Everyday I saw that photo on the
library wall at the grade school in McLean, Illinois, where I work as
secretary. Who is that young man in the WWII vintage pilot’s cap, I
wondered... and why is his photo in the library at our school? One day I took matters into my own hands, climbed onto a
chair, and brought the picture down. On
the back was the inscription: "Lt. Robert M. Hightshoe, 456th
BG, Italy. Killed in Action, June
16, 1944 in Hungary." Now my
curiosity was piqued. How did the
school acquire this photo, and why? I
searched my files in the office and was surprised to find one labeled “Lt.
Robert M. Hightshoe Trust Fund.”
In it were documents describing the gift of his WWII G.I. death benefit
to the McLean Grade School library. There
was still money in the fund so I consulted with the principal about library
needs, and he arranged for the purchase of new equipment.
It left me with a good feeling, and it appeared the episode was over.
Wrong! Lt. Hightshoe was
still talking to me from the grave. More
had to be done. Who was this
young man, where did he grow up, who knew him, and most important of all…how
did he die?
A story began to unfold a few weeks
later when two women, Sandy and Marilyn Bullis from Paw Paw, Illinois, stopped
by the grade school and asked about their relative, Lt. Robert Hightshoe, and
the donation to the school library. I
was proud to be able to show them the results and they seemed pleased. But somehow that just didn’t seem like enough.
My next step was to research his life and his death, and be able to
share the findings with them, our students and teachers.
Our librarian had been a Lieutenant in the Air Force and encouraged the
idea, so I did the most logical thing: I
called my Mother! I called her not because she is my Mother, but because she
is a history professor specializing in WWII.
It didn’t take much persuading to convince her to take on the
project.
Now, six months later, we know all
about Lt. Robert Hightshoe. We’ve learned about Etta Ross and Melvin
Hightshoe, the great aunt and uncle who raised him in McLean, Illinois, and
about Janet Anderson, the McLean teacher who Robert married only a few months
before he was shipped overseas. As
it turned out, Marilyn Bullis, the woman who visited McLean Grade School with
her daughter Sandy that day, was Janet Anderson’s niece.
From newspaper clippings we know about his training in such places as
Columbus, Mississippi; Salt Lake City, Utah; Boise, Idaho; Alamogordo, New
Mexico and El Paso, Texas. His
official military records indicate he was a B-24 Liberator co-pilot stationed
in Cerignola, Italy, with the 15th US Army Air Corps. He lived with the same crew that later would go down with his
plane on that fateful day in June of 1944 on a bombing mission to an enemy oil
storage depot near Vienna, Austria.
Only three crew members survived
that day; Donald Ogden, the nose gunner, Francis Nish, the bombardier, and
James Hill, the flight engineer. All
the others lost their lives after the plane drifted away from the formation
with engine trouble, received fire from two German ME 109’s, and crashed to
earth near Galanta, Hungary. In a
letter recently received from the plane’s Bombardier, Francis Nish of New
Jersey, we are told Hightshoe and his fellow crew members were originally
assigned a brand new B-24 Liberator bomber in which they had flown 12
successful missions. Three of
those were to the infamous Ploesti
Oil Fields. Francis Nish vividly
recalls that on another day, they were ordered to “stand down,” resulting
in a different crew taking their plane. When
it was lost in action, Nish and his crew, with Lt. Hightshoe as co-pilot, were
forced to fly their next mission in “Sky Gazer,”
a much older airplane. According
to Nish, “Sky Gazer was an old warhorse…ready for the junkyard..”
Nish
described that fateful day:
"Our mission was to take us to Vienna, Austria.
Shortly before our target
we lost one of our engines.
Unable to keep up with the other ships in our formation,
we fell behind and became sitting ducks for German fighters,
always lurking and looking for situations
such as ours. Two “109”
German fighters engaged us and before we knew it our ship was in flames and
falling in a slow spiral toward the ground.
Although the nose compartment was in flames, I was able to release our
nose wheel door, which also
served as an escape hatch, and Ogden and I
were able to bail out. While I
was in my chute, I could see the two German
fighters following our ship
down."
Nish also remembers being captured
by Hungarian soldiers, taken to Budapest with other American POW’s and
eventually separated from Ogden. On the following day he was taken to the
downed plane and saw that the ship had burned completely.
A declassified report on the crash from the Air Force Historical
Research Agency, indicates that indeed three crew members bailed out of “Sky
Gazer,” were captured by the enemy, and spent the remainder of the war in
separate Stalag Luft POW camps. Among
the agencies’ documents was a post-war questionnaire signed by James Hill,
the flight engineer, and third man to get out of the burning plane, in which
he said he was thrown out of the waist gunner’s door when the ship went out
of control.
The official report of the crash
from the Department of the Air Force mirrors Mr. Nish’s description.
It states that at about 20 minutes prior to the target (Vienna-Winterhafen
Oil Storage Depot), and flying at 20,500 feet at an air speed of 165 mph, Sky
Gazer had “…lagged behind considerably…. At this time, Sky Gazer was
attacked by 2 ME-109s, from 6 o’clock low.”
It further states that the pilot, Lt. Miller offered “…some evasive
action, but the fighters peeled off to the left, swung around and attacked the
second time from the 3 o’clock position.
At this point the plane caught fire in the underpart of the wing and
lower fuselage as it tried a left bank. Lt.
Miller’s ship then went into an almost vertical dive, pulled out slightly at
about 15,000 feet, but did not recover; he started into a slow, flat spin,
gradually tightening up as he continued downward.”
The report also states the plane crashed near the town of Gyer,
Hungary, bursting into flames immediately upon impact.
Mr. Nish confirms Air Force
information about the crash site since he was taken there the day after his
capture. It was then he
identified the bodies of some of his crew members.
That day also marked the beginning of a new ordeal for Mr. Nish—that
being a Prisoner in Stalag Luft III for the remainder of the war.
So we know about Lt. Hightshoe’s
last moments—but what about his early years?
What was it like for him growing up during the Depression in the small
town of McLean, Illinois? My
curiosity prompted interviews with two of Lt. Hightshoe’s childhood
acquaintances, Bob Buck and Weldon McGuire.
Mr. Buck remembered that he and Hightshoe were assistant Scout leaders
before the war and that they last spoke only a few minutes before each left
for basic training-—Hightshoe to the Army Air Corps and Buck to the Navy.
He also told me of Hightshoe’s interest in Amateur Radio, which he
operated out of his home. Mr.
McGuire recalled that Hightshoe was an “interesting fellow…always aware
of things around him.”
According to his niece, Marilyn
Bullis, Robert had been adopted as a small boy by his great Aunt and Uncle,
Etta Ross and Melvin Hightshoe of McLean, Illinois. Old newspaper clippings at
the Mt. Hope-Funks Grove Public Library indicate that Hightshoe attended
McLean schools and graduated in 1940 from high school.
The 1940 McLean High School yearbook listed his activities as Baseball,
Basketball, Drama, Sophomore Class President and Senior Class
Secretary-Treasurer. Next to his
Senior picture in the yearbook, his classmates wrote, “Doesn’t hurry,
doesn’t worry.”
High School Graduation Photo
In May of 1942, at the age of 22,
Robert enlisted in the US Army Air Corps.
On October l, 1943 he graduated
from flight school, a Second Lieutenant.
Twenty days later he married Janet
Anderson, and in April of 1944, he and his crew left Topeka, Kansas for Italy
in their brand new B-24 Liberator Bomber.
Newspaper clippings at the library
also tell of his death only two months later in the crash of his plane in
Hungary. They also mention his
“praiseworthy record in pilot school” and that he was “known as a
trustworthy and helpful friend by his crewmen.”
According to Bob Buck, it wasn’t
until l948 that Robert Hightshoe was brought back to be buried in the McLean,
Illinois cemetery. Mr. Buck
wonders why it took so long. Hightshoe’s
wife Janet dedicated her life to teaching and never remarried.
She is buried beside him in McLean, having passed away in 1982.
Crew member Francis Nish says he never knew Robert Hightshoe very
well---“he kind of stuck to himself.”
Perhaps he missed his bride of only six months.
Their lives reflected the
times—hasty weddings, separations shortly after marriage, overseas
correspondence, worry….and finally, the dreaded telegram.
And so it was that a young man’s
life was snuffed out by war and his family’s lives shattered by the loss.
But, so it is that one little grade school has benefited from the
posthumous gift to its library. And
now the children and teachers of McLean-Waynesville Grade school may finally
know about the young man in the photo on the wall in their library—and can
now appreciate the honorable life and death of Lt. Robert Hightshoe---- U.S.
Army Air Force B-24 co-pilot, 15th Air Force, 456th Bomb
Group, 745th Squadron----A boy from McLean, Illinois.
Back
row, L to R: Lt Robert M.Hightshoe, co-pilot; Lt Paul E. Miller, pilot; Lt
George W. Kaspar, navigator; Lt Francis J. Nish, bombardier. Remaining crew
names are S/Sgt Donald A.Ogden, nose gunner; T/Sgt James P. Hill, engineer
and gunner; S/Sgt Ray W. Bowden, radio operator and gunner; S/Sgt Howard G. Kiefer,
upper turret; S/Sgt Marshall O. Hamner, ball turret; S/Sgt Ervin O.
Whitlock, tail gunner.
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