Military man in Austin H. Winn’s letters 1
Mentioned in letters as: P. F. Butler
Named once among the officers on Austin’s new July 1945 crew. Matches “Paul Butler” on the City of Annapolis crew photograph in manuscript chapter 18.
FACT from the letters: On 4 July 1945 Austin listed “P.F. Butler” among the four officers on his new crew.
FACT from the photograph: The ink under the kneeling man at the far left appears to read “Paul Butler.”
HYPOTHESIS: That “Paul Butler” is the letters’ P. F. Butler. The photograph supplies Paul; the letters supply only P. F.
FACT from the roster: The 20th Air Force association’s 19th Bomb Group B index does not list Butler.
HYPOTHESIS, not claimed: A 2006 obituary of Paul F. Butler of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, says he was born in Cambridge on 1 July 1922, Harvard College class of 1944, and “served in the U.S. Air Force as a radar navigator bombarder, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.” It does not name the 19th Bomb Group, the 93rd Bomb Squadron, a B-29, Guam, Annapolis, or a crew. Harvard plus radar only suggests the unnamed special instrument operator in the 29 July 1945 letter, and Cambridge is not Annapolis, so he is not the bombardier.
Sources: 20af.org — 19th Bomb Group roster (B); Current Obituary — Paul F. Butler, 2006.