Wilfred Bedard

U.S. Army Air Forces

Sergeant

Service #31398960

Wilfred A. Bedard was born July 26, 1925, in Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts to J. Alphonse Bedard, a carpenter, and his wife Octavia Bedard. The couple were from the Province of Quebec in Canada and had immigrated, via Vermont, in 1923, just days after their marriage on August 13th. They settled in Massachusetts and the first of their three children, Delia was born June 26, 1944, followed by Wilfred a year and a month later and then Anita on May 5 1927. Octavia drowned when she and Alphonse and another couple went to Gerry’s Pit in North Cambridge August 5, 1932, seeking relief from the heat wave that had engulfed Boston. Soon after his wife’s death, Alphonse and the children moved to Lewiston, Androscoggin County, Maine.

In 1943 eighteen-year-old Wilfred Bedard—an employee at Lewiston’s Bower Mill, which specialized the the manufacture of woolen blankets—was drafted on October 1. He reported for duty as a private on October 22. Over the next thirteen months he received training as a waist gunner in Greensboro North Carolina and Fort Briggs Texas, and other flight schools. Sometime during the summer of 1944 he was assigned to the crew of 2nd Lt. Joseph Van Stratton, a pilot who had received his wings in March of that year. The nine man crew honed their skills on B-17 Flying Fortresses. They were sent overseas to England in late November 1944. There they joined the 327 Bomber Squadron of the 92nd Bomber Group, Heavy, which had been flying out of Poddington England for two years.

On December 30, they were assigned to a multi-plane mission destined to bomb a railway site in Germany. Their aircraft was the “Belle of Liberty” (42-97479) a B-17 that had been delivered to Poddington the previous January. When one of the engines failed owing to battle damage as they neared the target, the pilot turned back. While positioning the plane for a second attempt to land at the RAF Kirby station in bad weather, he lost power in a second engine. The plane stalled when the lot pulled it up to clear a low hill. The “Belle of Liberty” crashed and burned 2 miles short of the runway, killing all aboard. The men had been overseas only 5 weeks.

The crew of the “Belle of Liberty,” December 30, 1944:

2nd Lt. Joseph M Van Stratton, pilot

2nd Lt. Edward A Porter, co-pilot

2nd Lt. John H Cowen, navigator

Sgt. Arthur A Estrada, radio operator

Sgt. Thomas G. Standish Jr., engineer

Sgt. Charles H Chambers, togglier

Sgt. Harold R Barner, ball turret gunner

Sgt. Wilfred A Bedard, waist gunner

Sgt. William D. White, tail gunner

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 421,000+ of the US WWII fallen saved on Together We Served and Fold3. Can you help write these stories? These stories will be accessible via smartphone app at any war memorial or cemetery. If you noticed anything erroneous in this profile or have additional information to contribute to it, please contact me at ceheditor@aol.com or email feedback@storiesbehindthestars.org

Sources:

U.S. Federal Census, 1930—ancestry.com

U.S. Federal Census, 1940—ancestry.com

Massachusetts, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records 1978-1950—ancestry.com (for Alphonse Bedard)

Boston (Massachusetts) Globe August 6, 1932 (Octavia Bedard’s demise)

U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946—ancestry.com

U.S., World War II Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-1954—ancestry.com

U.S., Headstone and Interment Records for U.S. Military Cemeteries on Foreign Soil, 1942-1949

https://www.fold3.com/record/529898109/wilfred-a-bedard-american-battle-monuments-commission

https://www.fold3.com/record/85805250/wilfred-a-bedard-wwii-army-enlistment-records

https://www.fold3.com/record/704648042/bedard-wilfred-a-us-wwii-hospital-admission-card-files-1942-1954

For pictures of the plane at the crash site see: https://www.americanairmuseum.com/archive/media/media-387897jpg

SBTSProject/Maine/Androscoggin County