Hunting WWII Gold Star Families

by Joy Etienne, sole niece of an 8th AA radio operator

BAM.  Fire in the empty bomb bay.  BANG.  The B-24 nose turret explosion. Chaos high above Oise still enjoying the painterly French summer light made famous by Vincent Van Gogh in another era. Black, molten flak lacerates the shiny skin of the Ford-built Lib.  BOOM. The wings fly off. Thursday 7:35 pm  Sunon Square Dance goes down in flames.  The German 88 meter anti-aircraft canon in Cramoisy got the squadron leader.

My 4F uncle, Tech Sgt John Harold Leahy, who went by Bill, the radio gunner in the bomb bay, grabbed the fire extinguisher before passing out.

June 27, 1944 while supporting our D-Day troops bombing German supply lines in Creil, he and Sgt Walter Schum, left waist gunner from Altoona, PA, Lt Walter Strychasz, bombardier from Cleveland, OH and Lt Arlee Reno, navigator from New Mexico died for a righteous cause.

Missing Air Crew Reports & more

MACRs online only tell a portion.  Finding the crew members' home bound letters, scrapbooks, diaries and debriefings fill in the mysterious, dusty war puzzle.   I trust multiple sources.  I comb for clues.  My family only knew Bill was killed in France on his 35th mission.  

I had nothing except Hollywood actor Jimmy Stewart flew out of the same base.

Bill was heading home after this, one of the lucky ones who beat the lousy odds.  Sunon Square Dance's pilot, co-pilot and tail gunner had 30 missions to his 35.  Was this his regular crew or was he subbing again, in a hurry to see his wife, mother and friends?  At 32 years old, he knew he'd be a swell instructor with the best practical knowledge for the kids.

Against regulation, he carried on him a London travel brochure, 10 B&W snap shots, possibly of Chicago loved ones and a few odd coins.  So, he broke up  " the monotony of loneliness " as he looked to the future. 

I know the other 3 families had the same paltry knowledge:  KIA in France.

My online research technique is like flak:  hit or miss.  Pritzker Military Museum & Library in Chicago gave me his induction date, service number and nose name, Sunon Square Dance.  My family had a typed list:  crew names, wives' and mothers' names, addresses.  It was the carbon copy on yellowed paper.

Kudos to the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library in downtown Norwich, East Anglia, England for my 5 hours.  More kudos to the Research Center at The National Museum of the Mighty 8th Air Force in Pooler, GA for Col Robert Terrill's debriefings of the co-pilot Lt Ralph Hall and tail gunner Sgt John Goan, evaders.

Both made it together to the Forests of Freteval because of French resisters.  Bravery knows no age limit.  Google this forest near Le Mans.  Some 100 men hid for weeks, even months waiting, waiting for our guys to get up off those nasty Normandy beaches.  The Maquis, a local resistance group, shared smokes and encouraging news.  August 13, 1944 the airmen were released.

Prior to 2012 I stumbled on my uncle's name twice on French websites. One is aérostèles mieux de mémoire aéronautique B-24 Liberator (bois).  There, my eyes see 4 names. Merci beaucoup, mes amis. At last, my uncle!

Are the French fishing, too?  An expensive tropical floral spray was placed at a former cement cross, now a stump with the names.  I had no idea.  That photo is embedded in my heart. That French website has crash information with country flag.

In 2015 we found and visited his base, Tibenham and the crash site in the woods with the help of a young Mello roofer who spoke no English. The impossible comes true. Do you believe?

A Brit, the marketing director of the Norwich Glider Club which uses 2 Tibenham runways emailed 2 months before our trip.  My uncle volunteered for a 2nd bombing run on D Day.

What!?!  News  to me!

In Bill's last letter dated June 9 to his big brother, he mentions a hole in the clouds and his surprise with so many ships.  He wished he could have seen more. "A thrill of a lifetime" he penned. Then a salvo.  He thought the Navy ship blew up.  At 11,000 it rocked the B-24. Never did he mention a second run to his brother, an Army Air Corps captain stationed at Kelly Field & Ellington Field the whole war.  Yet, in that same letter Bill writes very matter-of-factly about a close call take off the prior day.

According to him, he completed 23 missions by June 9.  12 missions in 18 days along with guard duty and who knows what else as a non-com volunteer.  No complaints. 12 in 18.  A 4F man from Chicago's 11th Ward, Bridgeport, home to mayors, Al Capone and the White Sox.  A man with a leaky heart from a childhood epidemic of rheumatic fever.  12 in 18 days!  Imagine.

The most unlikely people know things, useful things, eye-popping things. 

One town over in Cire-le-Mello, the Mayor's vault holds a book with this key page "Chambre des roses," their name for the crash site in the beautiful Chateau de Mello woods.  The young roofer saw the rain-soaked paper and we made a bee line.  He's named Nicolas for his grandfather, a Valmy resister.  Flowers--from gardens, florists and store-bought artificial ones-- hint at the years of French prayers and gifts wondering how to pronounce 4 names, hoping to see fresh faces in old photos, curious about each life before the war.  Who are these brave men?  We both yearn to know.
  

The French appreciate their freedom by taking our war dead into their hearts, minds, souls. They do not forget. They even teach their young.  Our families are dear to them.  They’re adopted forever.

I got lucky.  I located the navigator's son, born 2 months after his handsome father's death.  He knows what I know and has some sacred crash debris from a real French Indiana Jones with a metal detector.  This Indiana Jones worked dozens of Oise sites, holding and hoping to connect with each anxious, curious Gold Star American family.

Today I hunt for the families of Sgt Walter Schum and Lt. Walter Strychasz. Let us give them more.
They deserve to know where and how.

What’s more, the Mello Mayor and ASAA, a Oise-Picardie memorial organization want to honor each family as they did me for my uncle under the Mello Monument of Heroes where the 4 names are engraved.  Maybe 60-75 people attended.  Both anthems played.  Both flags together. Tears wiped away.  Even 1 authentic Willys Jeep.

At the festive reception that followed, I was introduced to a petite, feisty Geneviève Le Berre, an author and school lecturer.  Airmen called her Jacqueline.  She personally smuggled them from Paris to Spain.  So did her future husband, Pierre. Like 2 speedy assembly line workers pushing the limits of production.  Each received The Presidential Citation from Ike. What guts!  She gave me a shot in the arm.  I can do this.  So can you.

"Leave no man behind" was not in the national psyche during and after WWII.  It certainly is in mine. 

So what do you know?

The good folks in Pooler, GA gave me links for debriefings late last year: http://catalog.archives.gov/Id/305270; same but /5694055, for RAMP  Reports (232 pages).

T/Sgt Wayne Brand evaded.  What did he say? 

I haven't yet pursued the POW debriefings, if that occurred after medical treatment and release. I've got S/Sgt William H Salio, a POW fluent in German, a first generation American of Austrian- German descent.  The Nazis also grabbed Sgt Edward Smith who definitely landed in Stalag IV wearing lightweight clothing for one of the harshest winters during the war.  Sadly, Pennsylvanian Edward Smith died before he turned 50, probably from lack of food and retaliatory brutality. The Smith headstone and obituary are completely inaccurate.  Clearly, Edward as a civilian said nothing, putting it all behind him, a happy family man.  Were both POWs together?  Maybe the Salio family knows.

Reading and studying these debriefings will be more good puzzle pieces.

Who knows Schum & Strychasz? Anyone? They have deserving descendants.

Not 6 weeks ago in my own back yard, a generous stranger found the Eckenrode family tree with Sgt Walter Boyd (Bob) Schum. Incredible!  Now I pray and wait.  What a humbling surprise.

Facebook has over 2 dozen Strychasz but no mention of Lt Walter or WWII.  Oh, please.

Who has the iconic crew photo in front of the heavy?  Who can tell me more?  Maybe a London liberty leave story?  Who knows?  

I’m stuck. I want to know my uncle’s missions.  Were any aborted for weather or mechanical problems? 

The lost and the fallen hold their truth waiting for us to uncover it and share it, especially with the respectful inhabitants where they fell.  Theirs is a special story that needs to be told, deserves to be told.  Break the silence.  

We can witness through documents and a good imagination extraordinary acts by ordinary, decent men and women. They are my champions. Yours, too?

If you work at it, genealogy works.

I am stuck.  I want to know his missions. Were any aborted for weather or mechanical problems?  

With kind regards, I am Joy Etienne