A Chattanooga World War II airman who was a gunner on the American bomber “Little Joe” when it went down in flames on a German farm will be laid to rest at the Chattanooga National Cemetery 81 years to the day after he was killed in action.
Tech. Sgt. Sanford Gordon Roy had just turned 31 and was aboard Little Joe when it was shot down over Germany on April 8, 1944, according to a news release from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and his obituary. Roy volunteered for the U.S. Army and was assigned to the Army Air Forces in August 1942.
That April day in 1944, Roy and nine fellow crew members were on a bombing mission — part of a formation of 200 Allied bombers en route to a target in Brunswick, Germany — to destroy airfields and manufacturing plants, along with German aircraft on the ground, according to the agency and obituary information provided by the family. Roy was a “left waist” gunner on the B-24 Liberator, meaning he was positioned to fire a .50 caliber machine gun from an opening in the side of the plane.
But as the crew members flew, 50 to 60 German fighters with a mix of Focke-Wulf 190s and Messerschmitt 109s attacked the formation. The left and right waist gunners defended the B-24’s sides while their fellow gunners defended the nose, top, bottom and tail of the aircraft.