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OPERATION LEADER cost the lives of four airmen, with three left as POWs. The airmen captured during these strikes were Lt(jg) John Higbie Palmer and Lt(jg) Sumner R. Davis and his gunner D. W. McCarley ARM2c.
Lt(jg) John H. Palmer, VT-4Lt(jg) John H. Palmer's TBF Avenger was shot down by German AA fire on October 4, 1943 in the North Atlantic near the village of Fagervika, Norway. One parachute was observed to open after the plane was hit. Those of us on this strike knew that Palmer's two crewmen, Joseph L. Zalom ART1c and Reginald H. Miller AMM1c went down with the plane.
As the unofficial historian for Torpedo Four after the war, I tried to locate John Palmer to obtain his version of the strike and his capture by the Germans who were occupying Norway. Finally, in 1988, I learned that a former P-51 pilot, Richard Lucas, had been in the same German prison camp and he knew John's current address. Lucas gave me a phone number, which led to a reunion after 46 years. At this meeting with John and his wife, I presented a plaque to John that contained parts of his plane salvaged by the Norwegians. The salvage of Palmer's TBM was initiated by Steinbjorn Mentzoni, then a 9 year old boy, who observed the crash (see Norway: A Grateful Nation Remembers).
John Palmer's comments on the crash and POW experience follow.
I must have caught a shell right through the back of the plane; it went right under me and into the engine, because it caught fire. I think it must have killed Zalom and Miller. I called them on the intercom trying to get them to get out, but received no answer, so I jumped.
After I hit the water and got loose from my parachute, I swam to shore and waded right into this antiaircraft station. I had hailed some fishermen, hoping to get picked up, but had no luck.
The Germans took me as a prisoner and moved me to Oslo, Norway. After a week in Oslo, the Germans transferred me to Frankfurt for a week of interrogation on bread and water, and then took me to Staleg Luft Three.
I was the only Navy guy in this camp, and I found the other prisoners ignored me completely for about 2 weeks, they thought I was a German plant. They showed me a German newspaper, which said the Ranger had been sunk in September. Of course, I told them that I was off the Ranger, and they didn't believe me. They believed the newspaper.
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