Howard J Schwegel

Military ROLL OF HONOUR
media-14036.jpeg UPL 14036 Howard J Schwegel

Object Number - UPL 14036 - Howard J Schwegel

My uncle, a waist gunner, was killed in the crash of B-24, S/N 42-95160, near Garvestone, Norfolk.



Howard was one of 11 children born to Calvin and Stephanie, in a family of very modest means.

Howard was my fathers brother and he was also his best and closest friend.



Howard was a good, fun loving man, a husband and father.

He, like my dad and their two other brothers, Don and Dick, loved planes, model trains, cars and boats.



Things were going well for all of them. All had good jobs, save Don, as he was too young...the future was bright.



Then Pearl Harbor happened.



Howard enlisted in the USAAF shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, against the wishes of his parents, as he believe it the right thing to do.



A year later, my father entered the Army Air Corps.



He and my father, not just brothers, but also best friends, unbeknownst to them, were both stationed in England at the same time just before Howard was killed two days before D-day.



Howard was in the 856th BS, 492nd BG at North Pickenham and my father was in a photo Reconnaisance Squadron, possibly the 39th, at an unknown location.



According to reports, Howard was killed after his aircraft broke through a cloud layer during assembly and made contact with another B-24 above.

His plane spun in and all 10 men on board were killed.

Two firefighters from A base near Garvestone were killed when the bombs on board the crashed aircraft exploded.



My father, not knowing that his brother had been in England, only learned of that fact after receiving a letter from his father informing him of Howard’s death.



Both my father and my grandfather took Howard’s death with great anguish...my grandfather, upon receiving the news of Howard’s death, suffered a stroke, the first of many.



Dad never got over Howard’s death and spoke little of the war. When I was in college, I asked my father what he had done during the war, and he was very reticent to discuss his involvement. He showed me aerial photos taken by the F-5s and P-38s in his squadron, and of the results of the bombing raids by the allies. And then he remarked how sad it was that we were bombing our own family members, distant relatives though they might be.



He also said that he was present at the liberation of some the prison camps during his time in Germany but he refused to discuss what he saw...I could see it was a very painful experience. He never spoke of it again.



And there is a great deal of irony associated with Howard and my dad fighting the German’s in WW II and my being stationed in Germany.



For while I was aware at the age of 20 that I was of German decent, I was totally unaware of the fact while stationed in Germany in the U.S. Air Force, I had been no more than about 60 miles from where my family had come from around 1848!



Years later, I wanted my wife to see how beautiful the area along the Mosel River was, near where I was stationed, and so we made the trip to Germany.



While there, I decided that I would look up my relatives, which turned out to be a very strange encounter.



When I was stationed in Germany in the late 60s, I encountered some resentment by the Germans who worked on base, so I expected some of that resentment would still exist when I met my relatives...and it was there.

The encounter was cordial, but not warm.

The eldest of the family had lost his bother on the eastern front and there was still anger about the war, just as there had been in my father.

They knew of my family, and all of our names, and where we lived, but did not know of Howard’s death.



I’m not sure what I had hoped to accomplish because, even though we were distantly related, we were uninvited strangers...I guess I had hoped to mend fences so to speak, to reconnect with our common heritage, but it was not to be.



Prior to our trip to Germany, we were lucky enough to visit Great Britain and Howard’s grave site at the Cambridge Military Cemetery. Something my father had always wanted to do, but never could afford.



He had also always wanted to bring Howard home, and he not afford to do that either.



I do wish my father could have lived to have seen his brothers grave, and how wonderfully Howard, and his fellow crew members are remembered by the people in Garvestone.



And I must finish by stating, that never have my wife and I been treated so well as we were throughout Great Britain...thank you all for your caring, kindness and warm hospitality.

Wayne Schwegel

Connections

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Units served with

A Swedish Soldier guards a B-24 Liberator (serial number 44-40159) nicknamed "Boulder Buff" of the 492nd Bomb Group that has landed in Sweden.
  • Unit Hierarchy: Group
  • Air Force: Eighth Air Force
  • Type Category: Bombardment

Aircraft

  • Aircraft Type: B-24 Liberator
  • Unit: 492nd Bomb Group 856th Air Engineering Squadron 2033rd Engineer Fire Fighting Platoon

Places

Events

Event Location Date Description

Born

24 June 1916

Died

Garvestone, Norwich, Norfolk NR9, UK 4 June 1944 Killed in crash of B24 42-95160

Buried

Grave location: F-1-73

Revisions

Date
ContributorWayneas
Changes
Sources

Wayne Schwegel, nephew of a SSgt. Howard Schwegel

Date
Contributorusxpat
Changes
Sources

http://www.garveston12.org.uk/schwegel.html
Find A Grave Memorial# 56294182

Date
ContributorAAM
Changes
Sources

Combat Sup / Drawn from the records of the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, Savannah, Georgia

Howard J Schwegel: Gallery (3 items)