William Kirlin Jr.
William Kirlin in the USAAF 1944
William H Kirlin Jr. was born in Allendale, Pennsylvania (now part of Shillington,PA) on January 22nd, 1920.
He was the youngest child of William H. Kirlin Sr. and Gertrude Spatz.
Baptized in infancy and confirmed April 14th, 1935 in Grace Lutheran Church, Shillington, PA. He attended the schools in Shillington and graduated from High School Class of 1937.
He was inducted into the US Military Service February 27th, 1943 and received training in camps in Tennessee, Florida, Illinois, Utah, Arizona and Nebraska.
He was assigned to the USAAF and was trained to be radio-operator on bombers.
He was assigned to overseas duty in july 1944. He was assigned to the 409th Bombardment Squadron of the 93rd Bombardment Wing of the 8th Air Force in the UK. The 93rd BW was stationed at Hardwick, UK.
He was a member of the crew of Captain Larry Hewin. This crew made several flights over occupied Europe until this crew was with others of their squadron assigned to a supply mission to the 'Market Garden' area in Holland. What seemed to become a 'Milk Run' for the crew, turned out to become the last flight of this crew.
They got an older plane for this operation on the September 18th, 1944. The plane was nicknamed 'Baggy Maggy' and it became the last flight of this plane as well.
In the personal stories of the crewmembers you can read what happened on this flight. The flight ended in a crashlanding at Castelré (community Baarle-Nassau) in Holland. And in this crashlanding William H. 'Bill' Kirlin Jr. died. His death occured on this September 18th, 1944 at 17.00 hrs (local time), because he refused to go to his crash-position. He held the tourniquet applied to the wounded captain (Larry Hewin) of the 'Baggy Maggy'. He stayed in his position to hold the tourniquet otherwise the captain would bleed to death. The nose of the plane collapsed in the crashlanding and so the Top-Turret felled down on him and killed him. The other crewmembers could escape from the crashed plane, some were wounded and got first aid from the local people of Castelré.
When the Germans came to the crashsite soon after the crashlanding, all were arrested. The Germans found out that they couldn't be of any help to Bill Kirlin and left him in the plane. Lateron they buried him in a fieldgrave near the crashsite. The other crewmembers were arrested and taken to Hoogstraten. The wounded men got medical attention and others were put in jail. Through Utrecht (Holland) they were sent to POW camps in Germany.
For more information about their whereabouts in the POW-camps, read their personal stories on this site.
