Consolidated B-24 emerges from flak area with its No. 2 engine smoking. (U.S. Air Force photo)

Hit by flak

Father finds his friends have not been forgotten. My son and I took our son to Wright Patterson USAAF Museum. He found a Memorial to his 11 TH BGH and his buddies who never came back. I was telling a man my father help to train in 1943, he was so excited that my father loved the inscription and Memorial Stone. The man had been given the responsibility of having it written and placed in the Garden. My father gone by now however the man was so excited that his OLD T/Sgt Raymond Heilman approved of his efforts.

Father finds his friends have not been forgotten

This class photo included quite a few 17-year-old Army Air Force Reserve Cadets, myself included.  A year later we were all finishing basic training when the atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Three months after that, we scattered to Germany and Japan, replacing veteran troops who were gleefully returning home.