Jump to content

8th Air force Grouping


Ant1942
 Share

Recommended Posts

Hi guys, I am deciding to show off my only Air Corps grouping I have that belonged to Gordon Leroy Lee of Aneta North Dakota. Gordon belonged to the 390th Bomb Group, 571st Bomb Squadron as a Navigator and served overseas from 1943-45. The grouping came with a small binder of a few articles he wrote in a vet book about the experiences of those in the 390th BG. Also included was a picture of him with his fellow crew mates and obituary. As for the uniform itself it is a heavily tailored Ike with British made ribbon bars and 8th Air force patch. The Navigator wings are of nice quality as well and it also came with his Crusher cap that I discussed in another topic on the forum (I will include the link of that below as well). Also included is a list of all of the missions he flew in 1945.

 

Gordon was born on December 21st 1922 and was a 18 year old college student when Pearl Harbor occurred. Four months later, recruiters on campus got him to sign up in the Air Corps in early 42 and he became a commissioned officer. After his service overseas which included most if not all major campaigns the 571st was involved in from Schweinfurt to D Day supporting missions and beyond, he finished his schooling up at the University of North Dakota in 48' and married his college sweetheart and raised a family. He studied electrical engineering before the war and after getting his degree, worked for General Electric for 8 years or so before becoming a professor at a local North Dakota community college in the late 60s/early 70s. He even wrote a paper about the energy crisis for the state of ND in 1978 (I have not been able to find that article). I also was able to find out that he was elected the mayor of Aneta his old home town for a period of time and from what I could tell in the obituary, was a very active member of the community and loved to tell people about his WWII serivce/WWII history as well as his Norwegian cultural history. Gordon Lee died on December 19th, 2005 at the age of 83.

post-178778-0-08495500-1555724413.jpg

post-178778-0-95621100-1555724422.jpg

post-178778-0-35078200-1555724429.jpg

post-178778-0-38926300-1555724436.jpg

post-178778-0-56310900-1555724450.jpg

post-178778-0-68900700-1555724468.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Kyle, means alot to hear that. You would be surprised at how small he was. The uniform is a 35R, but the funny thing about it is that he has a larger head like a 7 to 7 1/8ths haha

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for all the comments guys, again, not the biggest air corps guy but I do like groupings with a story to tell. This guys experiences kinda struck me because he was my brothers age when he joined up during his second semester of his freshman year and was really young for being an officer in my opinion ( I guess I’d be considered an old man at the age of 23 in comparison lol)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

So a quick update on Gordon leroy Lee:

 

I requested for his records via golden arrow research and was able to find his flight logs from the time he trained in 1944 till June 1945. Turns out he actually only started flying combat missions in December 1944/January 1945 and his last few were in the Netherlands at the end of the war due to humanitarian aid that the Netherlands needed. He flew the B17E, F and G models and his entire flying list missions wise was 56 missions within a 7-8 month time frame from December 44 to June 45. Definitly was excited to have these logs as it now sheds light on Lee's war.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Thank you for your comments ccfc. At times I am debating about selling it to make funds for my main areas of interest, but I just absolutely can’t seem to do it as it really has grown on me and I do love the 390th BG as their one of the more we’ll known groups mid war in the 8th

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...