The Earl D. Bennett WWII Letters Collection
*Any reproduction or use of the Earl D. Bennett Letters must list the Oldham County History Center as credit/source
Transcribed by Coleson Taylor
Earl Dawson Bennett was born on March 13th, 1923, in La Grange, KY. He graduated from Liberty High School in Oldham County in 1941 at the age of 18. The next year, Earl joined the Army Air Corp to fight in World War II.
Earl was moved all around the country as part of his training, going first from his home in La Grange, Kentucky, to Lincoln Army Air Base in Nebraska. He was then transferred to Tyndall Field in Florida, and then to Florence Air Field in South Carolina. Earl then spent a few days on an unspecified base near Savannah, Georgia before moving on to his final destination in the United States: Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Fort Hamilton was one of the primary Ports of Embarkation (POEs) on the East Coast, where soldiers were sent off to Europe to fight Germany and its allies. Earl’s outfit was sent to England, where they would launch bombing raids against Axis forces in occupied France. Being sent to the European Theater was much to Earl’s relief – he had expressed dismay at the thought of being sent to the Pacific to fight the Japanese.
Earl was placed in the 640th Bombardment Squadron, part of the 409th Bombardment Group under the Ninth Air Force. He had achieved the rank of Sergeant during his training in the United States, and would go on to reach Staff Sergeant (abbreviated as S/Sgt during WWII) just a few days before his final mission.
Earl’s squadron assisted with the Normandy landings during and after D-Day on June 6th, 1944. On June 10th, while flying a mission above German positions in inland France, Earl’s plane was shot down. All three of the crew survived the crash but were forced to abandon most of their supplies with the plane as Germans swarmed over the area. The next day, the crew found shelter with an elderly French couple. After hiding out for three more days, the men were growing increasingly weak and starvation was starting to set in; Earl sneaked back to the plane to retrieve the rations left there.
The Germans were waiting.
On June 14th, S/Sgt. Earl D. Bennett of La Grange, Kentucky, was slain by gunfire. His parents were notified via telegram in early July. The other two men from Earl’s bomber, Sgt. Logan Young & Lt. Leon Cohen, still starving, acknowledged their likely deaths and dug their own graves by the side of a road so that the advancing US army would easily find them. However, the Americans had advanced faster than expected, and the two men were rescued on the verge of death. They would go on to share the story of Earl’s demise.
Most of the letters he sent back to his family from 1943-44 were kept by his family and survive to this day in the Oldham County History Center’s archives.
Click one of the dates to see both a copy of the original letter and a transcription.
1943 Letters
1944 Letters