William Emanuel Carrington (December 1, 1913-July 13, 1944)

579th Bombardment Squad, 392nd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force

By Kristen Reilly and Harrison Smith

Early Life

William Emanuel Carrington was born December 1, 1913 in Inverness, FL, the only child of James “Jim” Carrington and Annie Carrington. Carrington’s father was born in Florida while his mother was born in Alabama. By 1920, the family moved north to McIntosh, FL, between Gainesville and Ocala. Here, Carrington’s father worked as a grove laborer.¹ The bitter cold hard freeze in the 1890s devastated the citrus industry in North Florida. Citrus investors looked south to warmer areas of the state in Central and South Florida, like Marion County, to revive citrus production in Florida. In the early twentieth century, the citrus industry evolved drastically due to new scientific research and advancements in citrus-growing techniques and employing large sectors of the state’s population. In McIntosh, the town’s agricultural economy prospered in the early twentieth century before the abandonment of commercial citrus ventures later in the century.²

In 1928, William’s parents divorced in Pinellas County, FL. By this time, William and his mother had settled in Tampa, FL where he eventually graduated from Hillsborough High School.³ In 1929, his mother worked as a chemist for Kingsway Production Inc. By 1931, William worked as a laborer employed by Tampa’s city engineer.⁴

On February 27, 1934, William, then twenty, married Emily Dolores Freeman in Tampa. In 1934, the couple lived in an apartment next door to William’s mother. In 1935, William worked as a station attendant for Sperry Service Station in Tampa Bay.⁵ By 1936, however, it appears the couple had separated or divorced, as William is listed by himself in Tampa’s city directory as he continued working for Sperry Service station.⁶ On May 17, 1936, Carrington and two female occupants in an automobile were injured when another car collided with their car at the intersection of Hillsborough and Miami Avenues in Tampa. Carrington received cuts and bruises to his body that required him to stay multiple days in Tampa Hospital. Tampa Police arrested the occupants of the other vehicle.⁷

By 1940, William lived with his mother, Annie, in Tampa. William worked as a paint color mixer at the Tampa Plant and Varnish Company, and Annie worked as a chemist specializing in papaya juice, likely for the fruit juice industry.⁸ On June 6, 1941, William married Faith Catharine Clark in Tampa.⁹ Catherine, his wife’s preferred name, graduated from Largo High School where she was active in many extra-curricular clubs and activities such as the T.N.T., Junior Woman’s Club of Largo, and Girls Reserve. Following her high school graduation, Catharine became a teacher for the Junior Department of the Florida Avenue Baptist Sunday School.¹⁰

Military Service

On October 16, 1940, over sixteen million American men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five registered for the nation’s first peacetime draft. William, now twenty-six, fulfilled his duty in Tampa.¹¹ On January 18, 1943, William and Catharine welcomed their son, James Patrick Carrington.¹² A few months later on April 21, 1943, William enlisted in the US Army at Camp Blanding near Starke, FL.¹³

Following his basic training at Camp Blanding and aircrew training at various locations, William earned the rank of staff sergeant and was assigned to the 579th Bombardment Squadron, 392nd Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force.¹⁴ The squadrons of the 392nd Group flew the B-24 Liberator.¹⁵ The B-24 was a four-engined, heavy bomber. It had a longer range, higher speed, and heavier bomb payload than the B-17 Flying Fortress.¹⁶ A crew of ten operated the B-24. In addition to flying their aircraft and delivering bombs on targets, the aircrew defended their plane from six gun positions: the nose, tail, top, and bottom turrets, as well as two points at the waist of the aircraft.¹⁷ William served as a waist gunner for the B-24 nicknamed the Berlin Bitch.¹⁸

The 392nd Group arrived at Wendling in Norfolk, England, in August 1943.¹⁹ Likely, William joined his squadron sometime after its arrival in England. For the group’s performance between September 9, 1943 and June 6, 1944, the commander of the 2nd Bombardment Division awarded the 392nd a Distinguished Unit Citation. During that period, it attacked over fifty-five targets in Germany and forty-five in other enemy occupied areas. It dropped over 5,000 pounds of munitions on these targets with “a degree of accuracy consistently greater than that achieved by any other unit of the command.”²⁰ Furthermore, the 392nd faced extreme enemy opposition during sixty-nine of these missions. Its aircrew destroyed 190 enemy aircraft and lost seventy-seven of its own.²¹

In the early morning hours of July 13, 1944, briefings began for twenty-eight aircrews of the 597th Bombardment Squadron. Their mission was to bomb Saarbrucken, Germany. At the time of take-off, 0536, the weather over Wendling was overcast and rainy.²² Standard practice for bombing missions was for all involved aircraft to form up at a designated location after take-off. According to one of William’s crewmates, Staff Sergeant Mark Osment, the Berlin Bitch experienced icing on its way to the formation area. The icing subsided,which allowed the crew to continue their flight as normal. A few minutes later, icing occurred a second time. This time, the ice spread over much of the aircraft, to include the propellers.²³ Because of the ice, First Lieutenant’s Norman J. Hunt and Peter B. Roetzel, the pilot and co-pilot, lost control of the aircraft.²⁴ At that point, Osmont, and possibly other crewmates, attempted to bail out of the crippled aircraft. In a later interview, he recalled the situation, “At this time I attempted to leave through the waist window but was caught half in and half out and was semi-conscious from striking the side of the aircraft. A few seconds later I was thrown clear, pulled the ripcord and then lost consciousness. I regained consciousness on the ground.”²⁵ Though his fellow crewmates likely tried to leave the aircraft, Osmont was the only one to do so successfully. Staff Sergeant William Emanuel Carrington and his crewmates still onboard the Berlin Bitch died when it crashed into a field in Wrangle Common, about fifty miles north of Wendling.²⁶ Though the aircraft burned intensely, its bomb payload did not explode.²⁷

Legacy

1948 Tampa Daily Times Funeral Announcement

William Emanuel Carrington was initially buried at the Cambridge Cemetery in Cambridge, UK. After the war, Carrington’s remains were reinterred at St. Augustine National Cemetery in Florida to be closer to his family.²⁸ According to an article published in the Tampa Daily Times, seen here, Carrington’s funeral took place in July 1948, four years after his death in Europe.²⁹ William now rests among his fellow Veterans in Section D, Grave 139.³⁰ On July 9, 1994, fifty years after the crash, the Lincolnshire Aircraft Recovery Group erected a plaque in honor of the crew of the Berlin Bitch at St. Mary & Nicholas Church in Wrangle where the plane crashed.³¹

Memorial Plaque Honoring Crew of the Berlin Bitch

William was survived by his mother Annie, his wife Catharine, and son James. In 1950, his mother Annie still lived in Tampa where she worked in “keeping house” in her apartment complex. She passed away on October 21, 1972, in Hillsborough County at the age of eighty-one.³² Catharine remarried on December 3, 1947, to William Justin Nunnally in Tampa. In 1950, the couple, along with James and their newborn Catharine, lived in Tampa where her husband worked as a road patrolman for the county.³³ William’s son James continued to reside in Florida as of 2020.³⁴

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