7. This Week's Stories and Requests for Help We try to post stories and
comments from our readers each week. Send your story to newsletter@tias.com
and we'll publish it in an upcoming newsletter.  We *love* to hear your
stories!  If you have a story you'd like to share, tell us about it and if you
have any photos, we'd love to see them!  Send us an email to new
letter@tias.com so we can share your story with the rest of our readers.

Here's a reprint of a story submitted in 2002 - well worth printing again.  Do
you have any interesting stories to share?

I am into metal detecting private homes so one day I approached the door of a
likely house just outside Chicago.  A man answered the door in his early 60's
and we struck up a lively conversation about the property and its history.  He
was an only child and both parents had passed away and we quickly became
friends.  I had not even begun to sell on eBay yet but was always interested
in antiques and especially World War II items.  He took me to a closet off a
bedroom on the second floor and inside this small closet was a shoe box full
of letters from a soldier overseas, his sterling wings, as well as one
photograph of the plane he flew in.  You see, my friend was only about 7 years
old during 1943 when this family friend was sent overseas as a waist gunner on
a B-24 bomber stationed in North Africa.  I bought the box lot from him and
about a year later I put the picture up on eBay along with a war bonds poster
I got from him as well thinking that it might induce a slightly higher bid

I could hardly read the name of the plane but guessed that it was Kadley's
Harem.  The auction was only a couple days old when I received a phone call
from a rather excited man.  He asked if possibly the name was Hadley's Harem
instead of Kadley's Harem.  I inspected the photograph under a jewelers loupe
and sure enough it was!  It turned out that the plane was involved with the
ill-fated attack on Ploesti on August 1, 1943.  The pilot and two other
crewman never made it home.  The photograph that I had of the plane matched
perfectly an old faded, torn copy that the man had.  The copy he had came from
a widow of one of the surviving crewman and was believed to be the only one. 
Mine was identical and in perfect condition, having been kept in a closed shoe
box for 57 years.  I quickly canceled the auction and donated the picture to
further the research efforts of the man who contacted me along with the silver
wings.

And all the letters? Well, most of them were from Christopher Holweger, one of
the few surviving crewmenfrom that ill-fated flight and helped to fill in some
gaps in the narrative of the history of that brave crew.  Who could have known
that a small box of old letters and one photograph would mean so much?  I feel
honored to have been a part of restoring the dignity and honor to the crew of
Hadley's Harem.-Blessings, Eric Seavey
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--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Dada-2
 * Origin: Prism bbs (1:261/38)