16 Aug Liberty Lady

(Please watch the video full screen. THANKS, Pat)

My son Johnny’s adventure on the Aluminum Overcast B-17 this past weekend inspired me to go back through my photographs of the Liberty Lady B-17. Most of them have come from the scrapbooks of our Dad, Herman F. Allen, the bombardier. Several have come from other crew members or their families.

2 1/2 years ago Johnny suggested that I blog about the research I was doing for the book I was writing about my parents’ experiences during World War II.  He suggested it might help me locate some of the people I was looking for … families of long lost crew members, veterans from his bomber group … perhaps they would find me!

The Liberty Lady B-17 on March 6, 1942, on the island of Gotland, Sweden

Johnny was so right! I have been able to connect with family members of the crew as well as military historians who have been wonderful resources.  Plus I have been able to “talk” to people who live in Scandinavia and are, like me, fascinated by our B-17 that crash-landed on the island of Gotland so many years ago.  I say “talk” because we often communicate by email with lots of Google Translate.

Immediately I found Mattias, a young man who grew up on Gotland and has helped me immensely. His grandfather was one of the Home Guard that met the plane when it hit the ground. Mattias told me about young Lasse Svensson whose father was a photographer in Hemse and always had a camera lying around the house.  When Lasse heard the B-17 flying low over the rooftops he grabbed the camera and caught the remarkable photograph of the lost Lady, overhead, looking for a place to land.  Then he jumped on his bike and took many of the pictures I have. Today Lasse still lives on Gotland and has met with other Liberty Lady crew members who have visited.

I couldn’t believe it when Ulf Gahm, the editor of Gotlandsguiden, the tourist magazine for Gotland, emailed me to let me know that his father also saw the plane go down and raced over to it on his bike.  I was thrilled when Ulf told me that he was writing a story about the Liberty Lady in his magazine’s summer issue.

And I have to mention my new Facebook friend from Gotland … Roland, who writes to me in mostly Swedish (Google Translate!) He has identified some of the photos on my Liberty Lady Facebook page because he was there too!

There are so many other people who have given me assistance. I cannot thank you enough. Those of you who are in Sweden, my son and I will be making house calls next May.  I cannot wait to meet you in person!

So I spent today making this little slideshow of the Liberty Lady, and it is dedicated to those handsome young men who literally went through hell and ended up in heaven.

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