happiest and proudest about is the fact that we were able to get those people (the Dutch) released and out from under the thumb of the Germans. The memory of seeing men and women sitting on their rooftops, waving and cheering as they watched the planes come in will always remain with me. 'Bus' believes he is the only surviving glider pilot. Gerald Bingham Gerald and I got acquainted in high school, and we were married while he was home on leave. Gerald worked in the States. He got an ulcer and couldn't go overseas. Near the end of the war he was stationed in Boise, Idaho where he taught pilots how to fly blind (flying only by instruments, in case the weather was bad). He attended Weber College, as back then, everyone wanted to go to Weber so they could stay home and live with their parents. Submitted by Norma Bingham, wife Fred T. Blakeley Fred always had a love for flying, even at a very early age. While attending Weber College before the war, he took flying lessons. In 1941, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps as a cadet. After graduation, he became an instructor, teaching other cadets how to fly. Fred had been an instructor in the B-17 and eventually became qualified to fly the B-29 bomber. When he was shipped overseas, he went into the Pacific Theater as a B-29 pilot. Overseas, he was based in Guam and flew 33 missions over mainland Japan. On many of these missions, he acted as the squadron commander of his bombing group. Fred received the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and a Purple Heart. When the war ended, he had attained the rank of major and was later made a lieutenant colonel while serving in the reserves. Fred Blakely (center, back row) and crew of 'City of Ogden' Excerpt from an article taken from the Ogden Standard-Examiner, 1943: Superfortress named 'City of Ogden' Ogden has a direct representative carrying bombs to the industrial and military targets on the Jap homeland, from a Superfortress base in Guam. Named the 'City of Ogden' by her crew, the representative is a Superfortress which has already made history in the devastating missions against Jap industry. The crew voted to name their plane for Ogden because it is the home of Captain Fred T. Blakeley, the airplane commander, and Lieutenant Robert P. Marvin, their instrument specialist. The over-water bomb hauls to Japan are long and hazardous and the crew wanted a name to remind them of home. Although they don't talk much about their choice, it probably symbolizes for them the way of life for which they are fighting. The name has been approved by Brigadier General Thomas S. Power, commanding General of the Guam-based Superfortress elements. It is being painted on 6 the Superfortress' cylindrical nose on a flag, the pole of which points to Ogden's location on a map of the United States. Robert Simpson Blakeley_ The men and women who fought World War II have been called 'America's greatest generation.' They rallied to the cause without a moment's thought of their own safety. Many of these brave souls now rest on foreign soil, or their remains, having never been recovered, are remembered by inscriptions on cemetery walls. For most, their personal story of heroic action in the face of almost certain death has never been told. Such is the case of First Lieutenant Robert Simpson Blakeley. Following the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Bob's sense of duty compelled him to enter the fray, and he joined the United States Army on January 12, 1942. Following basic training, Bob was sent to Luke Field, Phoenix, Arizona, as an aviation cadet. Following student pilot training, he was approved for transfer to the Air Corps for fighter pilot training on May 29, 1942. He completed his initial training in July of 1942 and was commissioned a first lieutenant. While on furlough, he married Leah Geddes on July 31, 1942, in the Logan L.D.S. temple. Immediately following their wedding, Bob was transferred in August to Dale Mabry Field, Tallahassee, Florida, and in September to Sarasota Army Air Base, Sarasota, Florida. At Dale Mabry Field, Bob received extensive training in aerial combat in a P40 Warhawk, the aircraft he would fly in battle. Leah was by his side until he was transferred overseas in early October. Bob was assigned to the 5th Fighter Group (FG), 65th Fighter Squadron (FS) as one of their first group of replacement pilots since their arrival in North Africa in July 1942. Bob joined the 65th FS on November 12, 1942, in Gambut, Libya, and was soon promoted to first lieutenant. Here we digress a moment to acquaint you with the Fighter Group and Squadron with which Bob would become comrades in arms. The 57th Fighter Group was constituted on November 20, 1940, as the 57th Pursuit Group and re-designated the 57th Fighter Group May 15, 1942. On July 1, 1942, pilots and aircraft (P40s) left Quonset Point, Rhode Island, aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ranger. On board were three squadrons, the 64th, The Black Scorpions; the 65th, The Fighting Cocks; and the 66th, the Exterminators. When the Ranger was 100 miles off the African Coast, the pilots took off and flew to Accra, Gold Coast. This was the first fighter group to take off from a carrier in land-based fighter planes, and the entire group took off successfully, the only such group to do so. They arrived in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO) on July 30, 1942, the first American fighter group in Africa and the MTO, and the first American Fighter Group to see action in Europe. Since Bob's military records were lost in a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, little is known of his exploits until the fateful day of April 18, 1943, when he participated in one of the greatest aerial battles of World War II: The Palm Sunday Massacre, aka Cape Bon Massacre. We do know that Bob received the Air Medal, given to airman who flew at least 50 missions of one hour or more. The following excerpts are provided to give you some idea of what life was like while serving in the North African Desert. The importance of the North African Campaign was summarized in the writings of Master Sergeant Bill Hahn 'If we were not to overcome the Nazi drive to the Suez Canal' and 'should the canal have fallen, and the Germans captured the oil fields of the Middle East, we would never have recovered to defeat this enemy.' Sgt. Hahn writes further, that life in the desert consisted of 'fighting flies, heat, dust, disease, maggots, bloated bodies, and lack of water.' Ed (Duke) Ellington, a member of the 65th Squadron, writes, 'It is really a miracle that so many of us lived to come home . . . The uncounted episodes regarding the way we build heaters, using 100 octane (fuel) in a number 10 can filled with sand to heat food or coffee, washing clothes 7