An interactive map of the B-25 flights piloted by Sylvester K. Vogt of the 501st Bomb Squadron, 345th Bomb Group from June 1943 through April 1944. Clicking on a white dot will bring up a popup with mission data.
Sylvester K. Vogt was born in Jackson County, Minnesota in 1920. He enlisted in the US Army from the Minnesota National Guard on February 10, 1941 in the Infantry Branch, with the Army Serial Number 20708335. According to his enlistment record on the National Archives and Research AAD site, he had finished high school and was employed as a carpenter.
After enlisting, he went through the Army flight training schools and ended up as a B-25 pilot with the 345th Bomb Group, 501st Bomb Squadron as they trained in South Carolina. In the spring of 1943, the 345th was sent to the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) as part of the 5th Air Force. The 501st started flying combat missions out of Schwimmer Airdrome, near Port Moresby, New Guinea at the end of June, 1943. Being one of the original pilots, Lt. Vogt had to develop air combat skills while shouldering the additional burden of being responsible for the lives of an aircrew.
A static map displaying the thirty-eight flights known to have been piloted by Sylvester K. Vogt during his combat tour with the 345th Bomb Group from June 1943 through April 1944.
There are probably more missions on which Captain Vogt flew, but pilots were not listed in the first two dozen mission reports and flights such as courier, weather reconnaissance, or administrative were not often included in the copies of mission reports. After flying the required number of missions (believed to have been forty at that time), Captain Vogt returned to the United States in April of 1944.
