Brigadier General James M. Stewart, USAFR (RET)

On Mar. 22, 1941, Jimmy Stewart was drafted into the U.S. Armed Forces. He was assigned to the Army Air Corps as an enlisted man and stationed at Moffett Field, Cal. During his nine months of training at that base, he also took extension courses with the idea of obtaining a commission. He completed the courses and was awaiting the results when Pearl Harbor took place. A month later he received his commission and, because he had logged over 400 hours as a civilian, he was permitted to take basic flight training at Moffett and received his pilot wings. During the next nine months, he instructed in AT-6, AT-9, and B-17 aircraft and flew bombardiers in the training school at Albuquerque, N. Mex. In the fall of 1943, Stewart went to England as Commanding Officer of the 703d Bomb Squadron, equipped with B-24s.
He began flying combat missions and on Mar. 31, 1944 was appointed Operations Officer of the 453d Bomb Group and, subsequently, Chief of Staff of the 2d Combat wing, 2d Air Division of the 8th Air Force. Stewart ended the war with 20 combat missions. He remained in the USAF Reserve and was promoted to Brigadier General on Jul. 23, 1959. He retired on May 31, 1968. (More info click here)

Arlington National Cemetery - Where the 8th Sleeps

Arlington National Cemetery - Section for the 8th AAFC . . . "Where Valor Proudly Sleeps"

They shall grow not old As we that are left grow old, Age shall not weary them . . Nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun, And in the morning, We will remember them!-- Lawrence Binyon

Dangerous Dan, Part Two . . .

The second part of Dangerous Dan ... again, from a wonderful site I found years ago ...

dangerous dan {2}

the background

Some of you may remember the first piece on Dangerous Dan, and some of you may not have even gone back that far and picked that one piece of history from my ramblings two years ago.

But if you do remember, or did check it out, I'd like to write the second part of that story now.

Back during WWII groups like the 379th were scattered all over England and the skies of Europe. What I wrote in that first piece came from the memories of two men. One who happened to see Dangerous Dan get hit and one who had a vested interest in her, it was his plane. By that I mean he was crew chief.

I've not researched beyond what these men told me, mainly because they were actually there. However, I'm always picking up something different, looking through archives and old photos when I can and I found something quite amazing the other day and I still don't really know how to react.

I was going through a box of stuff. A box that hadn't moved in ten years. A box of clippings and photos from an estate. Just stirring around junk on a Saturday looking for something, anything on a green front lawn in North Carolina. A lawn with a big sign that read "Tag Sale".

And what I found amounts to nothing less than remarkable and really shrinks this world another size down and leaves me wondering what to make of it all. Coincidence, fate, some deeper meaning. But enough, this is simply part two...
the story

As I leafed through that box I began to come across things from the war. One yellowed newspaper clipping caught my eye, "Gunner Flies Bomber Home". Fastened to the back by a rusty paper clip was the photo below. Nothing less than the 379th's B-17 #229891, Dangerous Dan.

The article stated that Dangerous Dan was on her first mission to Wilhelmshaven. The pilot and copilot were wounded when a 20mm shell exploded in the cockpit taking them both out of action, the top turret gunner flew her home.

Being a war time article there wasn't anymore detail and it was just a small article, not even front page material. I couldn't tell what paper it came from but it was on page 5.

The article didn't say where Dangerous Dan landed so I guess Suffolk is as good a place as any. From the photo it looks like a farmer's field.

The photo with the first piece is not Dangerous Dan, just another B-17 that shared the same ending, but in the photo I found there is no mistaking the name on that bullet riddled B-17.

As for the crew, they all made it home (at least from that mission) though the pilot and copilot were seriously injured. And there may have been a Lt. Davis, but not on this trip. The pilot was Lt. William T. Jones, and that famous turret gunner was Sgt. Clifford Erickson.

I don't fault the pilot that saw Dangerous Dan get hit and fall from formation for getting it wrong. I'm amazed he remembered that one plane at all, and he was still right about the target and the date. And I don't fault the crew chief either, hell, he only had the plane for one mission. Hardly enough time to get to know the crew, but I could see how the name would stick in his mind. The only one he had for just one mission.

What Dangerous Dan wants with me I don't know.

goodnight 4.7.00

(source)

Dangerous Dan ...

I came across this piece years ago. The author has a wonderful website; so directly from his website . . .

dangerous dan

"Dangerous Dan" That was the planes name. Today in the span of an hour I helped a man find out two things. What happened to his plane, and what happened to his friends father.

To understand you'll have to go back with me to 12.22.43, once more to the skies over Europe. Why do we keep going there? Everyday the men who were there grow older and with age, the memories begin to come back over a lifetime. They are a bridge spanning the time between youth and the period just before death, from a time when we can't see the end to a time where it is always with us. And these men with their memories have as many questions as I do. Sometimes, we need each others help.

Like today.

Background. My mother calls me with the number of a gentleman who has been trying to reach me. Says he has some things I may be interested in. I call out of curiousity. The man was with the 8th Airforce, 379th Bomb Group, 524th Squadron. We chatted it up for awhile and then he asked his question.

"You ever heard of 'Dangerous Dan'?"

I'm 27. I was born 26 years after the conflict ended. Hundreds, indeed thousands of bombers were built during WWII. The 379th lost over 140 herself. And I was supposed to have heard of one? Sure, names like Sad Sack, Sentimental Journey, Strawberry Bitch, Patches, Memphis Belle, they all mean something, but never, in all my reading had I heard of Dangerous Dan and it didn't surprise me.

"No. Was she yours?"

"One of 'em, but it was so long ago and we lost so many..." His voice seemed to fade on the other end of the line for a moment.

"A fellow asked me about her awhile back, wanted to know if I knew anybody who could tell him about her crew or what happened to her, I was just hoping you'd heard. His father was on board"

Isn't that something, a fellow who was there hoping I'd heard about a plane that dissapeared 28 years before I was born.

I logged on. Checked some records and found a pilot from the 379th, 524th who was alive and had an email address. He had heard of Dangerous Dan. He knew the serial number and the pilot and the day the plane was lost. 12.22.43. It was on a raid to an aircraft plant in Germany and crash landed in Suffolk, England. The plane was salvaged (which means scrapped for parts) and the crew...well lets just say they almost made it home.

I called the man back and gave him the info. It started coming back to him.
"Yeah, that winter in England we got moved around a lot, things happened so fast. We lost a lot of planes and I remember Dangerous Dan, being assigned to the plane, but it wasn't around long after I got it. Now I remember that day, she didn't make it back...no, I remember they sent a salvage party on the 24th down to Suffolk. I didn't go, I had to get another plane combat ready...it took a long time to get one ready you know."

"Lt. Davis was flying you say?"

"Yeah."

"I remember him too, funny guy, but he played it straight. He should've made it back. A lot of them almost did. You know we had one plane that had one wing in the water and one on land...they made it. You couldn't get too caught up though, we were young and all."
And so one more plane from the 524th can rest in peace. One more family can finally know what happened to there husband, father. Not that they were lost over Europe, but how, when. What the temperature was like that day. What the grass smelled like. What shade of blue the sky was. They can talk to someone who last saw the plane as it made the coast of England for the last time and talk to the fellow who worked on her before she lifted off that last time. Not because of me. I'm a thread, a middle man.

The web can make time and distance shrink. Like those memories that come flooding back to the old, it can bridge a gap, and for that we must be thankful...and careful.

goodnight 10.8.98

(Source)

Hollywood at War ... The Hollywood Canteen

History of the Hollywood Canteen

John Garfield was feeling the need for a club for the servicemen who frequented Hollywood. He spoke with Bette Davis about this idea. With much interest she took the idea to a friend of hers. His name was Jules Stein.

It seemed that Davis had been represented by the Music Corporation of America since 1938. Stein was the president.

Bette Davis, "Jules Stein, up to this time, was seldom ever seen. Few people even knew what he looked like. He preferred to live this way. It was a big decision when he said he would head the financial committee. He would have to alter his way of life. Without his hard work, advice, and investments of our funds the Hollywood Canteen could not have been successful, to say nothing of the work of his wife, Doris, who I asked to be the head of the committee for the hostesses necessary for dancing partners for the servicemen. When the canteen was no longer needed after V-J Day, $500,000 remained in the canteen account. These monies were the result of Jules's ideas. A great source of revenue came from a film he urged Warner Bros. to make called Hollywood Canteen, a large percentage of which was allotted by Mr. Warner to the canteen itself. With the remaining monies a foundation was formed, and to this day contributions are made to worthy projects dealing with the armed forces."

The Canteen, a former livery stable and nightclub, the Old Barn, was located at 1451 Cahuenga Boulevard, off Sunset. (Source)

Squadrons of the Eighth AAFC of WWII

Mighty 8th Museum
Squadrons of the Mighty 8th
379th BG Kimbolton
379th Bombers
The 379th Virtual Heavy Bomber Group
379th Missions
The 91st Heavy Bombardment Group
93rd Bomb Group
The 100th Heavy Bombardment Group
The 303rd Bomb Group(H)Heavy
The 352nd Fighter Group
The 352nd Fighter Group
361st Fighter Group
The 376th Bomb Group
The 381st Bomb Group (H) Heavy
392nd Bomb Group
445th Bomb Group
446th Bomb Group
448th Bomb Group
The 453rd Bomb Group
The 456th Heavy Bombardment Group
457th (Heavy) ("Wild Hare") Fireball Outfit/94th Wing 1st Div/748th Sq.
The 463rd Heavy Bombardement Group
The 466th Bombardment Group
The 486th Bomb Group
The 467th Bomb Group
The 486th Bombardment Group Memorial Association Website
489th Bomb Group
492nd Bomb Group
The 78th Fighter Group
The 94th Bomb Group
The 401st BG
WWII Stories

John Wayne is Back

You can't get more American than John Wayne. Read the article "John Wayne is Back" by Peggy Noonan. I love it!

Visit "Freedom Rock"

Every year, for the last five years, a talented artist, Ray (Bubba) Sorensen II, has done a Memorial Day tribute to our servicemen and servicewomen, both past and present, with a stirring tableau painted on a large granite boulder which stands next to Highway 25. The huge granite boulder came out of the nearby Schillberg Rock Quarry and it weighs approx. 56 ton (50.8Mg) and is 12 ft (3.7m) high.

For years this boulder was known as "the graffiti rock" and was decorated for high school rivalries, love interests, etc. Since the Memorial Day paintings began, the "rock" has remained with the annual tribute intact.

When Sorensen was 19, he saw 'Saving Private Ryan' and he felt that patriotism was at an all time low and was not being taught in our schools and this motivated him to paint the rock. People were always driving by to see what was painted on the rock. Sometimes there were bad things and other times is was good. He knew if he painted the rock a lot of people would see it.
Sorensen paints over the previous years mural with white paint and starts with a black canvas. He draws a sketch of his idea on paper and then draws the design by free hand onto the rock. This takes him anywhere from one to three weeks to paint. He gets his ideas from books, movies, previous artwork and images by other artists.

About This Blog

This blog is an addendum to my Mighty Eighth Site which has come to be a labor of love, dedication and respect and truly came about quite by accident. All because of "Uncle
Eddie

All my life, I have grown up hearing about my Great-Uncle Eddie, my great-grandfather's oungest brother, who was shot down on a return mission from Osnabruck, Germany on 12/22/43 (on his return trip to Kimbolton Air Force Base). The story that we always heard, was that he just "disappeared into the clouds." Our family never knew much more than that. Uncle Eddie's brothers, sisters, parents and the later generations were always left with the question of whether he could have been a POW and survived the crash, as his body has never been recovered. There has never been any closure. Uncle Eddie remains a large part of our family and in a manner of speaking, is forever young.

In the meantime, I have been writing essays for college scholarships and came across a scholarship which asked the question, "Why Should We Remember World War II?" Not
knowing how involved I would become I embraced the question. In researching, I came across a web site called: Finding and Telling Your Dads War Story On a lark, not really expecting to find anything, I found that uncle Eddie had a memorial grave in the Netherlands. On further research I found his unit, message boards, chats, associations, and some of the nicest bunch of people you could ever meet at the Heavy Bombers Website. (In regards to message boards, there are many people willing to help you by lending information on what they know, where to go to find the answers and who to ask for what. They are an excellent
resource.)

One blessing I would have to say is my new realization as to how close our country came to losing our freedom. I truly had no clue except for what I had read, seen on T.V., or seen at the movies. Sure I had read about Hitler, read about the concentration camps, knew about Pearl Harbor, but I did not know enough of the "behind the scenes history" to feel it so deeply.

I am so profoundly moved by my new knowledge and the great kindness and friendships I have made in my quest for finding "Great-Uncle Eddie," that I cannot get enough information for myself, nor can I preach enugh to the masses as to how wonderful the World War II men and women were. Both on the foreign fronts and homefront. There was so much patriotism, group efforts, pride, effort and love. For example, I never knew or learned in school that the "air masks" had to be worn above 10,000 feet in a B-17 -- or that they had to be removed every 5 minutes to knock off the slobber or nasal accumulations. I did not realize how thin the skin of a B-17 was or how cold it was (that you could not touch it with bare skin or you would adhere to it). These are things that both horrified and amazed me.

The biggest blessing: Out of the blue (and in a very short time period I might add), our family finally received closure. An eyewitness and survivor of the Osnabruck mission contacted me. According to his eye witness account, Uncle Eddie's plane took a shrapnel/explosion hit by a German Heinkel. Which answered questions we had wanted answered for over 50 years.

In going to the various campuses to interview for colleges it dawned on me that the men and women of World War II were mere teenagers and youths fighting for our country. That the young Junior at the college I was interviewing with was the same age (or actually older) than my Great -Uncle Eddie was when he was piloting a B-17 Flying Fortress. And this young
college man was older than my great uncle was when he died.

I could go on and on. But I won't. I want to relay the stories to everyone from the people who were there. Therefore, this site is intended as a "Living Memorial" and tribute to all of those who served. I feel it is best to let them speak and let me provide the forum.

I have tried to find other web sites and links that offer so much insight, knowledge and information. If you know of a website that should be put on this web page, please e-mail me with the link.

I would urge you, whether you are the actual WW II veteran, wife, child, grandchild, or other family member, to obtain their war stories, information and records. It will give you a deeper insight and a richer love for you fellow-man and country.