S:Sgt Francis 'Bud' Owens was a waist gunner on B-17F 42-29928 when it was shot down over the Norman countryside in 1943.
The aircraft was part of 533rd Bomb Squadron, 381st Bomb Group(H), and was taking part in a raid on the Gnome-Rhone plant in le Mans on July 4th when it was attacked by Messerschmitt Bf-109s and finally crashed near the small village of la Coulonche.
Three of the crew of ten perished when the 'plane hit the ground, two of those who baled out were quickly captured. With local help, the remaining five attempted to make their way down to neutral Spain with a view to re-joining the fight against Nazism.
Four of them made it to Spain but 'Bud' Owens, a man who on many occasions had put others before himself, was to die of exposure in the Pyrenees, aged just 21. He now rests in the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium.
Please follow our project to honour and remember 'Bud' Owens and support it if you can. Thank you.

Tuesday 4 October 2016

Trailer

Things are heading towards a conclusion with our documentary project. The trailer for the film can be viewed on Youtube here:







1 comment:

  1. Dear Mr. Bogaert,
    My name I s Andrés Luengo and I am an Andorran journalist working for Andorran newspaper ‘Bon Dia’ (www.bondia.ad).
    Maybe you remember last year we kept in contact because of the Andorrans legs of the project In The Footsteps of Bud Owens.
    I’ve seen the trailer of the documentary amb also that the release is scheduled on 23rd of October.
    I’d rather to ask you some questions about all this:

    -How long Is the full documentary?
    -Why is scheduled the release in Coraopolis, PA?
    -May you send us some pictures of the Andorrans legs of the hike, with indication on the names of the people inside, in order to illustrate an article in our newspaper?
    -The names of the people who took part in the hike?
    -May you send a JPG copy of the poster of the documentary?
    -Will the documentary be available on Amazon? If not, where can we get it?

    I attach a link -I don’t remember if I sent you last year- about some documents relating to Bud Owens an two other colleagues who died with him on October, 1943, on Andorran mountains.

    http://pirineosenguerra.blogspot.com/2015/06/el-secreto-mas-negro-del-montmantell.html

    Best regards,

    Andrés Luengo
    Journalist
    Diari Bon Dia (Andorra)
    (00 376) 808 873
    cultura@bondia.ad

    ReplyDelete