Carroll A. Peterson was a former carrier for the Grand Rapids Herald. He graduated from Union High School in 1939 and was in his second year at Junior College when he enlisted in the Air Corps in March 1942. He was commissioned October 21, 1942, and received a promotion to Captain in June 1944.
Carroll went overseas in November 1943. He was home in Grand Rapids the summer of 1944, but in October returned to action in Europe. He had more than 100 missions and 263 combat hours on his record. Carroll was featured in dispatches from the Nazi front in 1944 as commander of a Thunderbolt squadron which destroyed 22 German tanks and trucks in one dive bombing foray. He was attached to the 379th Fighter Squadron of the 362nd Fighter Group, 9th Air Force. At the end of 1944, Carroll was chosen the Top Artillery Buster, one of the nine best target killing pilots in the 9th Air Force.
On January 22, 1945, Captain Peterson's Blue Flight of the 379th found a large group of tanks, cars, and trucks clogging the roads near Hosingen, Luxembourg. Also part of the convoy was a large amount of mobile flak. After two strafing passes on the vehicles, the Thunderbolts wheeled and came back for a third attack on several tanks. Peterson's P-47D-30-RE made one evasive turn to the right, then pulled up to the left to go in again. "At the top of his pull up, around 1,500 feet, I saw his plane jerk violently," said Nuttall. "It continued its arc and caught fire almost immediately, burning fiercely from the cockpit back. Flame covered the rear fuselage and tail surfaces. At around 1,000 feet, I saw the canopy jettison and maps blow out of the cockpit. At this point the ship went into a slow spin and crashed into the lower side of a small valley." Peterson, one of the group's original pilots, was killed. However, it had been one and a half months before his death was confirmed. He was listed "missing" until March 6, 1945 when it was reported that he was killed on the day he was first reported missing. Presumably this report was about the time the wreckage of his aircraft was found.
Major Peterson is now buried in the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery, Hombourg, Belgium.
Source of information: www.findagrave.com, www.abmc.gov, www.wellswooster.com, Thunderbolts Triumphant, The 362nd Fighter Group vs Germany's Wehrmacht