According to special orders (classified Secret) from Alamogordo, NM,
S/Sgt. Adam E. Wood was assigned to the
B-24, #42-52141 (Termite Chaser #1). The roster of flight echelon records show his plane flew from Alamogordo to Herington, Kansas on November 23, 1943
However, S/Sgt. Adam E. Wood, S/Sgt. Roy M. Gaertig and Sgt. Michael F. Garby of the original crew are not pictured in the crew photograph,
supplied by Sgt. Donald Hines. Hines, Crew Chief of The Termite Chaser #1, currently resides in Las Vegas, NV, is the past president of the 450th Bomb Group Association.
S/Sgt. Roy M. Gaertig died March 11, 1944. He is buried in the Tablets of the Missing at Rhone American Cemetery in Draguignan, France,
and was listed as Missing in Action or Buried at Sea.
Walter Sharff of Slidell, LA, son of the pilot, said in a telephone conversation in May of 2003, that his father had survived the war and thought that he ditched his plane
in the English Channel.
