Second Lieutenant Spencer Preston Felt, Jr. 0-2059017

 

Second Lieutenant Spencer Preston Felt, Jr. O-2059017 US Army. He was born on February 27, 1924 the son of Spencer Preston Felt, Sr. and Ruth M. Howell Felt in Salt Lake City, Utah. He attended the University of Utah,he married his sweetheart Barbara Schenk on June 16, 1945, and was the brother in law of Lieutenant Paul Schenk 0-112576, Jr KIA.Lieutenant Felt trained at Wichita Field Texas, San Antonio for Grounds School Bonham Texas for Primary and Greeneville Texas for Secondary and Waco Texas for Advanced where he graduated and got his wings, then to Casper Wyoming. He served on B24 California Rocket 42-51714 757th Squadron, 459th Bomb Group, 15 Air Force. His first mission was on the 17th of December 1944 and his 2ndMission and last mission was on 18th December,  1944.

On the 18th of December was at a synthetic fuel plant – a chemical plant right by Auschwitz in Poland. They got hit with flack and lost the number three and four engines, and they could not maintain altitude. They decided to head for Russia because then the inboard engine on the left-hand side started to heat up and they decided that it was going to freeze in a little while, it would get too hot and they couldn’t do anything about it so they decided to bail out. Lieutenant Beimbrink,  and Lieutenant Felt told the crew to “bailout” and in the meantime Lieutenant Beimbrink was setting up the autopilot to hold the plane level so when he and Lieutenant Felt got out of the airplane it would be level and not fall into a spin.  William Beimbrink was the last man to jump out of the crashing plain. Unfortunately Beimbrink’s chute never opened and the crew were unable to locate him on the ground. With the death of William Beimbrink LT. Spencer Felt was in command. The other 9 men were able to evaded capture until rescued by Polish partisans. they were hidden from the Germans for over five weeks and was eventually picked up by the advancing Russian Army. Second Lieutenant Spencer Preston Felt, Jr. died on August 4, 2016, at the age of 92 in Salt Lake City Utah. 

Oral History Transcript