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May 2011 Mission Update!
News from the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum
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15th Anniversary Legacy Ball | |
For more information and reservations please contact Jane Harper or Mandy Livingston |
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Museum Update
Henry Skipper |
 On May 14th we will celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Museum's opening with a gala event, the Legacy Ball. I hope you will make plans to attend. A copy of the invitation is included in this newsletter. Reservations are limited so if you would like to be a part of this landmark event, get your tickets early.
The Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum means different things to different people. The Museum is a second home to the many veterans of the 8th Air Force who sacrificed so much for the freedoms we enjoy today. Sadly their numbers diminish each year. To the thousands of others that visit us each year the Museum is a place to experience and learn the history of the Eighth. Visiting students from all over the region and state give us the opportunity not only to teach history but to teach important lessons of character exhibited by the veterans of the Eighth Air Force. For 15 years, the Museum has been successful in providing lessons of history and character education, as well as a meaningful and entertaining experience.
The Museum is a great source of local pride and is cherished by the many individuals and families who have a direct connection with the Mighty Eighth Air Force. It is also a source of community pride. We will continue to be dynamic and relevant. We thank you for your support and look forward to the next 15 years of being "One of the World's Most Powerful Museum Experiences". |
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15th Anniverary Legacy Ball Sponsors | |
We would like to say a special Thank you to all of our generous partners who are making this event possible.
Colonial Group Inc.
Sterne Agee
UPS
Georgia Ports Authority
Georgia Power
Hunter Maclean
The Savannah Bank
Chatham Steel
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Authentic WWII Goggles with Tin Can | 
Authentic WWII variable density goggles, with original issue tin.
Original WWII Polaroid Goggles. American Optical Company flying glasses come in their original tin box
Shop Online
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Upcoming Features! | 
Be sure to see our next edition of the "Mission Update!" online newsletter for the latest news, "What's New in the Archives", "World War II Memorial Updates", and much more. |
Become a fan!
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View past Newsletters!
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Keep the Legacy Alive, Remember us in your will
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For more information about Planned Gifts and the Mighty Eighth Foundation, please contact Pam Vining |
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Museum Gift Store |
The Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum celebrates its 15th anniversary on May 15th.
In honor of our anniversary we will give a 15% discount on all WEB orders through May 15th. (Exclusions are books, propellers and leather jackets).
Choose from our great selection of t-shirts, baseball caps or coffee mugs. For those outdoor enthusiasts we have beautiful hummingbird feeders
or the soothing sounds of our wind chimes.
Don't forget Memorial Day is May 30th. Remember all those who have served and are serving in our Armed Forces and honor the memory of all those who have died defending our country.
If you need a new flag, we have them. Choose from a 2x3 flag for $8.99 or a 3x5 flag for $10.99. We have garden flags and memorial stepping stones. Choose your favorite branch of the service. Our wind socks come in the branches of the service as well as the American flag. So whatever your preference we can help you honor those who have served and are serving our great nation.
Mighty Eighth Air Force Musuem Online Store |
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City of Savannah Restoration Update
by Jerry McLaughlin - Restoration Project Manager |
 The "City of Savannah" project is now in its 27th month. It took the Museum volunteers 24 months to prepare the airplane for restoration. Starting in January of this year the formal restoration chores were started. Needless to say, the last three months have been a major change, and a lot more fun for the restoration team.
As of April 15, 2011, the airplane has been placed in its final location, and is resting on custom made stanchions. The exterior of the airplane has been cleaned and polished once. A second level of polishing is underway. National markings were donated by an out of state benefactor and now stand proudly on both sides of the airplane. The interior has been cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned - and finally - painted. Investment was made to obtain one of several sets of plans and templates for the interior woodwork of a B-17G. Our Carpentry team has nearly completed the required flooring, ammunition boxes, and equipment supports from nose to tail. Preparations are complete for the installation of genuine WWII communications equipment (another donation) into the radio room, which will come on line and be broadcasting in mid July. The airplane is being completely rewired with the expectation that some day the bomb bay doors, lights, flaps and turrets will be part of the airplane's living history to Museum visitors.
Thanks to several donations and fundraising efforts during the past year we are slowly accumulating equipment necessary for the planned total restoration. Much of the period equipment that is esential to the restoration is expensive and difficult to find. Hard work on the project's Acquisitions Committee has brought some of the more available parts into the Museum's archives. Major items, such as gun turrets and replica weapons are yet to be purchased, and will require considerable fund raising efforts during 2011.
The "City of Savannah" restoration project is well under way. We are confident that with the continued support from national donors and local supporters we will be able to meet our goal of being the finest B-17 static display in the world.
The goal of our restoration is to have the B-17, "City of Savannah," restored to its original factory condition. You can be a part of history and the Museum's B-17 Project. The Museum appreciates all financial gifts, and for $100 or more you will receive a certificate of participation, suitable for framing, which recognizes your part in this historic Museum event. Please make checks payable to "B-17 Project" and mail to: Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum, P.O. Box1992, Savannah, GA 31402.
If you would like to make a donation by credit card, please call Tameka Ford at
912-748-8888 ext. 101. |
Museum Volunteer Gary Silver
by Heather Thies
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Gary Silver grew up in Long Beach, New York, a small beach community on the south shore of Long Island. He played sports, created art and had a strong interest in war and combat stories from books and movies such as All Quiet on the Western Front and the Time Life WWII collection of combat photography. The only thing from WWII he really remembers is the celebration of VE day which occurred the week of his fifth birthday. His father was too old to serve but Gary loved to hear stories of his uncle who served as a merchant marine and his dad's cousin who fought against Rommel in North Africa and who sent them a photo of himself on a motorcycle in the desert. This fascination with history and the nature of war persisted and is the reason he took an interest in volunteering at the Mighty Eighth.
Gary earned a B.A. in Economics and a concentration in Fine Art at the College of William and Mary. Upon graduation, he enlisted in the Army Reserve program and after active duty at Fort Sill, Oklahoma he moved to New York City. He studied design in night school at The Cooper Union and Pratt Institute.
Gary began work in the printing trades, working initially as a sales rep and then as an assistant plant manager while attending night school. Design school enabled him to transition to the planning and designing of commercial facilities, primarily office and retail space. He worked for three design/architectural firms over a period of twenty two years. In 1987, Gary and an architect friend teamed up and opened their own planning and design office located in lower Manhattan until he retired in late 2005. Gary and his wife retired to Savannah to be in a warmer climate. Concerned about how to keep busy and productive while retired, he assumed golf, media, socializing and handyman work would fill his time. Doing volunteer work was not on his list, since he had learned in the Army never to volunteer for anything. Four years ago, he decided to take some adult education courses and signed up for the Skidaway Institute's Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum class. The last day of class was a VIP tour of the museum conducted by Eighth AF veteran Paul Grassey, and Gary was blown away. A request for museum volunteers was made to the group and Gary has been a volunteer tour guide ever since.
What has interested Gary most about being a museum tour guide is how much of a message the Museum can provide for its student visitors, especially in a time of diluted school curriculums and the absence of character building models. Adult visitors with all too short memories of the lessons learned from the actions of world leaders in the WWI Treaty of Versailles as contrasted with the WWII Marshall Plan also benefit from the Museum's message. As Gary explains, "As volunteers, particularly for student tours, our job includes dealing with late arrivals, truncated tours, getting visitors off buses and organized into tour groups, squeezing large groups into "The Mission" at the right time and trying to finish the tour on time - all while teaching something many of our visitors had no clue of before arriving. It's a challenge. It's also one of the most rewarding things I can think about spending my time doing. And the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum is the magnificent medium that makes it possible." |
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New Home for a Dog Tag
by Dr. Vivian Rogers-Price |
 | | Roberta Sarnow Strom (left) and Regina Sarnow Brand (right) hold their father's dog tag and photographs of their parents while Yvonne Daley-Brusselmans nee Yvonne Brusselmans watches. |
On 17 August 1943, 146 B-17 Flying Fortresses attacked the Messerschmitt 109G aircraft-and engine-assembly shops at Regensburg. An additional 230 B-17s headed for the ball bearing factory at Schweinfurt. This was a maximum effort double strike on the part of the Eighth Air Force. Sixty B-17s were lost and another hundred bombers sustained such severe battle damage that they could not be repaired, bringing the total loss to about 40 percent of the B-17s dispatched. One of the sixty B-17s lost was the 95th Bomb Group's Our Bay-Bee with Bombardier Henry Sarnow flying his eleventh mission. His target was Regensburg but his crew never dropped their bombs. Over German-occupied Belgium, flak damage forced their bomber to drop out of the formation, and two Luftwaffe fighters attacked and set the stricken B-17 on fire. The pilot, Walker A. Baker, gave the order to bail out. All ten crew members parachuted to the ground. Seven were quickly captured by German troops. Hank and the badly burned Co-pilot, Martin Minnich, landed in a wooded area near Mol, a small Belgium town. There fifteen-year-old Emiel Joris found them, and at some point Hank gave Emiel his dog tag. Apparently Hank hoped that Emiel could get word to his mother, Mary Sarnow, that her son was safe since the dog tag included both their names and their home address. Emiel then told Hank and Marty to swim across the canal and hide in the bushes growing near the edge of the water. They spent over nine hours in this hiding place, breathing through the stems of reeds they cut at the water's edge, while German patrols and their dogs searched nearby for them. Later that day after the Germans had left, a local Belgium man, Gus Fruythof, took Hank and Marty to a nearby farmhouse. The Fruythof family gave them clean, dry clothing and cared for Marty's burns. Eventually both men were moved to Brussels where they were hidden from the Germans and cared for by Anne Brusselmans and her husband Julien. The Brusselmans family successfully sheltered 32 downed airmen for varying lengths of time before sending them on the next stage of their journey back to Allied lines and freedom. Anne helped another 130 Allied airmen evade capture by the Nazis. Her daughter Yvonne was eleven when World War II began. At first she and her younger brother were told the downed airmen in their home were Flemish cousins. After Yvonne discovered the false papers and photographs of some of her Flemish cousins, her mother shared her secret. Yvonne helped her mother by sewing dog tags into trouser cuffs so that if the downed airmen were captured by the Nazis they would become Prisoners of War instead of being executed as spies. It took over two months for Hank and Marty to return to Allied lines. Hank lived to return home to his wife Regina and together they raised twin daughters, Roberta and Regina. He never forgot the kindness and sacrifices made by Anne Brusselmans and her family. He died in 1999. Then in October 2010, Hank's daughters received word that their father's dog tag, given to Emiel sixty-seven years earlier, was being returned to them. Emiel, now in his eighties and in poor health had kept it safe all those years. He and his daughter, Julienne, decided to try to find the Sarnow family. Through the assistance of Dutch historian Co de Swart, Hank's daughters, Regina and Roberta received their father's dog tag on 27 October 2010. They alternated wearing it for a month at a time until donating it to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum on 18 April 2011. |
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Feature Exhibit The German Invasion of the Low Countries
By Museum Volunteer Gary Silver | |
 By May 1940, the Allied struggle to counter the Nazi occupation of western Scandinavia was all but over. Germany was in command of all key cities, ports, and airfields in Denmark and Norway, and the last British troops would be evacuated from Norway by early June. Hitler viewed the invasion and occupation of Denmark and Norway as a distracting but unavoidable defensive prerequisite to his main objective of "blitzing" the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, known collectively as the Low Countries. His plan was to overrun France through Belgium to obtain air and sea bases from which to threaten Britain. The strategic position of the Low Countries, located between France and Germany, made the area a logical route for an offensive by either side.
Starting in August, 1939, Hitler repeatedly reassured the Belgians and Dutch that Germany would respect their neutrality. In January 1940, the British had tried to convince the two countries not to wait for an inevitable German attack, but to join the Allies. Determined to remain neutral and avoid antagonizing Germany, which was a vital trading partner, both the Belgians and Dutch refused - even though Germany's attack plans had fallen into Belgian hands as a result of a German plane crash ten days earlier. King Leopold III of Belgium, in particular, had a strategic dilemma. Both the French and the Germans intended to wage war with each other on his soil. Both had war plans that called for intrusion into Belgium to fight a battle that French and German commanders hoped would eliminate the other. Further, even though everyone expected the Germans would launch a blitzkrieg through the Low Countries, the neutrality issue (coupled with feelings of mistrust) made it impossible for the Dutch and Belgians to develop a fully coordinated defense plan with the French and British that could stop it. Ironically, when the Netherlands attempted to ensure this neutrality by mobilizing its army, it was frustrated by severe delays in the delivery of weapons which (unfortunately) had been ordered from Germany.
As the Phony War wore on during the winter of 1939-40, the Allies reinforced their troops in France,  although they were still poorly equipped. Many Allied leaders believed that possibly the Germans were having second thoughts about invading Western Europe. In fact, the delay in the invasion was caused by a lengthy debate in the German high command on the best invasion plan. The final plan, involving three Army Groups positioned in western Germany, was as follows:
· Army Group C, situated in the South, would remain in position behind the Maginot Line in a purely defensive role.
· Army Group B, located on the Dutch border, would overrun Holland towards its Atlantic coast to lure British and French forces deeper into Belgium, and to pre-empt a possible British invasion in North Holland. This operation was named Fall Gelb (Case Yellow).
· The main thrust would be in the center, with Army Group A attacking France through the Ardennes Forest in Southern Belgium, then sweeping toward the coast to cut off the Allied armies from supplies and reinforcements. The Germans called this second operation Fall Rot (Case Red). The Allies were expected to discount the hilly, heavily wooded terrain of the Ardennes as impassable to tanks - which they did, leaving that sector only lightly defended. Hitler agreed to this plan in mid-March but unexpected resistance in Norway delayed its execution.
Before dawn on May 10, Germany initiated its Case Yellow plan against the Low Countries. Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium were simultaneously invaded by Army Group B, which comprised 26 infantry divisions, 2 airborne divisions, 3 Panzer divisions with more than 800 tanks, and Luftwaffe combat and transport aircraft. These attacks followed the same blitzkrieg script that worked so effectively in Scandinavia: early morning air raids conducted against airfields, ports, communication and command centers; strategic airborne strikes to capture key defensive positions, political targets, and bridges; and a coordinated ground attack by overwhelming numbers of panzers and mechanized infantry - all at great speed. Read Further |
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This Month in 8th Air Force History | |
May 13, 1943. 4 new B-17 groups are added to the inventory to include the 351st, 94th and 96th.
May 18, 1943. Combined Bomber Offensive adopted by the Chiefs of Staff. The RAF would bomb by night and the VIII BC by day. Operations began in June 43.
May 9, 1944. 389th BG (Hethel) receives DUC for its part in Ploesti raids.
May 12, & 28, 1944. First 8th Air Force attack on oil production.
May 8, 1945. The Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler had committed suicide on 30 April so the duty of formal surrender went to his replacement, President of Germany, Karl Donitz. |
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Family Night at the Mighty Eighth | 
On June 10, 2011 you and your family could learn what it would have been like to be a member of the Eighth Air Force during World War II. A mission briefing and dinner will kick off the night.... Click here for more information Family Night Info |
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Make your Donation Count! |
Would you like to make your donation to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum work harder? If your company has a matching gift program, you can double the impact of your contribution. Matching your gift is simple; ask your human resources department if your company has a matching gift program. Most companies have a short form you need to complete and send in with your donation. That's all there is to it! The Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum will do the rest. For a list of Matching Gift Companies |
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Memorial Benches | |
Years from now, imagine the feeling a young family will experience when they see and touch a memorial to one of their own - perhaps a grandfather or great - uncle recognized for their unselfish heroism, sacrifice, and valor. Their legacy lives on, thanks to your thoughtful gift today to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum Memorial Bench Project.
For more information please contact Peggy Harden |
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Join Today! | |
Become a member of one of the world's most powerful Museums.
If you are passionate about America, if you believe that preserving traditions, loyalty, democracy, and freedom is more important than ever, and if you appreciate the sacrifice of the men and women who continue to defend our freedom today, then you need to become a member of the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum today!
For more information and to join, please click on the link below
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Tell Us What You Think! | 
You are very important to us. Your comments and suggestions are welcome and encouraged.
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