01 May Ulf Gahm

September 2012. Ulf Gahm at the site of the March 1944 crash landing of the B-17 Liberty Lady

In January of 2011, I was excited to receive an email from a gentleman who wrote to me “from the sunny island of Gotland, Sweden.”

Gotland!?! That’s where my Dad’s B-17 crash landed in 1944! I had been writing about my Dad’s B-17 missions since the beginning of 2009 … I’ve  heard about the Swedish island of Gotland my entire life.

The gentleman’s name was Ulf Gahm, and he wrote:  I am an editor at Gotlandsguiden  — the biggest and most comprehensive tourist magazine on the island. My interest in Liberty Lady goes many years back. My father (who is 80 years old today) did actually see the plane go down on the field and therefore he is one of few eyewitness of the event.

Ulf wrote an article for his magazine. I hope I helped a little.  Then I wrote an article about meeting him. That began a conversation that only ended this past week.

Ulf helped me with translations. When I was trying to identify the locations of all the foreign legations in Stockholm during WWII, he did some research for me.

At the Visby radio station

When my son Johnny and I flew to Sweden last May, Ulf volunteered to orchestrate all the Gotland logistics. He met us at the tiny Visby airfield and drove us to our hotel.

The next day he and his beautiful wife Eva took us to Hemse to visit the Mästermyr, the site of the forced landing of the Liberty Lady. Ulf choreographed everything. He invited several gentlemen who had been eyewitnesses in 1944.  One of them was his father. When Johnny and I couldn’t understand their conversations in Swedish about the day the B-17 came to their island, Ulf and Eva translated for us.

Ulf contacted the press. He made arrangements for me to be interviewed on the Visby radio station. He, Eva, and their son Albin gave us a grand tour of their historic city.

When we were there, Ulf explained that he had just been diagnosed with cancer. He was going to start treatment that he knew would not be a cure, but he hoped it would give him several more good years.  Of course, I thought.  He’s young (younger than I am!) and otherwise seemed to be in good health. On our Visby tour, Ulf led us up some hills that took my breath away, and I don’t mean just the view.

I am returning to Gotland in September with my brother and sisters to show them the Mästyrmyr, the farmer’s bog where it all began. I expected that I would be able to reunite with this good man. In fact, we were already making plans …

Not to be. Ulf Gahm died on April 27th with his family at his bedside.

Too young, too important, too good, too much.

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