18 Jun The Beaver’s Spur

Just one paragraph from “The Beaver’s Spur” newsletter

On March 6, 1944, the day of the 8th AF’s first large-scale daylight raid on Berlin, my Dad (Herman F. Allen, bombardier)’s B-17, the Liberty Lady, was damaged by flak so much that the crew knew they’d never make it back to their base in England. By the end of the day they had belly landed on the island of Gotland, Sweden.

By a week later the crew was settling into their internment camp in Rättvik, Sweden, 190 miles northeast of Stockholm. It didn’t take long for my Dad to find a typewriter. He began to put out a newsletter named “The Beaver’s Spur,” in honor of the nickname given to his bombardment squadron at Thurleigh, the 368th … “The Eager Beavers.”

I found among his papers five fragile pages of onion skin, hard to read, but unmistakably his. He typed it in double columns. Do you know how hard that would have been on what I am sure was the vintage typewriter he found? There are some mistakes, but not that many.

On the last edition there is a paragraph he titled Happy Anniversary.  (I’ve typed it exactly as my Dad did … just altered the formatting a bit to make it easier to read here.)

At least half of what was written in “The Beaver’s Spur” had to do with chasing the young ladies, the Swedish flickas Herman called them.

STO, April 6. It was a beautiful day in Chicago the afternoon of March 6, 1944, but it held no twilight to the waning light in Sweden. It was a tired and thankful crew which looked back on the Liberty Lady, as the flames licked their chops around her gallant body. As man broke out of the nearby woods at a trot with his gun cocked, shouting some foreign tongue. Sgt. Heuser, drawing on his smattering of German, turned to the tense white faces and said, “Lads, we’ve had it.”  A sign of relief as the Home Guard drew closer and found a case of mistaken identity … praise the Lord for terra firma and Sweden.

It has been a full month, a good month. There have been no tears. Some of the highlights of the month for posterity are:

• The crash landing, smooth as a new baby’s bottom (orchids to Smithy),
• The internment at Hemse, fixed bayonets et al.
• The first substitute for beer since leaving the States
• The night boat ride to Stockholm
• The trip to Falun
• Shopping for feather merchant clothes
• The first introduction to the Swedish flicka

Rättvik – from Herman Allen’s wartime scrapbook. Oh dear.

• First glimpse of Rättvik
• The new home in the STO
• Skiing, cycling, and other extra curricular activity
• The first issue of the SPUR
• Buck’s departure for Stockholm
• Blondy öch Flea Biscuit
• Come to me, my Konditori baby
• Sten, Engla, Shorty, and the Pensionat mob

Happy Anniversary, Eager Beavers.

Happy Anniversary, Daddy.

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