Last Saturday, we ran a photo of the "Bomerang" crew after their arrival at Jamestown Municipal Airport on April 30, 1944.
Kathleen M. Guiffreda, of Jamestown, submitted the photo. We thought it would be fun to see if any readers recognized the crew. Although it appears no one could identify any of the men, Norman Carlson, collections manager at the Fenton History Center, recognized the photo as a cropped version of a photomechanical the center had received earlier this year.
He had looked for more information at Prendergast Library on The Post-Journal microfilm, and said the article he found might've included the names of the men.
Article Photos
Scott Shelters
It turns out it did.
I had already checked for a "Bomerang" clip file and searched for information on the Internet without any luck. I hadn't talked to Linda Carlson, our librarian and the subject of the article on page C1 of today's paper, however.
Linda, who is not related to Norman, pulled up the article from the May 1, 1944, edition of the paper on microfilm and shared it with me.
Here's what it says: "The Bomerang, granddaddy B-24 Liberator bomber of the Eighth Air Force, zoomed over the city yesterday and then flew to Erie. The crew returned to Jamestown aboard a C-46 Commando cargo plane."
The article goes on to list the crew as follows: "Radio Operator Kleine, Assistant Crew Chief Ewald, Tail Gunner Apey, Navigator Ford, Turret Gunner Bergkamp, Waist Gunner Lee, ... Bombardier Everhart, Crew Chief Chambers, A.C. Davis, president Marlin-Rockwell, Pilot Stewart, Co-pilot Kemp, Waist Gunner Sullivan, and Captain Grauer, Intelligence officer, AAF Material Command."
The article explains how the bomber got its name.
"How the artist who painted the name on its side changed the name of the famous Liberator bomber from the originally intended Boomerang to Bomerang was explained by members of the crew to a curious newspaper man," the article states. "The idea of the original name was that it always came back just as a boomerang does. But the artist thought the idea was to get the 'bomb' sound into the name so he dropped one 'o' in painting the name. It was not a case of mere misspelling."