Chester W. Nimitz who suffered minor injuries. One member of the flight crew, Lieutenant Thomas M. Roscoe, died. The XPBS-1 sank and was lost. 1 July Ex-American Airlines Douglas DST, DST-217, c/n 1976, NC18144, requisitioned by the USAAF on 8 June 1942 as C-49E, 42-56093, assigned to the 4th Troop Carrier Squadron, 62d Troop Carrier Group, crashes into a hillside Victory Garden this date at mountainous Premier, in southern West Virginia, killing all 21 aboard. This was the date that the 62d TCG was reassigned from Kellogg Field, Michigan, to Florence Army Airfield, South Carolina, and the C-49E was en route to the base. Pilot Walter R. Faught had attempted several landing approaches at Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport and on the last had slammed into the runway with enough force to damage wings and control surfaces. Rather than land and check the airframe, he elects to continue onto Florence, amidst turbulent weather. The transport was sighted about noon at low altitude over Coalwood, ~five miles from Premier, and witnesses reported that it shed a wing at 500 feet as it came down, which may have been the elevators. Wreckage burns for two hours, but recovery of victims begins even before fire is out. Bodies of 19 passengers and two crew recovered. 1 July Consolidated LB-30 Liberator, AL527, of the 38th Bomb Squadron, 30th Bomb Group, flown by 1st Lt. Robert K. Murphy departs March Field, California, strikes the top of a low knoll two miles W of the field, and is destroyed in two explosions that initial reports describe as bombs going off. Officials said that this was a training flight, however, and that no bombs were loaded. Nine crew die. 2 July A Dornier Do 17M-1 crashes in Hansakollen in Maridalen, outside of Oslo, Norway. The Do 17 was heading to the airport at Gardermoen, but crashed into a mountainside, killing all three German aviators on board. They are buried at the German war cemetery at Alfaset. The wreck is well preserved and remains clearly visible, over 70 years after the accident. 15 July During Operation Bolero, the ferrying of combat aircraft from the U.S. to England by air, a flight of two Boeing B-17E-BO Flying Fortress bombers, 41-9101, c/n 2573, "Big Stoop", and 41-9105, c/n 2577, "Do-Do", of the 97th Bomb Group and six Lockheed P-38F Lightnings of the 94th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group, on the leg