8th Air Force Prisioner of War Grouping - Ridgewell

Technical Sargeant Micheal J Trainor Radio Operator/Air Gunner with the 381st Bomb Group 534th Squadron flying B-17 42-3118 “Green Hornet” out of Ridgeway.

This group consists of the following items:-
1.Named and boxed Purple Heart Medal with spare PH ribbon bar, pin back.
2. Named and boxed Air Medal with spare ribbon bar, clutch back.
3. POW Post card sent to his wife Rose from a transit camp and dated 16th January 1944.
4. POW Post card sent to his mother Nora from a transit camp and dated 19th February 1944.
5. POW camp ID Photo and holding his ID board.
6. Photo Album containing 79+ photoss mainly of hid time training in the USA. Middle of the album has had the photos removed, which I think would have been taken at Ridgewell, sadly these are missing.
7. Copy of the Missing Air Crew Report.

Micheal Trainor was a Tech Sgt with the 381st Sqd.on Group mission 59 to bomb airrcraft factories at Oschersleleben, Germany when his B17 was struck by an ME109. (MACR 1875) he was a POW at Stalag Luft XVIIb in Austria.

Stalag (XVIIb) 17B was situated near the village of Gniexendorf. The camp iwas in use as a concentration camp from 1938 until 1940, when it began receiving French and Poles as the first PWs.

On 13 October 1943, 1350 non-commissioned officers of the Air Force were transferred from Stalag 7A to Stalag 17B, which already contained PWs from France, Italy, Russia, Yugoslavia and various smaller nations. By January 1944, the strength had increased to 2667. From then until the last days of the war, a constant stream of NCOs arrived from Dulag Luft and strength reached nearly 5000, in spite of protestations to the detaining Power about the over crowed conditions. The entire camp contained 29,794 prisoners of war of various nations.

Code: 57835