497th Bomb Group (VH), 869th Bomb Squadron

Sgt Lawrence William Beecroft enlisted in the US Army on 13 March 1941.

By the middle of 1944 he was in training with the 497th Bomb Group
869th Bomb Squadron
at
Pratt Army Air Field, Pratt , Kansas

Sgt Lawrence W Beecroft departed Kansas on 10 October 1944 with Capt. Leonard Cox's crew . His position on the B-29 was Right Gunner. They arrived on Saipan
23 October 1944.

One page of Special Orders 236 ( SO 236)
is below and the Cox Crew appears at the top of the page.

On 14 January 1945 the B-29 flown by Capt Cox ditched and four of the crew members survived. Two of them, SSgt Robert Stovall and Sgt Lawrence Beecroft, were awarded Soldiers Medals as a result of their actions following the ditching.

They appear in the section Soldiers Medal

By the end of May 1945 Sgt Beecroft was with the 1st Lt Franklin Crowe crew. This
B-29 was lost on 1 June 1945 while on a mission to Osaka.

Most of the information within these pages is from Sgt Beecroft's
Individual Deceased Personnel File

I am grateful to Roy Wall's effort at the St Louis National Archives and for the staff's assistance to obtain this file.

Others who have been of assistance include:

Jim Bowman
Ed Lawson
Al Schutte

Sections of this web site include Sgt Beecroft's Recovery and Identification and his return
to Hawaii in 1949.

Sgt Beecroft's name appears in a Virtual Cemetery created by Scott Muselin for the men executed at Osaka within

Find-A-Grave

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