857th BS
Akerhielm Crew
Scanned from Special Orders #236, dtd 13Dec44Alphabetically first of the 850th and 857th BS crews, they arrived at Harrington from the 70th Replacement Depot just prior to the departure of the 859th BS for detached service in Italy.
Their first mission shows up in the Harrington Operations log on the night of 20/21 February 1945. Their second mission the following night was scrubbed because of bad magnetos. Missions were hard to come by but picked up again in April and on the night of 15/16 April the crew landed at the B-53 field on the Continent with an engine out, their date of return to base is not recorded for this mission. Flying at least 14 combat missions while at Harrington, they are recorded last in the Ops log on the night of 26/27 April 1945. Jack Poth's personal papers indicate he was awarded the Air Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster, which would seem to indicate this was near their maximum number of combat flights.
Combat Period: December 1944 - April 1945
Additional Resources: Jack Poth's memento collection (30 scans) is available via the Personal Collections Directory.
