Clement Dowler - World War II Veteran Interview - 91st Bomb Group/324th Squadron

Clement Dowler's B-17 was shot down over Avord, France on April 28, 1944. It was his thirteenth mission as a ball turret gunner with the 91st Bomb Group/324th Squadron. For the next five months, he successfully evaded German patrols and Nazi collaborators with the help of local French Resistance fighters known as le Maquis. Following his escape in September of 1944, Mr. Dowler was questioned by the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Service at Headquarters, European Theater of Operations. The resulting report was marked "SECRET" and titled Escape and Evasion Report No. 1669, Evasion in France. Only recently has this document been made available to the public in electronic format. This was the second interview recorded on January 11, 2014 for the Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress. It contains Mr. Dowler's first-person account of his experiences during World War II, including the time he spent fighting alongside French Resistance units and an American OSS unit in occupied France.