-By: Dan Barnes

Tex Sgt. David Sanford Hensley

   Born in Groveton on December 8, 1923, David Hensley was the youngest child of William Henry and Carrie Harrison Poe Hensley (in the 1930 Census she spells her name Carry). He had two sisters, Margaret and Florence, and four brothers; William Heydon, John, Joseph, and Henry.
   In 1918, with the Hensley family then containing five children, they moved from Robertson County to Groveton where William Henry became president of that city’s Guaranty State Bank. He passed away suddenly in Groveton in 1928 at age 47, leaving a wife and seven children, six of who were still at home.
   With the Depression so soon upon them, Carrie struggled on, supporting her family both by becoming an insurance agent and running a restaurant in Groveton. Her older son William Heydon also helped out for a while by serving as a teller at the bank.
   My information suggests that all seven Hensley children graduated from high school in Groveton a near miraculous fete for a widowed mother during the Depression.
  David Hensley graduated from Groveton High School in 1940, in company with classmate and future 15th Air Force flyer Cliff Scott. Quite a musician, David not only played in the Groveton High School Band but also was appointed its student conductor. In his spare time he also worked at composing original music.
   After graduation, he attended Stephen F. Austin Teacher’s College in Nacogdoches for two years where, not surprisingly, he majored in music.
   Feb. 23, 1943 saw him travel to San Antonio and enlist in the Army Air Corps (#18232782), whereupon he was trained as a tail gunner on a B-24 Liberator. On May 22, 1944 he married Joy Young in Austin, but was soon off to Great Britain with the 446th Bomb Group’s 705th Bomb Squadron.
   There, stationed at Bungay near England’s east coast, they joined the 8th Air Force’s 20th Bomb Wing, later the 2nd Air Division. Bungay, also known by the name of Flixton, was on the boundary of Norfolk and Suffolk counties, west of Lowestoft. These counties, together with other nearby counties of Essex and Cambridgeshire, constituted a larger historic region from England’s past, East Anglia. With its convenient proximity to northern Europe, East Anglia would become the home area of most of the 8th Air Force’s heavy (four engine) bomber units.
   To most Americans in World War II, the 8th Air Force was primarily a B-17 outfit. Actor Clark Gable, serving as a gunner for the 8th Air Force, flew in B-17’s from Polebrook for the 1st Air Division’s 351st Bomb Group (northwest of Cambridge), and Texan Tom Landry, later the great coach of the Dallas Cowboys, completed 30 missions in B-17’s with the 3rd Air Division’s 493rd Bomb Group out of Debach (near Ipswich).
  In reality, however, by war’s end 19 of the 40 heavy bomber groups in the 8th Air Force’s three-air divisions were equipped with B-24s. All 14 heavy Bomb Groups in David Hensley’s 2nd Air Division were in fact equipped wholly with 24’s, as were five of the 14 heavy Bomb Groups of the 3rd Air Division. Only the 8th Air Force’s 1st Air Division, with 12 Bomb Groups, flew just B-17s. Perhaps ironically, Gables’ friend and fellow actor, Jimmy Stewart, arguably the 8th Air Force’s most famous pilot, flew 20 missions in B-24’s out of Tibenham (west of Bungay) with the 2nd Air Division’s 445th Bomb Group.
   The practice of building Bomb Groups around specific bomber types seems to have naturally evolved due to the different qualities, flight dynamics, and logistical needs of each type. On a related note, and what seems to me as counter-intuitive, David Hensley’s B-24 unit, like all B-24 Bomb Groups in the 8th Air Force, was stationed on the eastern most extremity of East Anglia, closest to Axis targets, while the shorter ranged B-17 Bomb Groups were generally ensconced to their west, furthest from enemy targets. I do not know why this was done but it was too obvious and consistent to be an accident.
Though only one of 16 US Air Forces that saw service during World War II, in the public mind at least, the 8th Air Force that David Hensley became a member of was also “the” US Air Force in World War II. In the sheer numbers of men and women it commanded, as well as the quantity of equipment it possessed, the 8th Air Force still reigns as the largest unit of its type the world has ever seen.
   At its peak it had 2,800 bombers and 1,400 fighters under its direction, and 350,000 men and women in its ranks. It had a longer history than its main competitor; the Italian based 15th Air Force, bombing Axis targets in Europe from August 17, 1942 until the very end of hostilities there. With a casualty count of between 26,000 to 28,000 dead, 18,000 wounded, and 28,000 P.O.W.s, it also produced the US’s largest number of air casualties in the war.
  Though one of its fliers did complete a record 91 missions, its overall casualty rate of 34% among those it committed to combat meant that, on average, only one in five 8th Air Force bomber crewmen completed the 25; then, as the war progressed and life expectancy rose, 30; and finally, 35 missions that made up a “tour”.
Four men from Trinity County -- Reed Dominy, Sam Walker, Ivison McKee, and David Henley -- became part of this statistical summary when they perished while flying with the 8th.
   When Sgt. David Hensley arrived in Europe is presently unknown, as is how many missions he actually flew. His receipt of one Air Medal before his death, however, suggests he completed at least five. What happened to him on his last mission vividly underscores the myriad dangers special to and inherent with his branch of the service.
   All airplanes, regardless of type, are basically winged aluminum gas cans full of bombs and 100 octane fuel that, even with self sealing gas tanks, are always potentially ready to explode into flames at the first opportunity or worst possible moment. Also, different parts of a bomber, such as the Sperry ball turret, were near death traps if the plane went down rapidly.
   Furthermore, once in combat, to properly man this and the other armament on the plane, many crewmen found it necessary to fight their weapons without their parachutes on their person, thereby raising their risks of death if the plane was disabled or battle action suddenly ejected them from their plane.
   To add to their danger, once out of a stricken plane, few Allied fliers had any real training in properly executing the practical deployment, proper descent by, or safe landing with a parachute.
   Compounding their problems late in the war, after they reached the ground Allied airmen ran the risk of being murdered, even lynched, if captured by German civilians angry over the ongoing terror bombing of their cities. And always, be it a mere five foot or whole five miles, when tragedy struck an airborne aircraft, a dangerous drop always separated these men from any kind of safety.
   Family history states that Sgt. David Sanford Hensley was killed on New Years Day, 1945, three weeks after his 22 birthday, while his Group was a part of a flight of from 850 to 1,000 US bombers en route on a raid on Berlin, Germany. Air Corps and 446th Bomb Group records report no raid on Berlin that day by the 8th Air Force, however. The central German city of Kassel is recorded as the main New Years Day target for the 8th and the 446th’s history lists Andernach in the Rhineland as their destination.
   Andernach was perhaps a lesser, secondary target they were assigned to that day or an objective resulting from the weather.
   Regardless, during the raid David Hensley’s plane was damaged enough to prompt him to bail out, and while he successfully escaped his stricken plane, he nevertheless fell to his death when his parachute failed to open. His body was recovered and buried by Axis forces and, after the war, he was permanently reinterred in Plot B, Row 8, and Grave 33 at the American Cemetery at Epinal, France. Nearby, in the same cemetery, St. Sgt. Massey Renfro of Trinity also lies, a casualty with the 3rd Infantry Division in the concurrent Battle of the Bulge.