Hello, sorry to bump a thread almost two years old, but I have wandered into this issue too and I am wondering what was your conclusion.
What I have:
_ The one-page MACR 1650 with a C-87 serial number 41-11905 and four names (1st Lt Ernest C Grasser (pilot), 2nd Lt Kenneth C Snowden (co-pilot), S/Sgt Ralph H Phillips (radio operator) and Pfc Ernest C Crew (air engineer)). Few details, take off from Jorhat, India, towards Yangkai, China on 15 December 1943.
Note that the aircraft type and serial is on the engine line, while the engine type with no serial is on the aircraft line in the MACR.
There is nothing related to the fate of the crew.
So overall a poorly filled MACR.
_ the USAAF personnel data database (
http://www.usaafdata.com/?q=search) list the four same men, adding ASN and state of origin) and link them to C-87 # 41-11905, also on 15 December 1943.
_ but none of these men are listed in the ABMC database, and neither is listed in the findagrave website, or in the WWII Army and Army Air Force Casualty Lists for their states. The former is listing only US war dead buried abroad or missing, and the two latter are including war dead brought home for reburail (findagrave has a high proportion of them).
_ as pointed by JohanSWE above, the four airmen are listed in MACR 1243 on page 22 (with the same ASN as in the personnel data database) with the C-87 42-23905 and the date of 17 December 1943.
_ I found them in the accident list at
http://airforcehistoryindex.org/data/000/877/243.xml: "*GASSER, ERNEST C.; SNOWDON, KENNETH S.; PHILLIPS, RALPH H.; CREWS, ERNEST W. (44-12-16-515)", meaning file 515 of 16 December 1943 (and not 1944).
_ and then I found them again on
https://www.aviationarchaeology.com/.../Dec1943O.htm:
431216 C-87 41-23095 S 4 IC MIS 5 Gasser, Ernest C CBI
So we have two sources confirming the serial 41-23905, two sources giving the date as 16 December 1943 and all sources agreeing on crew names.
Still the fate of the crew remains a mistery. Are they still missing ? Or were they found ? I wonder if this was not a civilian air crew pressed into AAF service (and so being allocated USAAF ASN) but as civilians they are not listed in the ABMC files or the WWII Army and Army Air Force Casualty Lists.
I have tried to check 1943-1944 newspapers, but with no luck so far.
If someone has the book "The Aluminum Trail: China-Burma-India, World War II, 1942-1945 : how & where They Died", by Chris Quinn, I will be interested to know if this aircraft is listed and what was the crew fate ?
Thanks in advance