I have most of the information you could ever want - 1,500 pages of microfilmed squadron records kept from 1943 through 1945. Some is unreadable, having faded before being microfilmed, but most of the pages are very legible.
The commanding officer was Major Jesse W. Parker, who remained C.O. for the duration. He was not promoted to Lt. Colonel. until after the war ended.
T/Sgt George M. Jones is listed as Flight Leader of Flight "D". His MOS (military occupation specialty) was 772, meaning he was an enlisted liaison pilot / mechanic.
In Nov. 1943 they were still training at Raleigh-Durham, NC. and did not begin overseas movement until February 1944. They arrived at Casablanca harbor on March 16 and encamped at Telergma on the 17th. Unfortunately, they did not receive their aircraft - which were either mis-delivered or diverted elsewhere - so they languished at Telergma, Algeria for several months without a real assignment.
To keep the enlisted pilots current during the rest of their stay in N. Africa and their early weeks in Italy, they were allowed to fly as co-pilots , mostly on Douglas A-20's employed in tow-target duty. Otherwise, it seems the men played a lot of baseball, softball and poker between being given menial tasks to do.
The squadron finally moved to Pomigliano, Italy in mid-July, a month after Rome fell. Finally, on August 8th, the 121st began receiving their crated Stinson L-5's and L-4 Cubs to assemble and had them all flying by mid-month. They finally began operating as a proper liaison squadron but were split, with about half the squadron remaining in Italy serving the 5th Army and half supporting the VI Army Group in Southern France. Most of the records seem to pertain to the flights that remained in Italy.
Several members of the squadron were named Jones (one was killed in a crash) and quite often only last names are found in the reports. A quick scan of about half the docs didn't turn up much about George. However, I discovered that he was assigned to the detachment that went to France at the very end of August, 1944 to support the invasion there. He apparently also spent a bit of time on the island of Corsica. Again, he records appear to mostly pertain to the group that remained in Italy, but I'll be happy to dig further as time allows
That's about all I have for you at the moment. Email me at
james.gray@sentinelclub.orgp.s. Ryan: I don't log on very often, so could you forward inquiries like this when they come in? Thanks.
Home Events 
