WWII airmen honored with flyby

10 from U.S. crashed to save kids; 1 child, now 82, sought the event for decades

SHEFFIELD, England — U.S. and Royal Air Force planes roared over the English city of Sheffield recently to honor 10 American airmen who sacrificed their lives to save British children playing in a park beneath their crippled bomber during World War II.

The fly-past brought tears to the eyes of 82-year-old Tony Foulds, for he was one of those children at that park.

The spectacle over Sheffield’s Endcliffe Park was the culmination of decades of lobbying by Foulds, who wanted an aerial display befitting the young fliers who died that day. As thousands of spectators watched from the park below and the BBC broadcast live on its morning news program, the climax came when four U.S. fighters passed overhead, with one veering skyward in the missing man formation to honor the fallen.

“That was worth waiting 66 years for,” Foulds said as he dabbed his eyes with a wadded tissue and recalled the dream he’d had since he was 17.

The crowd burst into a cheer of “Hip, hip hooray!” for Foulds, who has tended a nearby memorial for the airmen for decades, wracked with guilt because he believed he was responsible for the deaths of Lt. John G. Kriegshauser and the crew of the B-17G Flying Fortress nicknamed “Mi Amigo.”

Kriegshauser, a 23-year-old pilot from St. Louis, was on his 15th mission on Feb. 22, 1944, when Mi Amigo was hit by enemy fire during a daylight raid on the Aalborg airfield in occupied Denmark, a key fighter base that protected Germany from Allied bombers. The crew nursed the damaged plane back across the North Sea, trying to reach their base in Chelveston, England.

But the weather was poor, and when the plane broke through the clouds it was over Sheffield, 80 miles northwest of their intended destination.

Tony was almost 8 that day and had joined a group of children in Endcliffe Park, an oasis of green surrounded on three sides by terraced houses and dense woodland on the other.

After five years of war, including German attacks on Sheffield’s steel and armaments plants, the boys were accustomed to hearing planes. But the sound of this aircraft wasn’t right.

The plane circled over the stretch of green and one of the airmen waved his arms at the kids. They waved back, thinking he was being friendly. Years later, Tony realized he was trying to get them to clear the field.

To avoid the children in the park as well as nearby houses, the plane deliberately crashed into the wooded area, killing all 10 men aboard.

“No one will ever tell me any different: I killed these lads,” Foulds said. “And that will always stay with me.”

In January, BBC presenter Dan Walker chanced upon Foulds tending the memorial, as he does some 260 days a year, and took up his call for an aerial tribute. Walker started a Twitter campaign under the hashtag #gettonyaflypast.

“Tony has pretty much single-handedly spent the best part of seven decades ensuring the memorial in the park is kept up to standard, and ensured that the memory of the Mi Amigo and those brave crewmen is kept alive,” said Lee Peace, a reporter at The Star newspaper in Sheffield. “Once people heard about the story, it just took off.”

Also in the crowd on the 75th anniversary of that fateful day were several family members of the crewmen. Kriegshauser’s nephew Jim and a relative of 2nd Lt. Melchor Hernandez, the crew’s bombardier, sat beside Foulds and both stretched out a comforting hand as he repeated his remonstrations of guilt.

Hernandez’s relative, Megan Leo, said he was the eldest of six children, a firstgeneration American whose parents came from Mexico. She said the story of his sacrifice had always been told in her family.

“I think for this story to now be capturing so many hearts, it just reminds me of how many other stories we don’t know, of all the men who died back then and in the years after fighting for our countries and for peace,” she told the BBC, as she thanked Foulds. “We’ve always remembered them, but to know that 6,000 miles away from my home there’s a man who’s dedicated his life to remembering them means so much. It’s the most amazing thing.”

As the jets roared into view, Foulds waved his arms over his head like a windshield wiper, hoping the pilots would see him.

Painted on the sides of the planes were the names of the crew.

In addition to Kriegshauser and Hernandez, there were 2nd Lt. Lyle Curtis, of Idaho Falls, copilot; 2nd Lt. John W. Humphrey, of Wyoming, Ill., navigator; Staff Sgt. Robert Mayfield, of Raymond, Ill., radio operator; Sgt. Vito Ambrosio, of Brooklyn, waist gunner; Staff Sgt. Harry Estabrooks, of Mound Valley, Kan., flight engineer and top turret gunner; Sgt. George M. Williams, of Faxon, Okla., waist gunner; Sgt. Charles Tuttle, of Raceland, Ky., ball turret gunner; and Sgt. Maurice Robbins, of Manor, Texas, rear gunner.

Even as his dream came true, Foulds refused to take credit for the flypast, turning at one point to the crowd to say, “Thank you very much for coming, it’s lovely see you.”

But he kept reminding everyone that the event was not to honor him.

“It’s for them,” he said.