In the last few days we have accomplished one of our major goals in our research on the Harold Hetzler Crew. Since the beginning, we learned that the only married crew member was Flight Officer Robert S Lambert. Even more intriguing was the fact that he had a son that was born 3 months after the entire crew was shot down over Alverskirchen, Germany on March 23, 1944. For several years I had tried to make contact with this son....the only "survivor" of the crew so to speak. Then like a strike of lightening out of the blue sky, 3 days ago I received an email from Wayne Lambert, who now lives in Oregon!! We had quite a conversation. We both filled in some of the gaps in each other's knowledge. There is almost too much to put in words here, but one amazing memory that Wayne had, or thought he had, was coming to St. Louis with his family for some type of funeral here in St. Louis. I was happy to inform him that this was not imagined. That the remains of the 6 unidentified crew members that went down with the plane were all moved from Germany to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in May of 1950. I was also happy to be able to let him know that actual remains are buried at the cemetery, otherwise they would be in the memorial section. I was also totally blown away that Wayne has letters and photos. Getting to see new letters and photos (such as the one above) from the crew is like winning the lottery in this game and it really helps me bring the crew member and the story of the whole crew to life. I also have so much information and documentation that I will also send to Wayne. I feel very honored and humbled to be able to share with Wayne as much as I possibly can about his Dad's crew and what he experienced during the war. I made a pledge years ago to do everything I could to learn as much about this crew as I possibly could and then to honor their memory as best as I can. This is truly a labor of love. My wife and I are seriously starting to work on our book about the crew and we are grateful that the Lambert story will go from sketchy and mysterious to well known!
Ever since I was 14 and learned about the Civil War from my history teacher Ken Elkins, I have had the fantasy of going back in time and seeing historical events first hand for myself. After I pass on (a long time from now I hope) and if such a thing is somehow possible, one of my fondest desires is that I might really be able to do this. Now when I think about this fantasy (which is everyday actually), I am very specific...I want to ride in Jayhawker during their transit of their new B-24 over the Atlantic to their new base in England...I will go from crew member to crew member and really talk them and get to know each one of them and just soak it all in. Now, the dream has changed a bit for the better....now when I talk to Robert Lambert we can have a nice talk about how I found his son.
