Leefdaal Belgium, ceremony for a new monument, 20 May 2010

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Pic of the crew:


Belgian town to honor local WWII vet, others with memorial
Out of the blue

Carol Ann Alaimo Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Wednesday, May 12, 2010

After 89 birthdays, Henry "Jim" Latimore figured there wasn't much left in life to surprise him.

But fate had other plans for the World War II veteran.

While he was quietly retired in Tucson, villagers an ocean away were on a mission to immortalize him, 66 years after he floated into their midst when his warplane crashed near a castle in Belgium.

Latimore is one of nine crew members - three still living - of a downed B-24 Liberator whose names will be inscribed on a new memorial in Leefdaal, population 4,000, about 15 miles east of Brussels.

He and the other survivors will be flying to Belgium for the dedication ceremony later this month.

"It just amazes me that they would do this," said Latimore, 89, a retired Air Force colonel who lives on the east side with his wife, Patricia. "For me, (the crash) was a memory, but for the people there, I guess it was a really big thing."

One of Latimore's fellow crew members died in the incident on Nov. 26, 1944.

The rest parachuted to safety and went on with life, not realizing their brief brush with the denizens of Leefdaal had become a legend retold by generations of Belgian parents.

"As a child, my father often told me about the crash of the American bomber on the house of his aunt," said Belgian Dirk Vander Hulst, 39, an amateur historian who has researched the crash. He shared his findings with the Patton Drivers-Leuven Centraal, a group of World War II history buffs in Belgium who are behind the tribute.

The Liberator that crashed in Leefdaal was one of 28 attached to America's 491st Bombardment Group dispatched that day to bomb a German oil refinery near Hanover, Vander Hulst said.

Fifteen of the B-24s were shot down over Germany, where many U.S. crew members were killed. Luckily for Latimore's crew, the pilot managed to guide the crippled craft into friendly territory that recently had been liberated by British forces. Latimore remembers landing in a meadow near a monastery and being quickly surrounded by scores of locals. He recalls taking off his flight helmet - made of leather back then - and giving it to a smiling schoolboy who had come with his grandfather to greet the Americans.

Witnesses speculated that the pilot of Latimore's plane had been aiming to land in a nearby pond on the grounds of 17th-century Leefdaal Castle. The house it hit was destroyed, but no one was injured.

The idea for a crash memorial came about several years ago, when one of the B-24's crew members returned to Belgium to visit the site, Vander Hulst said in an e-mail interview.

Among Leefdaal residents, especially the elderly, "appreciation for the sacrifice made by the Americans and the British is still evident today," he said. "It is thanks to the sacrifice of Allied soldiers that we are able to live and enjoy a free and luxurious life."

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/arti...tml?mode=story

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