Lt. Loren E. Young
72nd Troop Carrier Squadron
434th Troop Carrier Group
Loren E. Young was born on 25 September 1922 in Vancouver WA.
In 1943, during his second year at the University of Washington in Seattle, he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. He had primary flight school at Rankin Field, Tulare CA where he started flying in Stearman biplanes. He trained further in BT-13 Vultee and AT-17 Cessna airplanes. He received his pilot wings in March 1944 at Douglas AZ.
He was then sent to Alliance AFB, Nebraska. Where he learned to fly C-47 airplanes.
Left: Loren Young (on left) at Alliance AFB.
Right: Lt. Loren Young sitting in the co-pilot seat. Date and location unknown.
By Special Orders Number 230, dated 17 August 1944, Air Base Headquarters Baer Field, Fort Wayne 2, IN, he and his fellow crewmembers were unassigned from 806th AAF Base Unit and assigned for shipment. The crew were 2nd Lt. Charles N. Lockwood, 2nd Lt. Loren E. Young (co-pilot), Cpl. Francis J. Lee (crew chief) and Cpl. Robert L. Leber (radio operator). Their aircraft was C-47 43-48242.
Upon departing Baer Field they moved to Dow Field, Bangor, Maine.
Lockwood was assigned to 72nd TCS.
Leber ended up with 72nd TCS.
After arriving in England he was assigned to the 72nd Troop Carrier Squadron, 434th troop Carrier Group based at Aldermaston airfield.
Soon after being assigned to the 72nd he participated in his first combat mission. On 17 September he flew on the mission to drop 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment in the Veghel area. His ship was hit be .50 caliber fire.
This fist mission to Holland was followed by glider tow missions on 18 and 19 September.
On 18 September he witnessed the loss of C-47 43-15629, piloted by 1st Lt. Morton F. Levine. Although his name is on the missing air Crew Report as being one of the men who last sighted the aircraft, his testimony did not make it to the report. On both glider missions his aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire and/or small arms fire.
The 19 September flight was met with bad weather.
“One day while towing gliders across the English Channel headed for Holland the clouds closed in and wreaked havoc with our mission of several hundred planes. Glider pilots couldn’t see their tow plane and had difficulty following the planes movements.
A number of gliders cut loose from tow planes or were cut loose by the tow plane and ended up in the North Sea.”
He was awarded with the Air Medal for his participation in this combat operation.
On December 23 he flew his first mission to Bastogne to drop resupplies to the beleaguered troops there. A follow up mission was flown on 26 December, and upon return in England he landed at Welford Park before heading back to Aldermaston. For the missions to Bastogne he was awarded the First Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster to the air Medal.
Top left: Lt. Young at Aldermaston. Top right: The same hut at Aldermaston
At an unknown location, but believed to be in France, a number of 72nd TCS members pose in front of a locomotive that is out of order. Left to right: Lt. Charles Moes, Lt. Henry Free , Lt. Loren Young, Lt. Paul Murray (glider pilot) and an unknown glider pilot,
In 1945 the 434th Troop Carrier Group moved to France where they were stationed at Mourmelon. From there Lt. Young participated in the Rhine mission, dropping paratroopers near Wesel, Germany.
“We carried a paratrooper gun crew and their 75 mm gun broken
down into several pieces some of which were attached to pararacks underneath our airplane. I often wondered if they found all pieces of their gun after landing.”
For the Rhine mission he was awarded the Second Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster to the Air Medal.
After this last airborne operation, there were numerous resupply missions to fields near the front line.
Top: Russian WW1 cemetery at Hilaire-le-Grand in the Marne region.
Believed to be in France, 1945.
Not a sharp photo, but if gives a good idea of the living quarters at Mourmelon.
A crew photo shows Lt. Young with fellow crewmembers in front of a C-47 with a clover as nose art. The tail number, and thus identity of the aircraft, was unknown. In another photo the tail number was not readable, and the tail letter could either be O or Q. It was in 2025 that the webmaster linked the aircraft to Lt. Charles Moes, as he was identified in the Young crew photo, because he was identified in other crew photos. With this information a photo was checked that was used in A Breathtaking Spectacle Vol. 2. That photo shows a mission board that included Moes’ name and the last three digits of his aircraft, #220, and the tail letter Q. Thus a part of the mystery was solved. Here starts a bit that is open for discussion. With an overview of aircraft numbers used by 72nd Troop Carrier Squadron, it was felt that 43-15220 could be a candidate. A check in Jenifer Gradidge’s great book did indeed give information that this aircraft had became part of 72nd Troop Carrier Squadron. However, it also has the information that it was named ‘Peggy-Ann’. This name was not visible in known photos of the aircraft.
The crew photo. Left to right: Unknown, Lt. Charles Moes, Lt. Loren Young and (believed to be) Estevan Herrera. The date of the photo is unknown. A small part of the nose art is visible.
​After the war he obtained his degree in civil engineering and started working with the U.S. Geological Survey in Tacoma, WA. In 1950 he married and later he and his family moved to California.
He passed away in 2014.
What happened to the aircraft:
43-48242 – the aircraft flown from the USA to Europe by Young and fellow crewmembers.
This aircraft was delivered from the factory on 28 July 1944. On the last day of August 1944 it was assigned to 9th Air force in Europe. It became part of Air Transport Command. It crashed on 3 November 1944 in Cornwall, England.
43-15220 – the aircraft flown by Young and crew in the ETO
This aircraft was delivered from the factory on 23 February 1944. It became part of 72nd Troop Carrier squadron, 434th Troop Carrier Group. According to Gradidge excellent work, it carried the name “Peggy Ann” (December 1944), but no confirmation is yet found. The last records show that it was at Nicosia in September 1961. It is unknown what happened to the aircraft.
Maezenbier
The brewery was founded in 1880 in the Belgium village Waarloos. For the export the bottom-fermented Prima Maezenbier was brewed. This beer was brewed until 1970.
It is likely that Lt. Young picked this souvenir on one of the trips to Brussels airfield.
