The Flying Fortress

It was on the way home from a satisfying spring break time with our family in Arizona, on routes vaguely familiar from last year, that we stopped to take in the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. In addition to the acres of aircraft on display indoors, memorials of war and its fallen soldiers have been erected here  - from markers honoring individual valiant airmen to others recognizing the service of groups in the way the Air Force organizes its bands of fighting men and women. 

The shadows were lengthening Thursday afternoon when we located this in its parklike setting, untended since groundskeepers swept away fall leaves.

It is a memorial to the 483rd U.S. Army Air Force, my father’s group and though he’s not here to ask, I suspect he was on site as the memorial was dedicated in 1983. Standing next to newly-planted trees with others who climbed aboard a Flying Fortresses and thundered into the sky over Italy in 1944- smiling balding men with white belts buckled around thickened waists, the ones who came back.

My dad flew 50 missions as a tail gunner. As we were growing up, he didn’t talked much about it, like so many of the veterans of that war. There was a box of souvenirs tied with a length of sisal twine on the shelf in the closet in their bedroom. His khaki shirt, the olive drab jacket with its patches, a weathered leather jacket, and a purple heart.

There were the annual Christmas cards from far-away places like Winner, South Dakota, and California and Florida featuring black and white pictures of families that looked a little like ours, greetings from the men who flew with my dad. Johnston, Lynch, Nielsen.

His service is chronicled a bit in the pages of our local newspaper. Here's an excerpt from a  letter home to his parents in July 1944,:

“I got myself one today and it makes me very happy. I just couldn’t believe my eyes when he pointed his nose at our tail and I really opened up on him.”

And this, an official press release received in August of that year:

Staff Sgt. Joseph P. Heimel was one of a group honored for exploits over German, July 18. Sergeant Heimel, tail gunner on a 15th Air Force Flying Fortress, is expected home in the very near future.

 Officially from Italy, the following was received Tuesday.

"In recognition of one of the outstanding bombing missions of the war, a Distinguished Unit Citation has been awarded a B-17 Flying Fortress Group of the 15th Air Force commanded by Col. Paul L. Barton of Ludlow, Vt. 

"Presentation was made in a recent ceremony at the group’s Italian base, at which Maj. General Nathan F. Twining, Commanding General of the 15th, pinned the coveted blue citation ribbon on the group’s colors. 

"The group was cited for an action July 18 when 26 Fortresses of the group participated in a mission against the airdome and installation at Memmingen, Germany. Adverse weather scattered the bomber formations en route to the target with the result that the Fortress Group approached the objective alone and without fighter escort. 

"Shortly before reaching the airdrome the bombers were attacked by some 200 German fighter planes. The fighters bored in at the rear of the formation, and in the first sweep destroyed the last box, wiping out one entire squadron. 

"Pressing their attacks relentlessly the fighters knocked down seven more Fortresses while the remaining bombers fought on to the target and dropped their bombs with devastating effect. During the spectacular air battle the group’s gunner accounted for 65 enemy planes destroyed or damaged, many of them falling to the guns of stricken bombers before they plunged to their death. 

"In addition the group’s bombs destroyed or damaged 35 more planes parked on the enemy airdrome. In all Col. Barton’s unit lost 14 Fortresses and 143 officers and enlisted men."

And this from September of 1944:

“Mrs. Joseph P. Heimel, Coudersport, received a cablegram Tuesday morning from her husband, T. Sgt. Joseph Heimel, tail gunner of a flying fortress, that he had completed his 50 missions. He is hopeful he may soon be home from his sojourn for months in Italy."

And in November that year:

"S. Sgt. Joseph P. Heimel arrived at his home here Thursday on  a richly deserved furlough. Joe was tail gunner on a flying fortress and was on fifty missions over enemy territory. He is visiting his wife and little son."

 

And in September 1945:

S. Sgt. Joseph Heimel returned from Indiantown Gap late Friday with his honorable discharge tucked carefully away in his pocket. Joe served as a tail gunner on a bomber for fifty missions over enemy territory, and later served as an instructor at Laredo, Texas. he is delighted to return to his home, wife and son at their place, once more a civilian.”