Norden Bombsight Maintenance School, Class 20, 1942

These are the names from my father's address book of his fellow Army Air Corps class mates at the Norden Bombsight Maintenance School, Class 20, they worked on the Norden bombsight &  the Minneapolis-Honeywell C-1 automatic pilot, both used in the B-17 & B-24.  The school was at Lowry Field in Colorado Springs, beginning in 1941. There are thirty three names in my Dad's address book.

I am creating this blog post to serve as a resource for anyone searching the names of these Army Air Corps soldiers. It can be hard to research where a specific person served in WWII due to the  fire that destroyed millions of World War II and other military records on July 12, 1973, at the National Personnel Records Center(NPRC) in St. Louis, Missouri. 

ChatGPT provided this Interpretive Summary of the names and home towns: This address book page reflects a wartime peer network centered around Lowry Field in 1942, likely composed of men in training or early service in the U.S. Army Air Forces. The concentration of Northeastern addresses suggests either pre-existing social ties or regional enlistment patterns, while the wide geographic spread—including Alaska and the Pacific Northwest—demonstrates the national scope of wartime mobilization. The presence of enlisted ranks (Privates) alongside more ambiguously identified individuals points to a shared training cohort rather than a strictly hierarchical network, capturing a cross-section of American society at a moment of rapid military expansion.

I don't know if Dad stayed in touch with any of his classmates or not. I did connect with a few of them in the 1990's. They reported that my Dad was the "old man" of the class, he was 15-20 years older than they were. He wasn't married and had been drafted, thus being older than the majority of men being drafted. I have the letters and when I find them I will add them here.

Here are the names and hometowns as recorded in Dad's address book; some are in my Dad's handwriting, some in the individual's handwriting.

Abbott, Art — Washington, DC
Boyd, Powell — Evansville, IN
Dougherty, S. E. — Kansas City, MO
Dygert, Worth S. — Russell, NY
Gargan, Joseph R. — New York City, NY
Graf, Winston C. — Manchester, NH
Griswold, Wayne A. — Mankato, MN
Hall, Ralph — Chamblee, GA
Hurley, Bill — Camp Stewart, GA (C.A. Bat (A.A.))
Janik, Chester — Lackawanna, NY
Marengo, Emmet L. — Minneapolis, MN
Marinoff, Joseph — Brooklyn, NY
McNally, Robert — Whitestone, Long Island, NY
Mikula, Irvin — Austin, MN
Miller, Howard — Afton, NY
Miller, Gregg M. — Washington, DC
Nygaard, Berdine T. — Livermore, IA
Prost, Bert J. — Chicago, IL
Quinn, Francis C. — Johnstown, PA
Reese, James W. — Madison, WI
Rice, Arthur V., Jr. — Marblehead, MA
Roberson, Robert B. — Newville, AL
Robertson, R. Elliott — Juneau, AK
Rochette, Irving R. — Old Saybrook, CT (Pvt)
Rosskamp, Paul — Westport, CT
Schoenig, Regis W. — Pittsburgh, PA
Scoville, Ray E. — Carthage, MO
St. John, Charles — Ithaca, NY
Stops, Oliver — Kennewick, WA
Stull, Ned R. — Trenton, NJ (Pvt)
Walton, Dan E. — Birmingham, AL
Ward, Francis E. — Worcester, MA
Zurfluh, Frank — Ridgway, PA