From the Project Recover Case Files: Case Files 458 and 14550

A Brother and Sister Went to War. Neither Returned

By Colin Colbourn, Ph.D., Lead Historian

19 August 1943 – Massicault U.S. Army Airfield, Tunisia, Africa.

1st Lt Richard E. Rozzelle just received word that a pilot was needed aboard a B-17F Flying Fortress called“Big Jeff.” Rozzelle had just finished his mission quota of 50 successful missions in theater. He had earned his trip home. Instead, he climbed into the pilot seat for one more. At the time, the Allies had captured Sicily and the invasion of Nazi-occupied Italy was next. Every mission mattered.

1st Lt Rozzelle was from Washington, D.C. He joined the Army Air Forces in November 1941, before the U.S. had even joined World War II. That made him one of the most experienced pilots in his squadron. The mission on 19 August 1943 was to attack the transportation hub at Foggia, Italy. Over 160 heavy bombers launched from North Africa against this main transportation and air hub for the enemy.

The plan was familiar. Fly across the Mediterraneanand Tyrrhenian Seas to Italy. 500 miles each way. Drop bombs and head for home. Once the group reached Foggia that day, however, it was clear that this would be anything but a routine mission.German ME-109 fighters swarmed the bombers and relentlessly pressed their attacks. 1st Lt Rozzelle successfully guided “Big Jeff” to the target and dropped their bombs. He turned the B-17 and its crew of 10 toward home, but the German fighters were not yet finished.

As the B-17 neared the Italian coast, it took a heavy hit on the left side. Engines #1 and #2 caught fire. Some of the gunners were likely wounded or killed.Rozzelle and his co-pilot could not feather the props and the aircraft began to fall back further into the clutches of the German fighters. The pilots rang the “bail out bell.” No one answered. As the burning B-17 fell from nearly 20,000 feet, the four crew members in the front of the aircraft bailed out. Co-Pilot 2d Lt Robert “Bud” Kingsbury remembered the chaos of struggling to put on their parachutes and jumping out of the aircraft at high altitude. His first thoughts were of the vulnerability of his crew. “I knew the bombardier and the navigator couldn’t swim. My engineer was a big strong guy, but he didn’t know celestial navigation and wouldn’t know which way to swim.”

Witnesses reported seeing either four or five parachutes leave the ship at a position marked as 40° 13’ N, 14° 46’ E, in the Tyrrhenian Sea, seven miles west of the ancient Greek and Roman village of Licosa.

2d Lt Kingsbury, Rozzelle’s co-pilot, miraculously survived the ordeal. He steered his parachute out to open water and swam for 33 hours, covering what he estimated was over 20 miles. He was captured and lived the rest of the war in a POW camp. In a postwar interview, Kingsbury said he did not see any of the other crew members once he hit the water. Rozzelle and the other eight crew members were never seen again. Their names are:

1st Lt Richard E. Rozzelle – Pilot
2d Lt Alexander G. Mayberry – Navigator
2d Lt Carmel F. Parsons – Bombardier
T/Sgt Sebastian S. Hernandez – Top Turret Gunner/Engineer
S/Sgt William E. Groot – Ball Turret Gunner
S/Sgt John E. Adams – Right Waist Gunner
S/Sgt Robert E. Woods – Left Waist Gunner
S/Sgt Arthur P. Panini – Tail Gunner
T/Sgt Earl H. Bjorklund – Radio Operator

The crash of “Big Jeff,” with veteran pilot and crew missing, was a tremendous loss for the squadron. As Kingsbury later said, “the crew was like family.”

Back Home in Washington D.C.

Back home in Washington, D.C., Rozzelle’s family received the terrible news via Western Union telegram. His mother, Ms. Elsie Rozzelle learned that her oldest son was missing. The family had known loss before. Ms. Rozzelle lost her husband twenty years earlier, the same year she gave birth to their youngest son, Russell. A widowed mother of four, she raised children who believed in service. Her sons Richard and Russell both joined the military. Her daughter Helen worked as a secretary in the U.S. Department of Agriculture while volunteering as a night nurse in a local hospital.

For 24-year-old Helen, losing her brother was devastating.She wasn’t satisfied to stay home. In an interview with Washington, D.C.’s Sunday Star, Helen said, “I want to go overseas to replace my brother Richard, who is missing in action.”

In May 1944, Helen Rozelle joined the Women’s Army Corps and became a WAC, realizing her goal to pick up where her brother had left off. Within a year, now Private First Class (PFC) Rozzelle was assigned to the Air Transport Command (ATC). In September 1944, she and 150 WACs were deployed to Africa, specifically the Gold Coast, today known as Ghana. The Army Airfield at Accra, Gold Coast was an important stop along what was called the “Cannonball Route,” running from the U.S. to Brazil, Africa, the Middle East, and on to India and China. The WACs filled key roles at the base: clerks, stenographers, orderlies, mess officers, and many more roles vital to the operation of the base and airfield.

Over the next six months, the WACs made their mark with the 1202d Army Air Forces Base Unit and the airfield at Accra. When on leave, the women were able to travel around Africa and explore the local people and culture of the Gold Coast. They served their country and the war effort while seeing a world very different from home.

30 May 1945 – Accra, Gold Coast, Africa

With the war now over in Europe and Nazi Germany surrendered, the airfield at Accra began winding down. Some of the WACs would head home. Many would stay on and head to Europe to take the place of soldiers rotating home.

On 30 May 1945, 18 WACs, including PFC Helen Rozzelle, boarded a C-47 Skytrain transport plane bound for England. The pilot, 1st Lt Alfred Ellis, was flying his last mission of the war. He was scheduled to head home on 1 June 1945. At around 7 am, the aircraft began its taxi and take-off from Accra on its first leg of the journey, which was to Roberts Field in Liberia. The twenty-one people on board included the eighteen WACs and three USAAF crew members

After a normal take-off, the first two hours appeared to be uneventful, with regular radio check-ins from the aircraft to air traffic control. The weather was nice, with good visibility and light winds. About halfway through the four hour leg, however, something went wrong. Shortly after 9 am, the tower at Roberts Field began receiving MAYDAY reports from the C-47. The calls came one after the other, leaving no time for response.. They lasted for five minutes, an eternity for an in-flight emergency. At the end of those five minutes of chaos, there was only silence.

Back at Roberts Field, the MAYDAYS triggered a procedure to take a radio direction location on the emergency aircraft. Search aircraft and boats were launched from around West Africa to search for the missing C-47. After three days, a low-flying PBY Catalina sighted someone waving a flag to signal the aircraft from a small fishing village off of the French Ivory Coast. A crash boat was immediately dispatched to the spot, arriving several hours later. The villager reported that he witnessed an aircraft crash into the water just off the coast three days earlier. The pilot of the crash boat reported that he found an oil slick, but no wreckage. He logged the location and asked local French authorities to follow-up if any wreckage was located. The fate of the C-47 and its 21 crew and passengers was confirmed. There were no survivors. World War II claimed 21 more souls, and yet another Rozzelle.

Crew:
1st Lt Alfred R. Ellis – Pilot
F/O Robert E. Mulhern – Co-Pilot
Cpl George A. Shiffman – Radio Operator

Passengers:
Sgt Doris F. Cooper
Cpl Velma E. Holden
PFC Flossie D. Flannery
PFC Evelyn L. McBride
PFC Rose F. Puchalla
PFC Mildred E. Rice
PFC Helen F. Rozzelle
PFC Ruth E. Warlick
PFC Alice E. King
PFC Alice P. McKnney
PFC Rose Brohinsky
PFC Frieda C. Friend
PFC Mary M. Gollinger
PFC Odessa L. Hollingsworth
PFC Wilma E. Liles
PFC Leona M. Seyfert
PFC Bonnie L. Williams
PVT Pearl Roomsburg

January 2024, Côte d’Ivoire, Africa

Nearly 80 years later, a team from Project Recover and the University of Delaware were joined by Discovery Channel’s Expedition Unknown and host Josh Gates to search for the missing C-47 and 21 MIAs. Using the Ivorian villager’s 1945 account and the coordinates recorded by the crash boat, the team spent 10 days conducting underwater searches using advanced autonomous underwater vehicles and covering 11 square kilometers of seafloor.

Unfortunately, the search did not reveal the C-47’s final resting place. You can follow along in the search and see our interviews with locals and our experience in Côte d’Ivoire on Season 13, Episode 7 of Expedition Unknown.

The stories of Richard and Helen Rozzelle are not yet finished. Twenty-one men and women who gave everything in service to their country still rest somewhere beneath the waters off the Ivory Coast, and nine more lie in the depths of the Tyrrhenian Sea, waiting to be found, waiting to come home.

Project Recover is committed to honoring their sacrifice by continuing the search. But we need your help to do it. Every mission requires funding, expertise, and the support of people who refuse to let these heroes be forgotten.

Here’s how you can make a difference:

• Share this story. The more people who know about Richard, Helen, and their fellow service members, the greater the chance that someone holds a piece of the puzzle that leads us to them.
• Support Project Recover. Your donation funds the underwater technology, research, and expeditions that make recoveries possible. Donate today
• Stay connected. Follow our work and be the first to hear when we return to continue the search. Sign up for updates

Photography & Imagery

• Photograph of the actual bombing — 19 August 1943 (National Archives)
• B-17 taking off in North Africa (National Archives)
• B-17 example photo (WW2DB) — note: a different aircraft name is visible on the fuselage
• Photograph of Helen Rozzelle in Africa with another WAC who died in the crash (DVIDS Hub) — she is likely on the left, facing camera

Video

• Bombing of Foggia, Italy (YouTube)

Official Documents & Records

• USAAF WWII Chronology (Air Force Historical Research Agency)
• Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF) — T/Sgt Earl H. Bjorklund (NARA)
• 2d Bomb Group Mission Summary (2nd Bomb Group)

Firsthand Accounts & Articles

• Mission description (Blog about the navigator (Mayberry), which includes information about this mission)
• Article by surviving crew member Bob Kingsbury (Los Angeles Times, May 7, 1994)

Richard Rozzelle

• Honor States profile with photograph (Honor States)
• Newspaper articles: Evening Star · Times Herald · Washington Daily News (Newspapers.com)
• Find A Grave memorial (FindAGrave)

Media

• Expedition Unknown — search episode photos (IMDb)