Is there any information on the B-17 he was a co-pilot in? Have a friend who asked me about it. Personally I did not know he flew one of these.
i have a copy of his biography… ill see if i can find it and ill look through it for you.
Thank you.
Here’s a quick grab off of Wiki:
Landry earned his wings and a commission as a 2nd lieutenant at Lubbock Army Air Field and was assigned to the 493rd Bomb Group at RAF Debach, England, as a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber co-pilot in the 860th Bomb Squadron. From November 1944 to April 1945 he completed a combat tour of 30 missions and surviving a crash landing in Belgium after his bomber ran out of fuel.
Learn something new all the time. Now I’ll work on that a/c…
Tom Landry was young by USAAF standards and turned 18 in September 1942. He died at a pretty young age (76). He was a copilot in the 8th, 493rd Bomb Group.
The 493rd converted from B-24s to B-17s in the Fall of 1944. At Debach RAF.
Here’s a typical marking, on a silver aircraft. I cannot say if it was over natural metal or silver paint.
(a red stripe starting at the join between the fuselage tube and the vertical fin and fillet, approximately 1/3 up the tail fin, all silver above).
Look at http://www.gallbreath.net/bill/493hist.htm
Then it gets odd. The second commander of the 493rd, after Gen. Debach, was named Robert Landry, who survived the war and was replaced in 1944 at Debach RAF by Gen. Shepley.
But our Tom Landrey, who also was posted to Debach, lost an older brother named Robert in a B-17, earlier so he would have been at a different air base, and the Debach Base Commander Landry is apparently not related , certainly not to Tom and probably not as well to the other Robert(?).
I am a real fan of the veterans web sites, so have a look at the 493rd.