Captain James P. Stratton
United States Army Air Forces
339th Bomber Sq., 96th Bomber Gp, Heavy
Entered the Service from: Kansas
Died: 11-Jun-44
Missing in Action or Buried at Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Brittany American Cemetery
St. James, France
Awards: Air Medal with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters

Their Record
Reno County World War II
Bob Campbell Post VFW
Hutchinson, Kansas

(page – 31)
Philip (Jas. P.) Stratton, Capt., Army Air corps, pilot and operations office with heavy bombardment group based in England. Failed to return from a bombing mission over France June 11, 1944. He had been in the air force about 2 ½ years, since Feb. 1942. Overseas to England in 1943. Was shot down on a raid over Hamburg, Germany, July 29, 1943, his bomber coming down in flames in the North sea, but he escaped injury. Five of the crew were killed, but five other, including Lt. Stratton escaped and were rescued. Stratton was afloat for 48 hours in the sea, clinging to a rubber boat, but was finally found and rescued, unharmed excepting from exposure. In May 1944, death struck a second time at Stratton and again missed. This time, now a captain, he was formation commander and co-pilot of the lead plane on a raid on Nazi targets in France, near Paris, when his B-17 was hit by heavy flak while over the German Luftwaffe airdrome at Chateaudun. With two of the Fort’s engines shot out and the hydraulic fluid leaking Stratton nursed the battered bomber over the English channel and back to a safe landing at an air field in southern England.
Three weeks later, June 11, while flying in an aerial assault on a German military installation in northern France, Capt. Stratton failed to return. He was Officially listed as missing in action and presumed dead. His body never was found. Son of Mr. and Mrs. L. B. Straton, 102 West 17th.

Captain James P. Stratton
United States Army Air Forces
339th Bomber Sq., 96th Bomber Gp, Heavy
Entered the Service from: Kansas
Died: 11-Jun-44
Missing in Action or Buried at Sea
Tablets of the Missing at Brittany American Cemetery
St. James, France
Awards: Air Medal with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters

Their Record
Reno County World War II
Bob Campbell Post VFW
Hutchinson, Kansas

(page – 31)
Philip (Jas. P.) Stratton, Capt., Army Air corps, pilot and operations office with heavy bombardment group based in England. Failed to return from a bombing mission over France June 11, 1944. He had been in the air force about 2 ½ years, since Feb. 1942. Overseas to England in 1943. Was shot down on a raid over Hamburg, Germany, July 29, 1943, his bomber coming down in flames in the North sea, but he escaped injury. Five of the crew were killed, but five other, including Lt. Stratton escaped and were rescued. Stratton was afloat for 48 hours in the sea, clinging to a rubber boat, but was finally found and rescued, unharmed excepting from exposure. In May 1944, death struck a second time at Stratton and again missed. This time, now a captain, he was formation commander and co-pilot of the lead plane on a raid on Nazi targets in France, near Paris, when his B-17 was hit by heavy flak while over the German Luftwaffe airdrome at Chateaudun. With two of the Fort’s engines shot out and the hydraulic fluid leaking Stratton nursed the battered bomber over the English channel and back to a safe landing at an air field in southern England.
Three weeks later, June 11, while flying in an aerial assault on a German military installation in northern France, Capt. Stratton failed to return. He was Officially listed as missing in action and presumed dead. His body never was found. Son of Mr. and Mrs. L. B. Straton, 102 West 17th.