[Frank Olynyk]

This is a very old thread request. I have since been able to obtain the desired information.

Robert Reynolds was born on March 23, 1924 in Orlando, Florida. He died in Orlando on December 28, 1977. He was shot down in aerial combat on September 12, 1944 while serving in the 354th FG, in P-51B-10 42-106597 Smoldering Boulder (MACR 9178). He was last seen at 1320 in the vicinity of Bech, Luxemburg.

I was able to match the ace to his birth and death records with information from the International Red Cross in Switzerland, and later, with information from the Military Personnel Record Center in St. Louis.

The German LuftGauKommando record for him is J-2096. It states that his Mustang crashed at 1245, 1 km. NE of Neuerburg bei Trier.

aaatripp:
The LuftGauKommando records were prepared during the war to record Allied aircraft and aircrew captured by the Germans. The records concerning Americans are now in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland (NARA II). Records for the British went to the Air Ministry and I believe are still closed to researchers. Records for the Russians went to Moscow; I have no idea of their status.

The American material in NARA II is broken up into several collections. The J-series covers American fighters, and is numbered from J-1 to J-3217. The ME-series covers mostly bombers from the Mediterranean area. Other series, which I have not yet investigated are JA, RU, KU, KSU and AV. For each series there are two sets of boxes, one with the original German records, and a smaller set of boxes with English translations. LuftGauKommando material can frequently be found for bomber losses in the corresponding MACR, but rarely for fighter losses.

For your information, Emmer's death is in AV 2088; the German originals are in box 118 of the LuftGauKommando material in Record Group 242; the English translation is in box 125. There should be a J-series reference for him, but I haven't indexed those copies.

Enjoy!

Frank.