2nd Lt James “Jim” William Jordan’s World War II Missions by James Pate Williams, Jr. BA, BS, MSwE, PhD

My uncle was James “Jim” William Jordan who was born on September 5, 1920 and died January 27, 1970 at the relatively young age of 49 years old. He was born in Randolph County Alabama to Charles Webster Jordan and Ida Jane Kenady Jordan. His dad was at the time of his birth a postal clerk and his mother was trained as a school teacher but was a stay at home mom.

In early 1945 my uncle was stationed at Murtha Strip, Mindoro in the Philippines Islands. My uncle was a 2nd Lt. regular bombardier in a Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber. My uncle was in 1st Lt Robert R. Ferguson’s Aircrew Number 86 in the 530th Bombardment Squadron of the 380th Bombardment Group of the 310th Bomb Wing of the V Bomber Command of the 5th Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). Using the information which I received from the United States Air Force Historical Research Agency (AFHRA) Reel B0369 that contains the Histories of the 380th Bombardment Group for the year 1945 I found mission boards for twelve missions flown by 1st Lt Ferguson in the months April through June 1945. The mission boards are given below:

Mission Board Plate 0273Mission Board Plate 0292Mission Board Plate 0308Mission Board Plate 0329Mission Board Plate 0346Mission Board Plate 0354Mission Board Plate 0476Mission Board Plate 0501Mission Board Plate 0643Mission Board Plate 0661Mission Board Plate 0681Mission Board Plate 0701

The following information is from AFHRA Reel A0636A which contains the 530th Bombardment Squadron Histories for June, July and August 1945.

June 1945 Bombing Mission Map RedactedJune 1945 Plate 102 RedactedJune 1945 Plate 103June 1945 Plate 104Overview of Ditching Plate 0030 RedactedOverview of Ditching Plate 0031 RedactedJune 1945 Plate 105June 1945 Plate 106June 1945 Plate 107June 1945 Plate 108June 1945 Plate 099July 1945 plate 231July 1945 plate 232

Unknown's avatar

Author: jamespatewilliamsjr

My whole legal name is James Pate Williams, Jr. I was born in LaGrange, Georgia approximately 70 years ago. I barely graduated from LaGrange High School with low marks in June 1971. Later in June 1979, I graduated from LaGrange College with a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry with a little over a 3 out 4 Grade Point Average (GPA). In the Spring Quarter of 1978, I taught myself how to program a Texas Instruments desktop programmable calculator and in the Summer Quarter of 1978 I taught myself Dayton BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) on LaGrange College's Data General Eclipse minicomputer. I took courses in BASIC in the Fall Quarter of 1978 and FORTRAN IV (Formula Translator IV) in the Winter Quarter of 1979. Professor Kenneth Cooper, a genius poly-scientist taught me a course in the Intel 8085 microprocessor architecture and assembly and machine language. We would hand assemble our programs and insert the resulting machine code into our crude wooden box computer which was designed and built by Professor Cooper. From 1990 to 1994 I earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from LaGrange College. I had a 4 out of 4 GPA in the period 1990 to 1994. I took courses in C, COBOL, and Pascal during my BS work. After graduating from LaGrange College a second time in May 1994, I taught myself C++. In December 1995, I started using the Internet and taught myself client-server programming. I created a website in 1997 which had C and C# implementations of algorithms from the "Handbook of Applied Cryptography" by Alfred J. Menezes, et. al., and some other cryptography and number theory textbooks and treatises.

Leave a comment