29 Mar General Curtis visits Mullsjö
On October 8, 1944, General Edward P. Curtis and his entourage visited the American internee camp of Mullsjö. The internees played softball, and to everyone’s delight the General pitched a no-hit, no-run inning.
The photograph below was taken on that day, and as best I can I have identified the dignitaries in it.
1. Captain Leo Sager, (Swedish) who was in charge of many of the internment camps
2. General Axel Ljungdahl (Swedish)
3. General Edward P. Curtis (American)
4. Lt. Col. Felix Hardison, the U.S. Military Air Attaché
5. Captain Robert Robb, the assistant U.S. Military Air Attache
6. Bruce Hopper, 8th Air Force Historian (American); in 1942 was the first OSS officer in Stockholm.
7. Lt. Åke Stavenow (Swedish)
8. Captain Bob Davey, USAAF, Commanding Officer at Mullsjö. His full name was Bernard M. Davey, and he was from Atlanta, Georgia. At that time he must have gone by the nickname “Bob.” Since he was from Atlanta, I am trying to find out more about this gentleman.
Joy
Posted at 17:30h, 29 MarchThanks for all the great ids. I’ve seen some of these people ID’d in this photo before, but not all. My Dad was in Mullsjo still then , so I guess he saw them play.
Tommy Jonason
Posted at 05:00h, 30 MarchHi
As an eager reader of especially history of the Air War during WWII I find this project utterly interesting. I Hope you have seen this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Sweden-sanctuary-neutral-Sweden-P/dp/1871187370/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301478589&sr=1-3
We are writing a book about a German spy, Karl Heinz Kraemer, who worked from Stockholm 1942-45. During our research we found a table from a Roy V. Peel, who wrote an instruction booklet for OSS agents, “Report on Field Conditions”. He was a professor arriving in Stockholm in 1942, officially for a lecture tour, inofficially to start an OSS office. In the table is an interesting description of which hotels and restaurants that were “nazi hangouts” in Stockholm. The original reference is OSS, Record Group 226, Entry 210, Box 64, National Archives, Maryland US.
Tommy Jonason
Posted at 05:14h, 30 MarchAnd I certainly think you have seen this
http://www.tjelvar.se/forband/fv/fv9-1.htm
Pat
Posted at 08:37h, 30 MarchThank you, Tommy. Yes, “Making for Sweden” stays on my desk and I refer to it almost daily. I am interested in your book. Tell me more about it. Do you have a particular interest in that spy? Do you know who in OSS Stockholm may have been involved?
I will go back to the Archives this year and will look up the table of the Nazi hangouts. I’m sure my Dad visited many of them.
Pat
Posted at 08:38h, 30 MarchNo, I had not seen this. I see it was just posted last week. I am excited that our B-17 Liberty Lady is of interest. Thank you so much!
Joy
Posted at 15:58h, 30 MarchFor Tommy-
Re: OSS, Record Group 226, Entry 210, Box 64, National Archives, Maryland US.
It’s fascinating that you have found this reference. May I ask, what lead you to it?
It’s hard to know how to even start looking for this information, although a fair amount is now being offered on various websites and groups. I’ve been trying to find out if my father (Arliss V. Martin, a navigator with the Schafer crew interned starting June 20, 1944) did anything while in Sweden for a ‘secret mission’ he vaguely referred to when I was growing up. But it’s very difficult to find out. He was an internee and whatever he did may have been subsequent to Sweden, although where or what, with out some hard data to start looking , is very difficult to find.
Pat
Posted at 18:06h, 30 MarchJoy, I think I can answer your question, at least partly. If you plan to go to the National Archives you should start by doing an online search here: http://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified-records/rg-226-oss. When you get to the library, you ask for specific file boxes. All the OSS files are in Record Group 226. You go through many many boxes of files, page by page, before you find your clues. It’s time consuming. Since you’re not sure whether or not your Dad was working with the OSS, it would be even harder.
Joy
Posted at 12:18h, 14 AprilI was just reading the section in Balchen’s book Come North With Me when he describes meeting Curtis (telling him first in London , he says, about the internees at Mullsjo, although it would seem that Curtis would already have been aware of that) in Stockholm “probably the first American general to enter neutral Sweden in full war regalia” and having dinner at the Grand Hotel with him, where “there are some startled faces among the hotel staff when I show up in my true colors. At the very next table is a group of Nazi intelligence agents. They cannot take their eyes off our Air Force wings and ribbons, and I suspect they are secretly wondering whether the war is lost already.” Balchen goes on to talk a bit about the internment camp at Mullsjo and some of the stories they told him. But it doesn’t look like Balchen himself was at the camp on the visit above? Or he is not in the photo. Do we know if Balchen ever visited Mullsjo himself while the internees were there? Or did he meet them in Stockholm at one of the dinners (I know you have some photos of those)? I’m wondering myself anyway, if my Dad, for example, could have met him if he visited. In his description of Mullsjo, Balchen writes as if it is ‘the’ internment camp, although there were several. But it may be that by that time the others had been shut down. I’d have to refer to Making for Sweden to trace the time line. Balchen seems to be writing later from notes that he took at the time (he writes in the present tense mostly, which makes the book more immediate, but of course he was not writing a book during wartime), and it’s possible a few things are a bit off in terms of timeline and memory. At any rate, I’m not sure at times if they are absolutely correct . For his story it doesn’t matter. For those of us factchecking and looking for exact times to track things, it matters . I am referencing pages 277-279 in the copy of Balchens book that I have.
Pat
Posted at 13:17h, 16 AprilYes, it’s the very same trip. Good find! I don’t have any record of Belchen visiting Mullsjo on that trip. He and General Curtis did take off together on Tuesday the 10th of October. I am going to return to the Air Force Research Institute in Montgomery this year. They have a lot of Balchen’s files, donated by his wife, I understand. I want to go through them to see if I can find anything that pertains to this.
Pam Wagoner
Posted at 17:55h, 16 AugustMy father’s scrapbook has a picture of these same people, but it appears to be formally posed with all men facing directly towards the camera.
Theresa Davey Ginther
Posted at 19:22h, 16 AugustThe man you described and the picture is Bernard M. Davey , my father, he was nicknamed “Bud”.
We lived in Atlanta and he was the Commander General of Dobbins Air Force Base. He died when I was 10 years old but have alot of old pictures and also a hand written notes on bombing missions and when he was shot down.
Would like to know more about the picture above and the book.
Please contact me at the e-mail address above.
Pat
Posted at 19:25h, 16 AugustPam, how much do you know about his stay in Sweden? My source says his crew was there for “some weeks” before returning to England. If he arrived on the 7th and General Curtis was there on the 8th that was fast action.
Ahron Shapiro
Posted at 23:27h, 24 JanuaryHi Theresa,
I have the complete mission folder for your father’s last mission. My uncle flew on the same mission and made it back, only to be killed on a subsequent mission two weeks later. I would like to discuss this with you if I could.
How may I contact you? I don’t see where your email address is found.
Thanks,
Ahron