American War Hero · World War II · Notice Nearby
No rights-safe contemporary likeness is on file. The record is the service and the writing, not an invented face.
Philip S. Fischer
September 26, 1919 – unaccounted for since May 21, 1943
Born Newark, Essex County, New Jersey
Loss location: North Sea north of Schiermonnikoog, Netherlands (loss location)
First Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Forces; pilot, 324th Bombardment Squadron, 91st Bombardment Group (Heavy); B-17F Flying Fortress 41-24515 (Jersey Bounce / Marie Jane), Wilhelmshaven mission, May 21, 1943
Missing in action — DPAA lists 1st Lt. Philip S. Fischer as Unaccounted For (Non-recoverable), profile a0Jt0000000BSGvEAO (verified 2026-09-24). Pilot of B-17F 41-24515 lost May 21, 1943 on a Wilhelmshaven U-boat-yard mission; aircraft critically damaged by fighters and crashed in the North Sea; no bailouts observed; full ten-man crew lost. Memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at Netherlands American Cemetery, Margraten. Non-recoverable is an analytic category for a North Sea loss, not a recovered grave.
Philip Samuel Fischer was born in Newark, New Jersey, on September 26, 1919. He went into the Air Corps from that city in March 1941 after college and clerk's work, and by the spring of 1943 he was a first lieutenant piloting B-17s with the 324th Bombardment Squadron of the 91st Bombardment Group out of Bassingbourn.
On May 21 his Fortress — serial 41-24515, called Jersey Bounce and Marie Jane — went against the submarine yards at Wilhelmshaven. German fighters cut the formation up. The ship took fatal damage over the water and went into the North Sea north of Schiermonnikoog. No one saw a parachute. The ten-man crew did not come home.
DPAA profile a0Jt0000000BSGvEAO still lists him Unaccounted For, analytical category Non-recoverable. He is on the Walls of the Missing at Margraten. A finding of death closed a personnel file. It did not bring a body up from that sea.
- Publication
- NN-HERO-1941-017
- Content hash
- a58e18a7 b6e9de72 33ab64ed f25a72c7 d21a1dbc ac0b14ff c65b4cfe d53881dd
- Base anchor
- 0x083f69 33f2f704 f3059dbc bf1da60c 4df33d1f afe59ec0 6d5fb027 70478c62 46
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