Happy New Year!!!

We hope everyone had a happy holiday season.  We also want to thank you for all of your support in 2014.  We look forward to a great 2015.

Our jackets and sweatshirts are what you will need for these cold winter days.  We are discounting all of our reversible jackets, 8th logo sweatshirts, and 8th crest sweatshirts 10% for the month of January.

Snuggle up to the fire with a book and a hot cup of coffee.  We have a great selection of books and coffee mugs that are sure to please.

Ladies, we have fleece jackets that are absolutely beautiful.  Buy one this month and get a 10% discount. 

Stay warm and happy and enjoy 2015.

Shop the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force Online Store Today!

A huge thank you to VFW Post 7331 for their $500.00 donation.  The National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force is supported through donations from individuals, corporations and foundations.  To make a donation, please click below.  All donations are 100% tax deductible!

by Samuel Martin

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the "Heydekrug Run," one of the most barbarous acts against American and British flyers held in the German prison camp system during the war.  The Germans opened Stalag Luft VI, located at Heydekrug in East Prussia near the Lithuanian border, in April 1944 for captured British and American airmen.  As the Soviet advance pushed into Poland during Summer 1944, the Germans relocated the prisoners to Stalag Luft IV at Gross Tychow.  On 14 July the Germans marched the POWs to the nearby port of Memel and herded them into the holds of two old coal freighters.  The only provisions for the prisoners in the overcrowded holds were buckets passed down to the prisoners that doubled for both drinking water and human waste.  When the ships reached Swinemunde on 17 July, two prisoners, crazed from their ordeal, were both shot to death as they attempted to run from the docks.  The Germans then shackled the hands and feet of the POWs in pairs and loaded them onto boxcars.  On 18 July their train reached Gross Tychow and the prisoners were offloaded, shackles were removed from their legs, and they were prepared to march the remaining two miles to their camp.  S.S. troops and naval cadets wielding rifles with fixed bayonets now augmented the camp guards, and the Germans placed machine gun positions in the woods along their route.  The German officer overseeing the movement incited his troops by proclaiming that the prisoners were the men who had bombed their homes and families, and declared that the time for revenge had come.  As the prisoners began marching, their German overseers increased the pace, first to a fast walk and then to a run.  As the handcuffed, weakened prisoners began to stumble and fall, the German cadre bayoneted and released German police dogs upon the POWs.  The Germans hoped the POWs would try to escape into the woods where the machine guns were waiting together with film crews to document the "legal" shooting of escaping prisoners.  Instead, the POWs refused to take the bait.  They stuck together, encouraged and carried one another when necessary, and made it through to the camp.  According to the statement made by Dr. Leslie Caplan (formerly Major and POW) for the War Crimes Office in 1947, some of the prisoners he examined after his arrival at Stalag Luft IV in November 1944 had suffered more than 60 bayonet wounds and 100 dog bites.  One prisoner later died from wounds believed to have been incurred during the incident.  The dedication the prisoners kept to one another prevented the "Heydekrug Run" from becoming a staged massacre.

Milt Stombler

Milt has been involved in the City of Savannah project since the summer of 2009, when he found out about the project from a newspaper advertisement looking for aviation oriented volunteers.  He has been involved in aviation for over 50 years, and holds a commercial pilot's license with an instrument rating. 

Milt's professional career involved 45 years in academia.  After receiving his PhD in physics at the University of South Carolina he was a teacher and administrator at Emory University, Georgia Tech, and Georgia State.

Professor Stombler reports that, like many of our volunteers, he has always had an interest in B-17s because he heard many stories about the 8th Air Force in Europe during WWII as he was growing up. When he saw the newspaper article asking for help on the City of Savannah project, he knew that he had found a home.  While he didn't bring mechanical skills to the project he developed a method of polishing the airplane with a 25'' long flannel cloth that has literally saved hundreds of work hours.  His polishing skills with a buffer are also well noted.  Additionally, he is the administrator of the very successful City of Savannah - Savannah Technical College Intern program.

Milt and his wife, Lynne, have three children and three grandchildren, including twin boys.  Milt retired in 2006 when he and Lynne moved to Sun City, where he also volunteers as a reading teacher in a local grammar school program, and volunteers as a driver for a local food bank.

by A. Lawrence Vaincourt

He was getting old and paunchy and his hair was falling fast, And he sat around the Legion, telling stories of the past, Of a war that he had fought in and the deeds that he had done,
In his exploits with his buddies; they were heroes, every one.

And tho' sometimes, to his neighbors, his tales became a joke, All his Legion buddies listened, for they knew whereof he spoke. But we'll hear his tales no longer for old Bill has passed away, And the world's a little poorer, for a soldier died today.

He will not be mourned by many, just his children and his wife, For he lived an ordinary and quite uneventful life. Held a job and raised a family, quietly going his own way,
And the world won't note his passing, though a soldier died today. When politicians leave this earth, their bodies lie in state, While thousands note their passing and proclaim that they were great. Papers tell their whole life stories, from the time that they were young,

But the passing of a soldier goes unnoticed and unsung.

Is the greatest contribution to the welfare of our land A guy who breaks his promises and cons his fellow man? Or the ordinary fellow who, in times of war and strife,
Goes off to serve his Country and offers up his life? A politician's stipend and the style in which he lives Are sometimes disproportionate to the service that he gives.

While the ordinary soldier, who offered up his all, Is paid off with a medal and, perhaps, a pension small. It's so easy to forget them for it was so long ago That the old Bills of our Country went to battle, but we know It was not the politicians, with their compromise and ploys, Who won for us the freedom that our Country now enjoys.

Should you find yourself in danger, with your enemies at hand, Would you want a politician with his ever-shifting stand? Or would you prefer a soldier, who has sworn to defend
His home, his kin and Country and would fight until the end? He was just a common soldier and his ranks are growing thin, But his presence should remind us we may need his like again.

For when countries are in conflict, then we find the soldier's part Is to clean up all the troubles that the politicians start. If we cannot do him honor while he's here to hear the praise, Then at least let's give him homage at the ending of his days. Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say, "OUR COUNTRY IS IN MOURNING, 

FOR A SOLDIER DIED TODAY"