Supports 1 fact
E&E Report No. 47 - Sgt. Arthur B. Cox, Jr.
Military Record · July 1943 · Escape and Evasion Reports
Cited at p. 1
The Man Behind the Name
§ Biography
Captain Alex Simpson piloted Big Eagle on the 93rd Bombardment Group's first combat mission, the October 9, 1942 raid on Lille. Crewman Michael L. Reardon's diary describes Simpson at the controls as the aircraft went down after being hit and set afire by enemy fighters: he "worked like a machine" - throttling back, salvoing the bombs, and pressing the bail-out bell to give the crew the order to jump. His aircraft was shot down during the mission, the group's first combat loss, and Simpson was taken prisoner, later held at Stalag Luft III. Engineer Arthur B. Cox Jr.'s own 1988 memoir reproduces a photograph of Simpson and co-pilot Nicholas H. Cox together among a group of captured American airmen at a German POW camp.
Service record.
§ As Catalogued
Rank
Captain
Position
Pilot
Missions flown.
1 catalogued · 09 Oct 1942
The missions below are those we have been able to document for this airman, drawn from flight logs, mission records, and archival sources. It is not necessarily a complete account of every mission flown; gaps may reflect missing documentation, transferred assignments, or records lost to time.
№
Date
Target
Aircraft
№ 14
09 Oct 1942
Lille
I/A
“Big Eagle”
→
Photographs.
2 on file
Read the records.
2 documents
Original documents behind what this page says about this airman — reports, records, and histories the archive holds and is free to reproduce. Check the sources for yourself.
Supports 1 fact
Escape Through Enemy Territory
Book · Arthur B. Cox, Jr. · 1988
Sources.
§ Provenance
Consolidated from 3 book mentions of Alex/Alexander Simpson, Big Eagle pilot.
Published