crew, flying the Sittin’ Bull?
T/SGT Billie E. Clapper is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at The Cambridge American Cemetery, and his status is still Missing in Action.
His remains have not been recovered.
If you have any more information on this 95th Bomb Group (H) veteran, please contact me or leave a comment.