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TonyM
Airman
Three things ganged up on me and forced me to write this book.
First, when I was a young history student I read the book MISSION WITH LEMAY by Gen. Curtis E. LeMay and McKinlay Kantor. In the book LeMay states that late in the war that it was safer to fly a B-29 combat mission over a defended Japanese city than it was to fly in the B-29 training program back in the states. I never forgot this amazing quote.
Second, while I was researching a college paper on WWII Hollywood I examined WWII era newspapers. While doing the research, I kept running across little news articles in the WWII newspapers describing airplane crashes that occurred in the US. I always wondered about these crashes. Who were the men? Why did the airplanes crash? Most of the newspaper articles were very sparse and provided very little details.
Third, in the 1990s, I bought a new red Pontiac and I needed a garage to put it in (I was renting back then). My neighbor, Mrs. Helen Borberly, had a garage available for rent. So I rented the garage and put my new Pontiac in it. As time went on, I got to know Mrs. Borberly a lot better. She would frequently mention her brother Steve Sopp. I later learned that Steve had been killed in a stateside B-26 crash in Florida in 1942. The family never knew what really happened to Steve and his crew. I began to investigate. I went to Maxwell Field, Alabama, and looked at the Accident Report micro film that was there. I was able to get copies of the accident reports I was after, including the accident report concerning Mrs. Borberly's brother Steve. Mrs. Borberly and her family were finally able to get the answers they had waited on for 60 years.
While I was at Maxwell Field I knew I wanted to do some kind of project concerning these crashes, but I did not know exactly what I wanted to do. After looking at reels and reels of film I was so overwhelmed that I almost came home early. By the third day, I figured out how to approach the problem and decided that I could write a book about the fatal crashes. It took five years and many thousands of dollars in microfilm purchases before the manuscript was finally completed. I have been helping vets families get answers to their WWII aircrash mysteries ever since. It has been very satisfying helping these families and they are very grateful getting the answers. These airmen died as surely as if they had been shot by a German or Japanese soldier on an overseas battlefield; their sacrifices and stories must be remembered.
TonyM.