Lt Edman's parents, Leo and Frieda Zempliner Edman, were born in
Hungary.
Frieda came to the United States with her family in either 1899 or
1908.
I am unable to find a document stating when Leo arrived.
Their son Herbert was born in 1915 and daughter Shirley in 1919.
There is very little information about Herbert Edman online,
including his time before and after enlisting in the US Army.
Apparently he was a very bright student,
graduating from college at the age of 19 or 20.
His area of interest was Electrical Engineering .
He was working at the Norma Multikolor Corporation, Brooklyn, in 1940.
Lt Edman enlisted in the US Army on 29 September 1942.
The only list of stations in his Individual Deceased Personnel file
are from his
Dental and Flight Physical at Pratt Army Air Field in April 1944.
A possible scenario of what took place following his enlistment is
:
Assigned to the
San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center.
Based on testing, he was then assigned to the Flight Engineer School,
perhaps at Lowry AAF, Denver, Colorado
Lt Edman graduated 6 March 1944 and was transferred to
17th Bomb Operational Training Wing.
There are no specific orders but most likely this was at Clovis AAF,
New Mexico.
By April 1944 he was with the 497th Bomb Group at Clovis AAF
and was assigned to the 872nd Bomb Squadron (VH)
On 9 April 1944 the 497th was transferred to Pratt AAF, Kansas.
Transportation was by rail and/ or bus to Pratt.
Shortly after arriving at Pratt AAF, orders were issued 14 April
1944
assigning the men of the 872nd Bomb Squadron to one of the other three
Squadrons.
Lt Edman and Capt Hahn were assigned to 870th.
There is no specific information as to when Lt Edman became part of
Hahn Crew.
Additional information can be found in the
Introduction
Hahn Crew
and
73rd Bomb Wing Mission #22
Sections.
______________________________________
Movement Orders from Pratt AAF in late August 1944
have Lt Edman with the Capt Elmer Hahn Crew.
Capt Hahn flew 15 Missions but it is not possible to know
if Lt Edman was on each one of these.
Their B-29 was A Square 28 and was lost
on 27 January 1945 on the mission
to Target 357,
the Musashino Aircraft factory.
Seven of the crew died in the crash.
Of the four survivors, Sgt Clifford Myrha died shortly thereafter.
Capt Hahn, Lt Redinger, and Lt Edman were at the Tokyo Military Prison
the night of 25-26 May 1945 while a fire bombing raid was taking place.
62 POWs died. Of those, 25 were identified.
Lt Edman is one of the 37 unidentified whose status is
Killed In Action - Remains Not Recoverable
